Charge Port Replacement and unknown codes

[Murse-In-Airy]

So I’ve been rather quiet around here lately. It’s cold and snowy and haven’t been doing much of anything with the cars. But I thought I might update on an issue with the wife’s car, as well as vent a little.

The charge port on the wife’s 2021 Premium AWD ER started going bad back around Christmas. It wouldn’t charge for more than a couple hours without shutting itself off when on a 40 amp charger. Would charge just fine on a 32 amp charger. I did some trouble shooting showing it was definitely the car. All this is detailed Here.

So I took the car in on January 19th, just over 7 weeks ago. IT IS STILL THERE. In fairness to my dealer, Davidson Ford of Watertown; My Master Tech, Clarence, and my Service Advisor, Kimberly; THEY have been great. I get an update every few days detailing what steps have been done, what the next steps are, and what timeline I am looking at. Simply amazing service. PLUS, they gave me a 2023 Premium AWD ER as a loaner, with 27 miles on the odometer when they handed me the keys. So I still have the proper number of MME’s in the garage. My issue is with FORD. I don’t mean Robert, the gent from Richmond with exactly one post on here EVER. I mean @Ford Motor Company. I’m really beginning to think that they are not ready for these cars.

My wife is actually handling this better than me. She is driving my GT around because it’s on our FordPass allowing remote start which is important to her and the kids. She keeps reminding me that we knew there was a risk of problems buying, not just a first model year, but a first BEV, from anyone. And she is right. But…C’Mon man.

First there was the diagnostics of proving it was the charge port. I had already done a lot of the leg work on this, they just had to verify. Expected.
Then there was ordering the part, with a slight delay for arrival. Expected.
Part was put in, codes were cleared, car charged without a problem. Excellent.
But the ring lights didn’t come back on. They’re still dead. There’s no communication from the SOBDM and the car wont charge.
SOBDM is on infinite back order. There’s a couple on the shelves at dealerships in California but they won’t release them. I open a case with the BEV team. Suddenly one breaks free and the SOBDM eventually gets replaced. (Not sure if the BEV team helped or it was just serendipitous timing.)
Now ring lights still aren’t working And THEN, there are phantom DTCs being thrown with no symptoms of any problems. What???
Clarence drives the car for a couple days to make see if that resets anything. No Luck.
Calls Ford who makes him reset some stuff, update some modules (which he had already done). No luck.
Ford has him do a complete reset on the car. I lose access to it in FordPass (Expected) Codes are reset, car is driven, codes come right back.
Clarence wear’s some kind of smart glasses so the engineers can see what he’s seeing. They are stumped.
Engineer comes out to Watertown and makes Clarence repeat Everything he’s already done while they watch. Same result.

So here I sit, coming up on two months without the car. And the latest word is “the Ford Engineers are trying to figure out what can be done.” I don’t know if there is anything to be done to make the car work again. But I miss my Green Goblin and really want my wife to get her car back so I can have mine again.

I’ve been a cheerleader for the Mach-E for over two years, but I’m starting to sour.

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[bshaw]

They should just let you straight up keep that loaner and Ford has to buy the broken one back.

 

[RickMachE]

Wow.

 

[Blue highway]

Wow - it's good to see the dealer and engineer trying... but in so many ways these things are fragile.

 

[Ghost Ryder]

So I’ve been rather quiet around here lately. It’s cold and snowy and haven’t been doing much of anything with the cars. But I thought I might update on an issue with the wife’s car, as well as vent a little.

The charge port on the wife’s 2021 Premium AWD ER started going bad back around Christmas. It wouldn’t charge for more than a couple hours without shutting itself off when on a 40 amp charger. Would charge just fine on a 32 amp charger. I did some trouble shooting showing it was definitely the car. All this is detailed Here.

So I took the car in on January 19th, just over 7 weeks ago. IT IS STILL THERE. In fairness to my dealer, Davidson Ford of Watertown; My Master Tech, Clarence, and my Service Advisor, Kimberly; THEY have been great. I get an update every few days detailing what steps have been done, what the next steps are, and what timeline I am looking at. Simply amazing service. PLUS, they gave me a 2023 Premium AWD ER as a loaner, with 27 miles on the odometer when they handed me the keys. So I still have the proper number of MME’s in the garage. My issue is with FORD. I don’t mean Robert, the gent from Richmond with exactly one post on here EVER. I mean @Ford Motor Company. I’m really beginning to think that they are not ready for these cars.

