I don't think my preconditioning is working

[Rpss4844]

Hi all. Been a lurker here for a while and usually the handy search button turns up any info I am looking for but now I must ask for my own unique situation.

We have had our 2023.5 ME for about 6 months now and 11k miles and it has been amazing and has had zero issues and everything downloads, updates, and works as it should.

In the past I have set departure times and on the FP app it shows that the car is preconditioning the cabin and battery. My past several attempts I have not gotten that message on the screen and the car seems like it's not doing anything. No fans/pumps running, front opening are closed, and the cabin isn't warming up at all.

This morning I tried again and had the ability to pay very close attention to it and had the same issue. Set the DT for 7:10 am, car was plugged all night and charged to 100% (getting ready for a long day of driving).

Went out to the garage this morning about 15 min prior to departure and same thing. Car is silent, cabin is cold and doesn't appear it is doing anything. I checked the departure time inside the car to make sure the FP app sent the time and it was showing correctly. I was able to use the remote start feature in the FP app to turn on my heat and seats a few minutes before I left and that worked fine.

Currently the temp here is 20F and the car was showing it was 47 degrees in the garage. I have read that some android users were having issues in the past and I am using a Pixel 8 but like I mentioned, it was showing the correct departure time and cabin temp inside the car and FP has actually worked pretty well for me so far with just some minor hiccups. Is there anything else I should check or could possibly be doing wrong? Could the car know what time it is but somehow have the wrong day selected? Perhaps an issue going on that I haven't stumbled upon searching around yet? Thanks for the help.

Sponsored

 

[the golden eel]

Hopefully this isn't becoming a thing. I've got a 2022 and this is the start of my 3rd winter with it. Departure times were a real frustration that first winter, but last winter they were great.

Now just last week I had a day that it didn't warm the battery/car even though I've had the same recurring schedule for weeks. It was working before that day, and it has worked every time since.

 

[kickinit]

Same, have a 2024 and it was working up until about 2 weeks ago-now it only works sporadically.

 

[load97]

Same with mine. I restarted the FP app and checked the departure times again, and as of yesterday afternoon and this morning it was working. Hopefully stays like its suppose. Previous 2 weeks it worked sporadically.

 

[Rpss4844]

It is weird to me that the proper DT was showing on the schedule inside the car. This leads me to believe my FP is working correctly and sent the schedule successfully to the car, but it never woke up and did anything leading up to the DT.

 

[DoubleDribble]

This has happened to me a couple of times. It's possible I transposed AM/PM. But then I thought I noticed that if the heater is off when I turn the car off it won't prepare the cabin for departure times. If I leave the heater on when I turn the car off then it will actually heat the car when I set departure times. I could be trippin' though. Test it out. P.S. Also I noticed that the preferred charging times has a habit of getting corrupted. They will need to be deleted and re-set. This app is not awesome. I think Ford hired some Java/Visual C++++++ programmers straight out of college for this app.

 

[Teslaeata]

In the early daze pre-conditioning was a bit hit & miss but now………?

 

[the golden eel]

Yeah, this is frustrating.

This morning at 6:50AM I set a departure time for 9AM today. It saved in my Fordpass app, and the app then showed "Next Departure Time 9AM Saturday" at the top of the home screen. I know its been flaky lately, so I went out to the car at 7:30 just to see if my new departure time was in the car. It was - Saturday, 9AM, medium cabin temp.

10 minutes ago (8:30) I just checked Fordpass and my Emporia charger app. Nothing is happening. Fordpass still says on top that next departure time is 9AM Saturday.

@Ford Motor Company Its pretty poor that we can't depend on a very basic/standard feature of an EV when it comes to your car.

 

[Teslaeata]

Yeah, this is frustrating.

This morning at 6:50AM I set a departure time for 9AM today. It saved in my Fordpass app, and the app then showed "Next Departure Time 9AM Saturday" at the top of the home screen. I know its been flaky lately, so I went out to the car at 7:30 just to see if my new departure time was in the car. It was - Saturday, 9AM, medium cabin temp.

10 minutes ago (8:30) I just checked Fordpass and my Emporia charger app. Nothing is happening. Fordpass still says on top that next departure time is 9AM Saturday.

@Ford Motor Company Its pretty poor that we can't depend on a very basic/standard feature of an EV when it comes to your car.

