😭😭😭 POST BATTERY CONTACTOR RECALL -- FIRST JUNCTION BOX FAILURE 😭😭😭😭

[scoopman]

I wouldn't jinx it.. you also own an ID.4 and that car had weekly reports of electrical drive system errors and/or battery coolant pump failures back in the fall (when VW was actually delivering them beyond token amounts).

Our ID.4 has been rock solid reliable -- 1 yr and 15k miles including an adventure last summer to palm springs in 120deg heat

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[shelnian]

BTW after I pulled off the highway at a Carls Jr in the mountains, I read my DTC codes and cleared them. Once I cleared them there was no apparent power limitation on the display, although I drove it extra crazy slowly through LA local roads.

Nice to know clearing codes cleared the power limitation. Pulling over to let the contactors cool down after receiving the service message also could be helpful. Bet you could have driven at regular speeds (not 70 or 80 MPH uphill after a DCFC) after letting the contactors cool down for a while. Did you ask the dealer if the MME could be turned back ON after being turned OFF?

 

[scoopman]

Nice to know clearing codes cleared the power limitation. Pulling over to let the contactors cool down after receiving the service message also could be helpful. Bet you could have driven at regular speeds (not 70 or 80 MPH uphill after a DCFC) after letting the contactors cool down for a while. Did you ask the dealer if the MME could be turned back ON after being turned OFF?

I wasn't risking turning the car off, driving it on the highway, or doing anything else other than getting the family to a safe place and then getting the car to a suitable dealer without needing a tow.

 

[voxel]

Our ID.4 has been rock solid reliable -- 1 yr and 15k miles including an adventure last summer to palm springs in 120deg heat

And that’s the thing. Plenty Mach-E owners have no issues either. My ID.4 ownership experience was hilariously bad. I think it had the bad LG Chem solder joint issue that VW has yet to fix in their recall.

Zero issues so far with three Teslas and one Mach-E since.

 

[67 Stang Convertible]

So disappointed to learn the software "fix" is not really a fix. Just a band-aid. Looking at the other thread it looks like plenty of AWD ER were affected as well as GTs. I just got back from a 6 hour trip to the Coast (Atlanta to Hilton Head) and the car did great. However, had I read Scoopman's post prior to my trip I would have ICE'd to the coast. I may put her on "ice" for any long trips til Ford comes up with a real fix. The trip to the coast was a lot of long county roads for miles and miles. A SSN situation would have been really difficult. Didn't see any Carls Jr's on those roads......

Glad to hear you and the kids are safe and in the hotel. What's the plan now? Wait for Ford to fix it and stay close to the Taco Stand?.....btw who ever did the photo shop.....epic!!!

 

[Regularmache]

It's so random as well. 17 months in the hot Florida weather with zero issues. We traded it yesterday for a 22 Mach E GTPE. Besides 'Phone as a Key" not working until around 4 months ago with OTA updates, our Mach gave us zero issues! Really is random. Thanks for sharing and keep us up dated.

 

[Garbone]

The entire issue is quite strange. High amperage electral contactors are not new tech. One would think soliniod failure would be more of an issue than actual contact charring. Almost sound like a contact alignment issue or manufacturing defect. Maybe a bad batch of spring allowing movement on rough roads.

Keep thinking about a crappy set of points on an old motorbike when I read about this.

Crazy.

 

[mmap]

So the software monitors the HVBJB and alerts if it falls out of parameter. The "fix" for a car that has the DTC's indicating that it's out of parameter is to replace the HVBJB. The software is a way for Ford to say "ok we'll get you somewhere and let you know it's gonna fail, before it actually fails, or even when it has already failed".

It's a way for Ford to comply with the NHTSA probe but save millions by not replacing the defective parts. The part isn't magically better. The software doesn't apply to the part at all since it's not a part that can be updated with software.

There's a slightly less cynical way to look at it. The software allows Ford to safely and compliantly spread the true repair process out and only replace failing parts. Instead of dropping 50k batteries in ~6 months they now can spread it over potentially several years (even in the case that the failure rate is higher than we have seen so far, which is currently around 1% per year).

