Mach-E stranded on a 3,000+ mile road trip due to faulty HV battery module. Full battery swap required.

[PicassoPC]

Electric for Local, Hybrid/PHEV for distance. I have been doing that for the last 3 years when I bought my Bolt.

Same here! 2013 Volt w/100k for distance trips (it has been incredibly reliable) and the MME for local runs/trips under 100 miles (what AAA will cover in towing). We don't trust this car yet beyond that distance given all of the issues, and that's a shame too given we bought the California Route 1 edition with the larger battery ?

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[dtbaker61]

Doesn't it do that automatically? With my M3 when I park in the garage or something I can hear it "doing stuff", I assume it's some coolant pump running to bring things down to temperature. Sometimes even 10-20+ minutes after I've parked

I would hope that the battery pack environmental controls/software are programmed to run until 'cooled'.... but I don't KNOW that they are set that way for sure. Things might be set to turn off too soon under certain conditions to save battery energy.

Could be problematic after a long hill climb and turning vehicle off while the motors and battery pack are still dumping heat into the coolant system if you stop and turn off the car right after running it hard.

 

[snikt]

I would hope that the battery pack environmental controls/software are programmed to run until 'cooled'.... but I don't KNOW that they are set that way for sure. Things might be set to turn off too soon under certain conditions to save battery energy.

Could be problematic after a long hill climb and turning vehicle off while the motors and battery pack are still dumping heat into the coolant system if you stop and turn off the car right after running it hard.

Should be an easy thing to test? Maybe park the car and open the door to confirm you can hear coolant pumps running. Then turn it off to see if they shut off at the exact time you hit stop?

That would seem like a major issue if it just shut off leaving everything at the high temperatures

 

[Mach-Lee]

I'm even more concerned that a module failure requires replacing the whole HV pack... and not just a reset of some sensor buried inside to get you back on the road.

Engineering likely wants the full pack for analysis since the product is new. Eventually the modules will be replaced individually in case of failure. This will improve turnaround time moving forward since it is much easier to ship a cell module or two rather than the whole 1500 lb pack.

 

[dtbaker61]

Should be an easy thing to test? Maybe park the car and open the door to confirm you can hear coolant pumps running. Then turn it off to see if they shut off at the exact time you hit stop?

That would seem like a major issue if it just shut off leaving everything at the high temperatures

wellllll.... hard thing to verify that motor/battery temps are high, and coolant NEEDS to be on; unless you have ODB in port, and app to view actual temps.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Doesn't it do that automatically? With my M3 when I park in the garage or something I can hear it "doing stuff", I assume it's some coolant pump running to bring things down to temperature. Sometimes even 10-20+ minutes after I've parked

Can't get a decent answer on that. If cooling is running you should see the active grille slots on the front open and hear the condenser fan running. If you shut off cabin HVAC and it's still running a minute later then it's safe to assume it's doing battery cooling.

I think it would be wise to hold-off on mountainous driving in 100+F temps if possible, and leave the car on for a few minutes after a hot trip to cool if you're concerned about it. However the cell failures could just be luck of the draw too.

 

[MeekelMachE]

entertaining write-up; but a disturbing topic...

My takeaway on this is that after a long hot drive, it might be best to leave the MME 'on' until the heat pumps stop running... indicating the battery pack internal temp is down to the point it won't cook the modules. Sure would be nice if the instrument panel displayed some more actual info interactively like motor temp, battery temp, and actual kW in/out.

I like the idea of having more data like temps available to display.

 

[dtbaker61]

Engineering likely wants the full pack for analysis since the product is new. Eventually the modules will be replaced individually in case of failure. This will improve turnaround time moving forward since it is much easier to ship a cell module or two rather than the whole 1500 lb pack.

whether Dealership service stocks an extra full pack, or (eventually) internal modules, is not my point... The point is if there have been 'a few' failures of center consoles and now HV packs, and huge delay on replacements available at Dealerships, it would be highly proactive for Ford to send one of each to Dealerships for display in showroom AND have on hand in case of failure.

 

[dtbaker61]

I like the idea of having more data like temps available to display.

The data is in there, and you can see it if you have an ODB and an App to display.... but it sure would be nice to customize what you see, or don't see, on the instrument panel.

 

[timbop]

I just read it has problems going downhill

Down a high mountain, yes. down normal elevation ones, no

 

[MParkour]

To be clear these issues are only being reported in the Western Mountains.

East of the Rockies there don't seem to be any systematic issues. I just did a 600 mile run though the hills of Missouri in about 95f for 4 days with zero issues. High temps and 30 minute downhills seem to do it.

I certainly plan to continue driving long distances. 2 day trips to Las Vegas however are out for now ....

I did a trip to Vegas the weekend before the 4th when it was crazy hot. The car worked perfectly. I drove over from the Central Coast of CA so I had some elevation change and no issues. My car was one of the very early built ones.

 

[Cgertz]

Just drove from El Passo to Anaheim yesterday, highest battery temp was during charging at 114F, it tends to stay around 100.4 when driving. Had one of the motors up to 195 driving into Austin the other day. Both motor inveters stay around 114. Coolng system is a bit odd, I can see the input temp to the battery pack it it tends to stay in the high 90's but does drop lower sometimes and brings the battery temp down, have not figured the trigger yet.

