Battery SOH at 30,000 miles

[Radar00]

My wife was at Ford Encinitas today for our 30,000 miles check. We asked to know what battery state of health was and they said they had no way of determining this. Did we ask the wrong question? I've seen folks post this info here so was surprised by the answer.

Sponsored

 

[Logal727]

My wife was at Ford Encinitas today for our 30,000 miles check. We asked to know what battery state of health was and they said they had no way of determining this. Did we ask the wrong question? I've seen folks post this info here so was surprised by the answer.

That's actually an accurate answer. Also, don't worry about it at 30k miles, it's probably just like new.

 

[generaltso]

Did we ask the wrong question?

No, you asked the wrong people. Ford techs aren‘t going to do anything that isn’t in the service manual. You would need to ask someone with an OBDII and an app like CarScanner. But you really don’t need to worry about it.

 

[superdave80]

Is Ford really going to use my OBDII connector and random app to determine if my battery needs to be replaced under warranty?

 

[generaltso]

Is Ford really going to use my OBDII connector and random app to determine if my battery needs to be replaced under warranty?

No.

 

[superdave80]

Then how is Ford going to determine SOH for warranty purposes if the techs have no way/knowledge to do it?

 

[generaltso]

Then how is Ford going to determine SOH for warranty purposes if the techs have no way/knowledge to do it?

I’m sure they can do a full load test. But they aren’t going to do that just because an owner is curious.

 

[MG101]

I don't know about Ford but I do know the Lexus/Toyota (and probably subaru) HV battery health check procedure is a 2-3 day even that involves completetly dishcarging the hv battery, wait 90 mins, fully charge using L2 ac charger only, wait 60 minutes and then you run the actual health check which we're told takes hours. On top of that the only results given are: above 70% health, below 70% or can't be determined. I would imagine most manufacturers have a similar procedure maybe the Ford techs can chime in on that.

 

[superdave80]

I’m sure they can do a full load test.

Not according to the message that the OP received.

 

[Logal727]

Not according to the message that the OP received.

Maybe if OP presented an actual issue instead of "gee, I've got this curiosity that I really shouldn't have because it's only been 30k miles" So much EV stuff is overblown misinformation.

 

[DevSecOps]

Basically the dealership is full of shit (kinda)... but they really don't have a reason to run your battery health report as others mentioned. I say kinda because there's no SOH number, it's a complete battery report and the SOH can be obtained by doing simple math.

In FDRS, which every dealership has, there's an almost instantaneous report called "battery health" that can be run on the car. It will show you the cell balance delta used to verify the battery health and it will give you the Ah capacity and voltages across the cells. The nominal Ah for extended range would be 288 and 216 for the small pack. Therefore if the report showed, as an example, 280Ah capacity you would be at 280/288=.97 or 97% SOH.

Also, as others mentioned capacity numbers won't be accurate unless you do a full charge. The amount of inaccuracy however, shouldn't be significant between 30-90% SOC.

 

[Mach-Lee]

My wife was at Ford Encinitas today for our 30,000 miles check. We asked to know what battery state of health was and they said they had no way of determining this. Did we ask the wrong question? I've seen folks post this info here so was surprised by the answer.

Dealer is incorrect, there is a HVBATT_SOH parameter in the BECM that can be accessed with the dealer scan tool (FDRS). Dealers need to report this value when performing a warranty battery replacement.

Then how is Ford going to determine SOH for warranty purposes if the techs have no way/knowledge to do it?

There is a capacity check procedure in FDRS they are to run:

 

[dtbaker61]

as others have said.... there ARE ways to measure state of health, but accuracy is questionable unless you do an actual load test under controlled conditions. Unlikely to be done unless you are making a warranty claim.

for *some idea' of SOH, I'd recommend:
- discharge to 10-15% driving around to calibrate 'low voltage'
- charge to 100%, hopefully in a garage around 70F
- use ODB2 reader, and check the SOH parameter.

this will not be 'precise', but if it's over 80%, and your actual range at normal temps seems reasonable, that about as good as you are going to get.

 

[superdave80]

Maybe if OP presented an actual issue...

...like Ford representatives saying they have no way to measure SOH?

 

[voxel]

I don't know about Ford but I do know the Lexus/Toyota (and probably subaru) HV battery health check procedure is a 2-3 day even that involves completetly dishcarging the hv battery, wait 90 mins, fully charge using L2 ac charger only, wait 60 minutes and then you run the actual health check which we're told takes hours. On top of that the only results given are: above 70% health, below 70% or can't be determined. I would imagine most manufacturers have a similar procedure maybe the Ford techs can chime in on that.

Yeah it's all heuristics. To guess SoH you definitely need a battery (pun intended) of tests.

- A full discharge then charge to 100% to measure approximate kWh capacity.
- Measure the cell voltage imbalances.
- Measure cell IR by applying a load then measuring voltage drop.

Sponsored