 

[Guss-E 2021]

Yup first one at 4771.9mi, second one at 6167mi

I'm at just under 2K on my month old P AWD ER (built this April). So now it's a race between failure and the updated part coming available I guess. ?

Dammit Ford, I really like this effing car! Fix this right!

 

[mkhuffman]

Tbh I don't think scoopman is so unlucky and fried the second HVBJB so fast under normal use. We don't know for sure if the HVBJB is actually fried or if this is a false positive. He is just the first person on a roadtrip after the update.
If the car starts without a warning tomorrow morning and drives fine then maybe it was just a false positive.
My guess is that the new software will have a lot of false positives after long road trips with DCFC.
But either way this Ford's Fiasco.

This is yet another reason why I am waiting before rushing out to apply the software update.

What if they find out Scoop's car is OK, and the HVBJB was not failing? Of course they are going to replace the HVBJB with the new more robust one (and what we all want, of course), but when they take apart the "failing" one they may make adjustments to the software to make detection more reliable.

Those with the new software might be getting stranded for no reason while Ford is improving the software reliability. And we know how reliable Ford software is, right?

And while there are no reports of performance impact due to the new software, it is still too early IMO to say that is accurate. We need some timed 0-60, 0-80, and 1/4 mile runs with the new software, and more subjective observations of highway driving.

My automatic OTA updates are still turned OFF until we learn more.

 

[mkhuffman]

I'm at just under 2K on my month old P AWD ER (built this April). So now it's a race between failure and the updated part coming available I guess. ?

Dammit Ford, I really like this effing car! Fix this right!

There are many, many people who drive aggressively and have 2 or three times the number of miles on their cars when compared with Scoop's car. I have almost 12,000 miles on mine, and I have been driving it everywhere I can. And I will continue to do so.

The failure rate is still very low, so I am trying not to let my participation in this forum effect how I feel about my car. And I still look forward to driving it on long trips.

It is quite strange that some people have had multiple failures while others have not had any. I have speculated in the forum before about tolerances on other parts, like the motors and batteries, that could impact the HVBJB. Maybe Scoop's car has a motor that pulls a lot more current than mine? There is something different, it seems anyway.

 

[BigMach-E]

I'm so sorry this happened to you @scoopman . I know I'm just throwing more "purported" information out there, but I had the "car bricked, SSN" as both scoop and @DevSecOps know. I had my HVJBC and BECM replaced. There was some supposition that the part I have now in my car, is not the improved part, even though all signs point to the new part installed on my SR AWD. Although I have only driven locally really since the parts were replaced, I have logged over 5k miles since the repair work. I drive like a maniac. DCFC a bit too. I understand Ford wanting to spread out the pain, but I am telling you, you have AWD, you are looking at a new HVJB sometime in your future If you don't have the newer, more robust HVJB. You can only hope for failure before your warranty expires. The recall satisfies NHTSA, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[billy_at]

So disappointed to learn the software "fix" is not really a fix. Just a band-aid.

But there's another possibility here: the HVBJB was already degraded from usage under the previous configuration and the software detected the issue.

We still don't know exactly what the software does, but let's suppose it does fix the excess load through the contactors. That still wouldn't mean it can magically undo pitting and damage from the past.

 

[BadgerGreg]

Sorry you had to deal with this - not the sort of thing that one expects driving a new $65,000+ vehicle. Hopefully your MME's trip to the dealership will be brief.

 

[breeves002]

Nice to know clearing codes cleared the power limitation. Pulling over to let the contactors cool down after receiving the service message also could be helpful. Bet you could have driven at regular speeds (not 70 or 80 MPH uphill after a DCFC) after letting the contactors cool down for a while. Did you ask the dealer if the MME could be turned back ON after being turned OFF?

Problem is once you have a high resistance connection they will just heat up super fast again so cooling them off doesn’t matter much.

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