I have not been paying attention when we get to our destination and stopping without charging to see if the cooling system stays active. Ive been leaving the car on when getting to the chargers so the cabin AC stays on. I'll check what happens when just Turing off the car on the way home in a few days back to Washington state.

Displaying the data on the dash is a great idea in concept but then what do you do with the data? If someone saw a 195 motor temp now what? Do they immediately stop, slow down, etc. From my experience on this 10k road trip, Ford can't even educate new buyers on how to fast charge the vehicle. Can't imagine how they could educate on temperature management, better to just leave it off the dash and let the car handle it. Not saying that the car is handling it correctly at the moment, it should get better, I assume Ford is seeing this data and will make adjustments.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

Hey all. Strap in and go on a hellish fourth of July roadtrip journey with me in a Silver MachE that I purchased in March which almost, but not quite, made it to 10k miles and was almost, but not quite, able to actually deliver on the promise of all-electric non tesla roadtrips.

Over 4th of July weekend, we decided to take a road trip to Seattle from our home town of Boulder, CO (just north-west of Denver). One way it's about 1350 miles, so we split the drive into 2 days, took advantage of free charging (which most people didn't know was coming) on Electrify America, and made it to Seattle with zero issues. Aside from an odd "not available" outage that EA had, we had no fears at all of not making it to our vacation destination.

We had some weird motion sensor issues on the ferry, where car refused to turn off its motion sensors and the alarm kept going off in the ferry car bay. Other than that, we had a wonderful trip and headed home on the 9th. First leg, we drove through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and some of Utah, where we stopped for the night for a car charge and a human re-charge at a hotel. By the next day, with 75% battery , we've had 2 uneventful charge sessions: 27% in Spanish Fork and 43% at Green River, and we were well on our way to either last or 2nd to last charge at Grand Junction, CO.

We stopped by to get some lunch before charging, turning the car off and walking into Chipotle. Burrito and tacos in tow, we were ready to head over to the Sams Club EA charger, less than a mile down the road. Ignition is hit, we get the "seatbelt" beep, but car won't go into gear and "Stop safely now" is displayed on the dash, hidden behind "Full accessory power", mind you, but we're busted. Uh-oh.

We figure, its 120F, we just juiced it up a hill from 110 miles away, and the car sat on a hot pavement while my burrito and my partners tacos were masterfully crafted inside, so maybe it needs to sit and think about what its done. We eat our food, return back 20 minutes later, same issue. Dang. Ok, Ford can help us, right? After all we just passed by a dealership, 2 miles up the road. We call up their service department, and Amanda there tells me, they won't be able to see us until the 7th of August. I plead, as nicely as I can, that I am broken down, less than 300 miles from home, is there anything they can do? Amada says maybe, but she makes no promises and says it is unlikely.

Alright, so local dealership is out, next nearest one on our stalled path home is in Rifle, CO. Call them up, they're closed until Monday. Fantastic, we're stranded. Call Ford roadside, tell them that 2 dealerships nearby aren't helpful, ask them what it would cost to tow the car closer to our house? Their answer: $1270 dollars. We still don't know whats wrong with the car, FordPass isn't giving any indicator of an issue (even now, more than a week later vehicle health says all is good), and ODB-II diagnostic dongle isn't pulling any codes. Decision is made to see if a longer wait (it is still 100+ degrees outside) would bring the Pony back to life and save us $1270 + a car rental, and maybe find a more willing tow truck to deliver it to Denver for less than $4 a mile.

Next morning, the car still won't start. So a U-Haul box truck rental later, as the city had 0 rental cars available, we're back on the road and the tow truck will be delivering my car to a dealership in the Denver area by open of business on Monday. With the hotel, uhaul, ubers to get all of this done, and a reasonable tow cost ($700) we're still under that $1270 estimate Ford roadside gave me.

Dealership provided a rental, a sexy EcoSport AWD, which took 5 days to approve & receive. Thank god we have a 2nd car and I work at home, otherwise last week would've been a nightmare.

So what went wrong? It took over a week to diagnose (dealer in town is just as busy), but they're saying bad HV battery module, requires replacement of the entire battery pack. ETA to get the car back? No clue.

TLDR: Stranded on a 3000 mile road trip less than 290 miles from home, Ford isn't very helpful in reimbursing or prioritizing broken down/stranded service appointments. Root cause is faulty HV battery module that requires a full battery swap and timeframe is unknown.

Hi there. Can you send us a direct message with your Mustang Mach-E's VIN, your name, and the dealership you are working with? I'd like to look into things on my end.

 

[blue92lx]

Hi there. Can you send us a direct message with your Mustang Mach-E's VIN, your name, and the dealership you are working with? I'd like to look into things on my end.

I do have to say it's awesome that Ford Corp is available to the end user, especially through a general web forum like this. At least they're making an effort to see these issues and get them ironed out for future production.

 

[blue92lx]

For me the biggest problem right now is just parts shortages which no one can do anything about it. If we could tow into a dealership and have a normal few days of waiting on turn around the anxiety people are feeling with these issues would most likely subside since no vehicle is immune to failure.

But right now we're seeing stuff about battery failures with no ETA. That's the real issue currently, not the handful of battery failures out of the thousands of cars sold.

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