Cold weather behavior

[Mach-Lee]

Ha. OK, call Ford, ask for a BEV team member, and start a case. They can then contact the dealer and hopefully set them straight about what’s happening.

If you give me your VIN and case # I can also forward that for additional follow-up as well.

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[TheSteelRider]

The dealer says it's scam! I am so stressed out and dealer says 2 wks before car is even looked at and I have to pay for the rental while it's looked at - they have no open recalls or issues flagged for my car

In addition to this,

Ha. OK, call Ford, ask for a BEV team member, and start a case. They can then contact the dealer and hopefully set them straight about what’s happening.

If you give me your VIN and case # I can also forward that for additional follow-up as well.

I just wanted to let you know you can check for recalls yourself on the official Ford website thereby bypassing the dealer.

From your 'account dashboard' -- https://www.ford.com/myaccount/account-dashboard, select 'Recalls'.

 

[Msnwcpa]

What you might be doing wrong:

• Not keeping the vehicle plugged in all the time while parked. It must stay plugged in to keep the battery warm like a block heater.
• Not setting a departure time before leaving. You need to set a departure time in those temps before trips. This requires you to be plugged in.
• If using remote start, not giving it enough time to warm up. In cold conditions it can take up to 20 minutes of remote start to warm up the cabin. Warming up while parked is also more efficient than trying to do it while driving. So wait for it to finish.
• Not charging enough. Winter uses more energy, so you should charge to 90% or more before leaving on a trip.
• Not using AUTO climate control. AUTO knows best and will manage the heat for optimal efficiency and performance. You shouldn't be manually selecting vents or blower speeds. You can waste a lot of heat that way. The only thing you should manually select is defrost if necessary, put it back to AUTO once clear.
• Using too high of a climate setting. I use 68ºF, you should use something similar. 75ºF is going to waste too much energy.
• Potentially driving too fast. Try to drive about 70 MPH or less to save energy.
• Not planning for reduced range in the winter. In the winter you might only be able to drive 125 miles on a charge.
• Not using en-route preconditioning to chargers. Use the Ford Nav to navigate to the charger so the battery is warmer upon arrival.

I think the main factor is you didn't keep the battery warm. The battery will steal the heat away from the cabin if it gets too cold so you won't have any heat. So you must warm it up as much as possible before leaving. If you park the car outside in the winter without plugging in, the battery cools off rapidly. Then when you drive the vehicle, it will use all of the heater trying to warm it back up so you end up with no heat until the battery is warmed up again.

The battery steals the heat to prevent it from severely power limiting and shutting down. In your situation, it wasn't able to keep itself warm enough so you saw the turtle light come on.

The battery will only heat while plugged in. So again, try to park somewhere where you can plug into a level 2 charger.

I've done a lot of testing in cold temps last winter: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/mach-lees-mach-e-cold-weather-testing-taking-requests.24393/

I get the setting departure time to pre-condition the battery and interior when plugged in.

what does the Start button really do in the FordPass app? I am able to turn on the car, all I see is light come on, but no change in cabin temperature, the seats are not heated.

what am I missing?

 

[Mach-Lee]

I get the setting departure time to pre-condition the battery and interior when plugged in.

what does the Start button really do in the FordPass app? I am able to turn on the car, all I see is light come on, but no change in cabin temperature, the seats are not heated.

what am I missing?

Start button is remote start which heats the cabin only. If that’s not working, double check your remote start settings in the car are set to AUTO.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Something weird just happened to me - Car just not working and has more errors, Got a call from a number claiming to be Ford Roadside assistance saying car needs to be towed to nearest dealer and saying they would set it up for me.

Called my dealer - they said no open recalls and its abnormal for roadside to have called me directly

Yes, it is unusual for Ford Roadside Assistance to call. However, for these HVBJB issues they are doing exactly that!

You can always ask them unique questions such as: can they tell you your VIN and month/year of production.

 

[ChasingCoral]

In addition to this,


I just wanted to let you know you can check for recalls yourself on the official Ford website thereby bypassing the dealer.

From your 'account dashboard' -- https://www.ford.com/myaccount/account-dashboard, select 'Recalls'.

You can also look up your active recalls on the Ford Pass app.

At the bottom select the Service icon, then select Recall.

