One cause of the "Electrical System Drain Service Soon" message

[Eric_C_Boston]

I did not drive my MME for a few days and noticed the dreaded "Electrical System Drain Service Soon" message on the driver's display and in FordPass. I thought it was due to the inactivity. When I hooked up the Power Supply to do updates I noticed the current going up to about 70 Amperes and slowly going down to zero.

I still got the messages every couple of days and wondered what was wrong as I did not have any external load. Recently I turned off the car when I got to work and noticed a chime when I was getting out of the car. There was no message display, just the chime.

I keep my headlights on Automatic and wondered if there was a problem with them. I turned the headlights off and the chime went away. I realized that I had mistakenly turned the headlights to On at some point. I did not notice the chime for days when I stopped the MME and got out.

I suspect I did not notice the headlights in the morning because it was too bright out, and I assumed the headlights being on at night was part of the courtesy lighting when leaving the vehicle. The sleep modes and other factors may cause the car to turn off the headlights, so I did not notice it in the middle of the night.

The messages have gone away and I am going to hook up the power supply again to recharge the battery.

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[Neil4Real]

Yes, this has been discussed quite a lot. It is a known bug that your car turns off auto on its own and goes to on, but doesn't even light up on the light controls that it is on "on," the controls just show all lights off until you rotate the nob again. It hopefully won't come back for a while, but now my eyes automatically look for the light when I get out.

Here is the TSB that finally came out for it:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...selves-when-vehicle-is-off-–-dtc-b1533.18890/

 

[Eric_C_Boston]

Thanks for the information. I will try to be more aware of the situation. It is too bad the chime is not more attention getting.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Yeah it's the headlight bug, nothing you did. Just gotta pay attention to the chimes when you get out until we can get the switch replaced. Turn the knob every so often to reset the registers, it's an overflow error from what I understand.

 

[macchiaz-o]

Thanks for the information. I will try to be more aware of the situation. It is too bad the chime is not more attention getting.

To be fair, there's also the headlamp indicator showing on the instrument cluster and the super bright beams casting out from the front of the vehicle.

But yeah this is a bug that's bitten many of us.

The headlights will automatically turn off after 10-15 minutes or so... Battery saver feature. So by themselves, they should not be the cause of a dead 12V battery, unless maybe the car wakes up several times throughout the day/night.

 

[Jimbo]

Yeah it's the headlight bug, nothing you did. Just gotta pay attention to the chimes when you get out until we can get the switch replaced. Turn the knob every so often to reset the registers, it's an overflow error from what I understand.

That makes sense, but...if it's an overflow error, why not just fix the software?

Ford's fixing software errors with hardware, and hardware errors with software?

 

[Mach-Lee]

That makes sense, but...if it's an overflow error, why not just fix the software?

Ford's fixing software errors with hardware, and hardware errors with software?

Because the software can't be updated externally since it's not on a CAN bus network. Replacement is the only way to update the software. Breeves002 explained it previously here.

 

[Eric_C_Boston]

I noticed the headlights turn off when I turn off the car now. My old car would leave them on for about 20 seconds as an aid when exiting the vehicle. So I got confused.

 

[Eric_C_Boston]

I noticed the "Electrical System Drain Service Soon" in FordPass yesterday and sure enough I got the chime with no headlight indicators lit when I opened the door. I rotated the headlight control to off and the chime went away. I connected the battery charger to help top up the battery. Thanks again for the help.

PS: When I turned on the car to drive later on, I got a message on the display that indicated the range was reduced due to the headlights/parking lights being on. This seems a more useful message than the more generic "Electrical System Drain Service Soon" one.

 

[Satisfiend]

think I just got this issue. lights wouldn't turn off and I started getting a chime. I thought it was from an ota but that chime is supposed to tell me something?

 

[HuntingPudel]

think I just got this issue. lights wouldn't turn off and I started getting a chime. I thought it was from an ota but that chime is supposed to tell me something?

Yes, the chime means that your headlights are on and your car is turned off. ??

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