I have found that you need to think further ahead and set pre-conditioning at least the night before, a few hours don’t seem to register for some reason ??‍

 

[Snakebitten]

I haven't had issues with Departure Times or pre-conditioning. But admittedly I usually have it prepared ahead of time from the previous evening.
I also do NOT have scheduled charging of any kind. The Emporium is always "offering charge" when the EVSE is plugged into the car.

So at noon today, I set a departure time for 1:30PM. So 1½ hours in advance.

At 12:44 PM, the Emporium reported that the Mach-E began to take current

Also note that after ~15 minutes of pre-conditioning, the range began to increase with the same 85% SOC
(image below was before pre-conditioning began. 40F ambient. Normal range for 85% is around 220-225)

 

[Teslaeata]

I haven't had issues with Departure Times or pre-conditioning. But admittedly I usually have it prepared ahead of time from the previous evening.
I also do NOT have scheduled charging of any kind. The Emporium is always "offering charge" when the EVSE is plugged into the car.

So at noon today, I set a departure time for 1:30PM. So 1½ hours in advance.

At 12:44 PM, the Emporium reported that the Mach-E began to take current

Also note that after ~15 minutes of pre-conditioning, the range began to increase with the same 85% SOC
(image below was before pre-conditioning began. 40F ambient. Normal range for 85% is around 220-225)

I don’t trust the car or the app to schedule charging, I use the ABB charge point app, far more dependable.

 

[Snakebitten]

I would do the same if I experienced unreliable behavior from the native Ford tools. But so far so good

 

[Explorer2]

I haven't had issues with Departure Times or pre-conditioning. But admittedly I usually have it prepared ahead of time from the previous evening.
I also do NOT have scheduled charging of any kind. The Emporium is always "offering charge" when the EVSE is plugged into the car.

So at noon today, I set a departure time for 1:30PM. So 1½ hours in advance.

At 12:44 PM, the Emporium reported that the Mach-E began to take current

Also note that after ~15 minutes of pre-conditioning, the range began to increase with the same 85% SOC
(image below was before pre-conditioning began. 40F ambient. Normal range for 85% is around 220-225)

I can report almost the same thing after reading this post. At noon today I set a departure for 1:30 pm in Ford pass, and at about 12:40 our emporia started. And after I unplugged and pulled out of the garage, battery percent went up a couple points from 85 % and range went up about 20 something miles. 30 deg F outside and about 55 or 60 deg F in the garage.

 

[the golden eel]

I have found that you need to think further ahead and set pre-conditioning at least the night before, a few hours don’t seem to register for some reason ??‍

I've had this same scenario in the past, and I didn't have problems. Just today, Snakebitten in the post below yours set a departure time less than 2 hours before the desired time and it worked for them.

I most likely would not have mentioned this today if it wasn't for the fact that a week ago it didn't precondition on one of my normal start times that I have been doing for a month now.

Based on other posts in this thread it seems like that departure times are not as reliable as last winter. Maybe I'm just forgetting, but I don't remember random instances of my car not doing a scheduled precondition last year.

It doesn't seem like this would be a Fordpass problem, as I see these departure times in the car. And I checked in the car 90 minutes before departure this morning and saw today's setting in there.

I don't have any charging schedules in my car or Emporia charger, so that wouldn't be the cause.

 

[Teslaeata]

I've had this same scenario in the past, and I didn't have problems. Just today, Snakebitten in the post below yours set a departure time less than 2 hours before the desired time and it worked for them.

I most likely would not have mentioned this today if it wasn't for the fact that a week ago it didn't precondition on one of my normal start times that I have been doing for a month now.

Based on other posts in this thread it seems like that departure times are not as reliable as last winter. Maybe I'm just forgetting, but I don't remember random instances of my car not doing a scheduled precondition last year.

It doesn't seem like this would be a Fordpass problem, as I see these departure times in the car. And I checked in the car 90 minutes before departure this morning and saw today's setting in there.

I don't have any charging schedules in my car or Emporia charger, so that wouldn't be the cause.

You should have the credit for investigating more than I have or care to do.

I can’t be any more certain because when I find that preconditioning does not work at short notice I just move on.

I don’t look to see if the scheduling set in the App matches anything that is set on car.

I just start cold that day and try to provide more notice when setting in future.

Didn’t investigate any further because whilst it is a minor annoyance I don’t really care enough to get more involved and find a definitive answer why this occurs.

Sponsored