My wife is actually handling this better than me. She is driving my GT around because it’s on our FordPass allowing remote start which is important to her and the kids. She keeps reminding me that we knew there was a risk of problems buying, not just a first model year, but a first BEV, from anyone. And she is right. But…C’Mon man.

First there was the diagnostics of proving it was the charge port. I had already done a lot of the leg work on this, they just had to verify. Expected.
Then there was ordering the part, with a slight delay for arrival. Expected.
Part was put in, codes were cleared, car charged without a problem. Excellent.
But the ring lights didn’t come back on. They’re still dead. There’s no communication from the SOBDM and the car wont charge.
SOBDM is on infinite back order. There’s a couple on the shelves at dealerships in California but they won’t release them. I open a case with the BEV team. Suddenly one breaks free and the SOBDM eventually gets replaced. (Not sure if the BEV team helped or it was just serendipitous timing.)
Now ring lights still aren’t working And THEN, there are phantom DTCs being thrown with no symptoms of any problems. What???
Clarence drives the car for a couple days to make see if that resets anything. No Luck.
Calls Ford who makes him reset some stuff, update some modules (which he had already done). No luck.
Ford has him do a complete reset on the car. I lose access to it in FordPass (Expected) Codes are reset, car is driven, codes come right back.
Clarence wear’s some kind of smart glasses so the engineers can see what he’s seeing. They are stumped.
Engineer comes out to Watertown and makes Clarence repeat Everything he’s already done while they watch. Same result.

So here I sit, coming up on two months without the car. And the latest word is “the Ford Engineers are trying to figure out what can be done.” I don’t know if there is anything to be done to make the car work again. But I miss my Green Goblin and really want my wife to get her car back so I can have mine again.

I’ve been a cheerleader for the Mach-E for over two years, but I’m starting to sour.

Lemon law buy back at this stage?

 

[scoopman]

not sure if you're still within NYS lemon law but I'd initiate a buy back at this point, life is too short.

 

[BMT1071]

This has obviously been escalated to a high level at Ford. You have a like vehicle to drive. I can understand some frustration, but I see no reason to start thinking buy back at this point. Especially considering the customization you've done. I don't think there would be any compensation for that, though I've never personally gone through the process.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

This has obviously been escalated to a high level at Ford. You have a like vehicle to drive. I can understand some frustration, but I see no reason to start thinking buy back at this point. Especially considering the customization you've done. I don't think there would be any compensation for that, though I've never personally gone through the process.

It’s not something I really want to pursue either. In NY lemon law only covers 18,000 miles, which we’re well beyond. Also, we bought the car in Vermont so I don’t know if NY even cares about the car. Trying to claim lemon under Vermont law while living in NY sounds like a real PITA.
But I knew I’d get a lot of people saying “lemon law/buyback.” My wife keeps pointing out that we have a like vehicle as well. Crazy that she’s being more level headed than me. It’s not like they aren’t making good faith efforts, I just find it disheartening that Ford is building a car that they don’t know how to maintain.

 

[Theburn16]

My car has had this issue since last summer. There’s a piece in the charging port that they need to replace, but this piece has been in back order and has never become available. A few weeks ago my car will no longer even charge at 32, I have had to turn down the amps even further to make sure it keeps charging. The error code that Ford sees is one that says the temp got too hot. This is only an issue on level 2 chargers, doesn’t impact level 3 fast charging.
It’s really ridiculous that they can’t get a replacement part, there are a handful of dealerships with one in inventory, but won’t allow my dealer to get it from them. I’ve messaged @Ford Motor Company on here and never got a response.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

My car has had this issue since last summer. There’s a piece in the charging port that they need to replace, but this piece has been in back order and has never become available. A few weeks ago my car will no longer even charge at 32, I have had to turn down the amps even further to make sure it keeps charging. The error code that Ford sees is one that says the temp got too hot. This is only an issue on level 2 chargers, doesn’t impact level 3 fast charging.
It’s really ridiculous that they can’t get a replacement part, there are a handful of dealerships with one in inventory, but won’t allow my dealer to get it from them. I’ve messaged @Ford Motor Company on here and never got a response.

