Car Bricked While Driving. Any Thoughts on This

[dtbaker61]

I don’t know enough about car engineering so this may be a naive question but it seems odd that a screw on nut that might come loose given hours of vibration could cause the car to die. Why wouldn’t such a critical connection be hardwired? And would there be some way to have redundancy in the system if it did come loose?

yes, all kinds of ways to beef up critical connections... once you figure out they are critical. loctite, lock washers, rivet instead of nut, etc..... but Ford needs to hear about failures to consider how to correct.

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[RMoore]

yes, all kinds of ways to beef up critical connections... once you figure out they are critical. loctite, lock washers, rivet instead of nut, etc..... but Ford needs to hear about failures to consider how to correct.

Agree Ford needs to do something but it shouldn’t be up to us to beef up the connection. Ford engineers certainly know that connection is critical why would they design it that way? Imagine if that happened in a a plane?

 

[ripperAZ]

Driving to work this morning going around a corner doing about 55 mph and my car died. No power, no lights, nothing. Steering and braking was almost impossible but I managed to get it to the shoulder. There was zero warning, just died.

Now I’m sitting here waiting for a tow truck knowing I can’t put it in neutral.

I’ve had the car for 4 months and have 8000 miles but have never had a single issue.



Edit - Problem resolved.

On advice from another member, I'm editing this thread.

Please read through for all of the details but here's the short version of the fix.

Found a loose connection in the 12 volt distribution box. Had to tighten the red wire on the right,

That’s MacGyver level roadside repair dude. Perhaps one of the most informative and important posts I’ve read about the car.

***EDIT. Not every owner should do this ……Every owner should be popping their frunk and checking the torque on those vital electrical connections after disconnecting the High Voltage connection.

I’m wondering if the battery and the connections are situated in such a way that vibrations causes the connectors to wind/back out And get loose Highway harmonic vibrations could absolutely do this if they put them in the wrong spot

Just sayin. As always. something to keep checking

Thanks for the great work matey. Well Done ??

 

[newmme]

Please be careful folks. These cars have fatal high voltage. We used to have a BMW i3 and you had to be careful around some of the connections. Just sharing.

 

[louibluey]

... Every owner should be popping their frunk and checking the torque on those vital electrical connections after disconnecting the High Voltage connection. ...

Remember that those posts, including the red cable threaded post in question are "HOT". It is only 12V, so the shock hazard is nil, but if a wrench used to check or to tighten the nut, especially the red cable nut, touches a nearby chassis ground, there could be splattered molten metal (and fuses to replace).

The safest approach would be to open the hv disconnect interlock, mostly to keep the DC/DC converter from coming on, and disconnect the 12V negative battery cable first.

Also, I imagine that any of those threaded studs can be broken by applying too much force, so use some care too, or you might end up with a far more serious repair issue.

Using Jon's picture:

 

[dtbaker61]

Remember that those posts, including the red cable threaded post in question are "HOT". It is only 12V, so the shock hazard is nil, but if a wrench used to check or to tighten the nut, especially the red cable nut, touches a nearby chassis ground, there could be splattered molten metal (and fuses to replace).

The safest approach would be to open the hv disconnect interlock, mostly to keep the DC/DC converter from coming on, and disconnect the 12V negative battery cable first.

Also, I imagine that any of those threaded studs can be broken by applying too much force, so use some care too, or you might end up with a far more serious repair issue.

Using Jon's picture:

12v won't kill you *usually*, but if the end of your wrench hits the frame, there will be plenty of sparks. Definitely a good idea to open the (green) HV-dcdc relay connector to prevent the dc-dc from sending 160amps... and remove the 12v battery ground while you do this.

i would suggest a torque check, and perhaps a drop of thread locker at the end of the nut where it meets the thread.... OR, remove the nut and slip in a lock washer, and re-torque. A properly torqued nut of this type *shouldn't* loosen.....

but, welcome to 1st model year oversights and assembly/inspection 'issues'.

 

[ripperAZ]

Absolutely. I was not referring to anyone just jumping in under the Frunk and going tap tap.

If you’ve already been under there you probably realize where the danger points are and how to disconnect all the live connections. I will say the entire mess under there doesn’t look well laid out and Ford could Have done a lot better. The Kia EV6 layout is much more orderly

I’m just somewhat freaked out by the amount of crap Ford put in between the vital charging units and the user. Replaceable parts and needed connections trapped and locked under silly plastics. To make some kind of lame cooler ….most will never use

All that stuff should’ve existed in a box easily accessible at the top of the Frunk and the freaking frunk should have a latch you can open it without any electric required. Anytime …

I think 80 to 90% of the users will never look underneath that plastic and leave it all up to the dealer and the rest of us we should know the risks.
Obviously important to keep pointing it out though so none of us fry like a chicken wing

Jes sayin

 

[TaylorLGodwin]

Any of y’all live in Northern Virginia, and want to show me how to look at this stuff myself without grounding out my vehicle next weekend? Lol.

I used to do some of my own car maintenance, but never messed with electrical. Now I have an EV so may as well learn

 

[astronut325]

When I get my Mach-E in August/September I’m going to tell the dealer to tighten all of these bolts right in front of me.

My wife will be the primary driver of it. I don’t want it doing what happened to the soap and stranding her.

 

[VaderMachE]

Please be careful folks. These cars have fatal high voltage. We used to have a BMW i3 and you had to be careful around some of the connections. Just sharing.

I'm here to tell you all, I'm that guy... I'm not touching a damn thing.?
I'll call my sister at service department and have this area checked. Props to O.P. for having the background and know how to attempt, and succeed in fixing.?

 

[Logal727]

When I get my Mach-E in August/September I’m going to tell the dealer to tighten all of these bolts right in front of me.

My wife will be the primary driver of it. I don’t want it doing and stranding her.

I hope you like blank stares

 

[louibluey]

I guess most ETs and EEs, especially in post production field work, just have a gut feel muscle memory approach for how tight to make the various nuts on different size threaded studs (also for different types of metals, perhaps a bit tighter is okay for some stainless steel alloys). Honestly, in many years of ET (shipboard, not sure about aviation electrical maintenance)/EE work military and industrial, outside of a factory, I cannot remember a torque wrench or torque indicating tool being used for an electrical connection.

I was looking for a quick reference, but the best I could find was this hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy version

 

[Jon]

I guess most ETs and EEs, especially in post production field work, just have a gut feel muscle memory approach for how tight to make the various nuts on different size threaded studs (also for different types of metals, perhaps a bit tighter is okay for some stainless steel alloys). Honestly, in many years of ET (shipboard, not sure about aviation electrical maintenance)/EE work military and industrial, outside of a factory, I cannot remember a torque wrench or torque indicating tool being used for an electrical connection.

In a previous life I operated a UL (Underwriters Laboratory) Control Panel Shop. It was mandatory to torque all connections to manufacturers specs. We had torque wrenched, ratchets and screw drivers to check everything.

 

[Jon]

Absolutely. I was not referring to anyone just jumping in under the Frunk and going tap tap.

I second this. Truth be told, I probably wouldn't have touched it if -
A. Jumping it allowed me to put it tow mode.
B. I hadn't realized the positive jump point was loose.
C. I wasn't pissed that I'd been waiting 6 hours for a tow.

 

[Jon]

you remember the one o-ring that blew up an entire shuttle ?
.... it's amazing when you can find something like this BEFORE someone dies.

Guess where I work. Not joking.

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