 

[Travlcub]

What you might be doing wrong:

• Not keeping the vehicle plugged in all the time while parked. It must stay plugged in to keep the battery warm like a block heater.
• Not setting a departure time before leaving. You need to set a departure time in those temps before trips. This requires you to be plugged in.
• If using remote start, not giving it enough time to warm up. In cold conditions it can take up to 20 minutes of remote start to warm up the cabin. Warming up while parked is also more efficient than trying to do it while driving. So wait for it to finish.
• Not charging enough. Winter uses more energy, so you should charge to 90% or more before leaving on a trip.
• Not using AUTO climate control. AUTO knows best and will manage the heat for optimal efficiency and performance. You shouldn't be manually selecting vents or blower speeds. You can waste a lot of heat that way. The only thing you should manually select is defrost if necessary, put it back to AUTO once clear.
• Using too high of a climate setting. I use 68ºF, you should use something similar. 75ºF is going to waste too much energy.
• Potentially driving too fast. Try to drive about 70 MPH or less to save energy.
• Not planning for reduced range in the winter. In the winter you might only be able to drive 125 miles on a charge.
• Not using en-route preconditioning to chargers. Use the Ford Nav to navigate to the charger so the battery is warmer upon arrival.

I think the main factor is you didn't keep the battery warm. The battery will steal the heat away from the cabin if it gets too cold so you won't have any heat. So you must warm it up as much as possible before leaving. If you park the car outside in the winter without plugging in, the battery cools off rapidly. Then when you drive the vehicle, it will use all of the heater trying to warm it back up so you end up with no heat until the battery is warmed up again.

The battery steals the heat to prevent it from severely power limiting and shutting down. In your situation, it wasn't able to keep itself warm enough so you saw the turtle light come on.

The battery will only heat while plugged in. So again, try to park somewhere where you can plug into a level 2 charger.

I've done a lot of testing in cold temps last winter: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/mach-lees-mach-e-cold-weather-testing-taking-requests.24393/

I enjoy your replies and knowledge. We had a cold snap last week in Seattle and I just planned accordingly. I’m unfortunately only level 1 but do the prep work as if I was on 2. When I reached “charge complete” should I keep it plugged in? I do always set a departure time if I know ahead of time and precondition the cabin. Any suggestions for us level 1 folks?

 

[Tony Farnham]

So as both of you have figured out, the fan speed is critical to heat. If the fan speed is too low, you won't get enough heat output. But if the fan speed is too high, then you will actually push too much heat out the back of the car through the exhaust vents. Too much fan is bad. So there is a very specific "goldilocks zone" for fan speed. And @Mopey I think you found it, it's around 2-3 fan speed.

In my experience, AUTO successfully limits fan speed in that range. Other than the initial warmup, where it may be higher for the first few minutes. I specifically recommend AUTO so people don't turn the fan speed up too high and waste all the heat. But @Mopey perhaps there is a problem in the fan logic if the car never warms up. You're saying it keeps the fan above 3 indefinitely in an attempt to warm up? If so I agree that needs to be tweaked so it drops down to speed 3 after 5 minutes. Perhaps I don't have a problem with it because I use a lower temp setting than you (which brings down the fan speed), or because it can still keep up most of the time in my temps?

So I guess I should revise my logic to start with AUTO, but if it's not warming up then manually set the fan to 2 or 3.

@buddy3210 you should try both our recommendations and see what works now that you know a lower fan speed is important. You will have to use defrost occasionally on AUTO. But occasional fogging is a good sign in a way because it means you are keeping maximum heat in the cabin.

And I should probably clarify, en-route preconditioning isn't going to do much when it's below 10ºF. It probably won't even activate until you turn off HVAC.




I also second this recommendation. In extreme cold temps, keeping the battery warm is worth the extra couple dollars a month in peak electricity costs. I will happily pay the extra money to not be cold and precondition during peak times when necessary.

There is some good advice in this section regarding the poor performance of the heater. Here in the UK we fequently see temperatures down to -5 Deg .C. As mentoined, fan speed seems to be critical. As we seldome have anyone in the back seats I have taped off the 4 floor outlets to the rear (there seems to be no way to turn them off). This has allowed us to use a lower fan speed and still get reasonable flow of warm air through the front outlets.
Has anyone else tried this?

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