Try calling the Ford BEV team and opening a case that way. Messaging on here is more social media support than real tech support. As I said above, almost the same day the case was opened on their end, the part was released to my dealership.
Though if my case is indicative, you may want to live with charging at 24 amps.

 

[hawkeye3point1]

Suddenly one breaks free and the SOBDM eventually gets replaced. (Not sure if the BEV team helped or it was just serendipitous timing.)
Now ring lights still aren’t working And THEN, there are phantom DTCs being thrown with no symptoms of any problems. What???

I would suspect that SOBDM may have a checkered history or they ham-fisted a connector and damaged a pin when they replaced it.

FYI, my car flaked out while charging on two different EVSEs one day. It would stop and then restart pulling power every minute. I let it continue for hours thinking it would eventually fail completely, but it never did and has not happened since. Never threw a wrench or any DTC that seems related. Makes me think the SOBDM charging system diagnostics may be suspect.

While monitoring subsequent charges, I watched the CarScanner ChgACT reading thinking it was overheating and learned that the charge port thermal sensor reading increases then decreases in response to something being cooled, I assume the SOBDM, that surprised me. FWIW, I was never able to determine what temp. it fails at, but I did find a Porsche TSB for the Taycan, it says that there charge port has to measure 90C for 14 sec. before it faults. I assume ours may be similar, did not expect it to be that high.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

I would suspect that SOBDM may have a checkered history or they ham-fisted a connector and damaged a pin when they replaced it.

FYI, my car flaked out while charging on two different EVSEs one day. It would stop and then restart pulling power every minute. I let it continue for hours thinking it would eventually fail completely, but it never did and has not happened since. Never threw a wrench or any DTC that seems related. Makes me think the SOBDM charging system diagnostics may be suspect.

While monitoring subsequent charges, I watched the CarScanner ChgACT reading thinking it was overheating and learned that the charge port thermal sensor reading increases then decreases in response to something being cooled, I assume the SOBDM, that surprised me. FWIW, I was never able to determine what temp. it fails at, but I did find a Porsche TSB for the Taycan, it says that there charge port has to measure 90C for 14 sec. before it faults. I assume ours may be similar, did not expect it to be that high.

During my testing my charge port never got above 90° F. But I was doing my testing on a much colder day than the failures were happening. The charge port on car that was failing was consistently about 15° warmer than my other MME. But failures only seemed to happen on days with an ambient temp above 40° F. My comparison testing day was only about 20° F ambient temp. What I proved was that one car was consistently generating more heat than the other one.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Did you turn off the charge port indicator light setting? That might be why the rings didn't light up afterwards.

It's possible you got a bad replacement SOBDM, but I think it's more likely the issue is with software/programming. Ford has some issues with SOBDM software and programming right now. The current version of the software broke some stuff. I think they are going to have to come up with a new software revision to fix it. Unfortunately that means months of time, which you may not have.

I'm sorry for your situation, I know how frustrating it is when Ford has no clue how to fix things. To save face, they should be offering to cover your payments until it's fixed, or offer you a buyout. Doing anything else is not acceptable if they can't fix it and you lose use of it.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Did you turn off the charge port indicator light setting? That might be why the rings didn't light up afterwards.

I’m not new here and I have to admit, I didn’t realize that even was a setting. I’ll stop by the dealer on Monday and check this with them.

As far as payments, I’m lucky enough to not carry debt. (Though at the expense of any work/life balance that I’ve heard fairy tales about) So payments don’t exist.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I’m not new here and I have to admit, I didn’t realize that even was a setting. I’ll stop by the dealer on Monday and check this with them.

As far as payments, I’m lucky enough to not carry debt. (Though at the expense of any work/life balance that I’ve heard fairy tales about) So payments don’t exist.

FYI I think they might have removed that setting from the latest UI, so it could be an issue figuring out how to turn it on if the charger came programmed with it off.

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