Level-2 charge fault

[ancali]

Hello,

I have 2021 Mach-E with an extended battery (purchased April 2021) that until December worked flawlessly. Then I brought it in to the dealer for the roof/windshield recall and while there a software update was installed (to 3.6.x - I don’t remember exactly). After that, charging would fail with a charge fault after about an hour every time the car was plugged into a Level-2 charger (I tried multiple different ones).

The car was sent back to the dealer where they reproduced the charge fault and discovered “diagnostic trouble code P087F” - they did another software update to the powertrain control module and said the charging issue should be fixed. However, when trying to charge on our Level-2 charger at home it again stopped charging with a charge fault - now already after at most 2 minutes (sometimes immediately). This was true on other Level-2 chargers (e.g. ChargePoint) as well. Level-3 charging still works.

I brought the car back to dealer where it has been for two weeks now and I am not sure when I will get it back. Initially they told me they would fix it the same day. Then - about a week ago - they told me they are replacing the charge port but this really seems like a software problem to me? Why would replacing the charge port help?

Has anyone else had a similar problem?

Thank you!
Annika

Sponsored

 

[Mach-Lee]

Needs an update, could possibly be problems with your local power grid. Voltage or frequency out of spec. Do you have high or low voltage at your house?

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...-wrench-indicator-abs-lamp-on-with-dtcs.6699/

 

[azerik]

I have lower voltage at my house. My Clipper Creek 40 faults pretty often when there is grid strain. I used to be able to get around it by rebooting the L2 charger via breaker off/on, plug the car back in. But usually it'd fault again that day. Sometimes I'd just wonder off and forget and when it's scheduled charge would come it'd charge. In the middle of the night mind you. I didn't see it at other L2's. But my MME has sent "scheduled charge not started" both times I plugged into charge, then about 2 min later it starts charging on it's own. However I was getting the fault in the wallbox, not the car. (Some times when it refused to take a charge I'd reboot the Focus EV via 12v ground wire disconnect to reset everything in the car. 180k between the 2 FEV's I've gotten to know their quirks well, just learning the MME)

Then - about a week ago - they told me they are replacing the charge port but this really seems like a software problem to me? Why would replacing the charge port help?

'Faults' are usually caused by resistance or lack there of. The car knows how 'connected' the wires are based on resistance through them. If a wire is loose it will change the read resistance. This goes also for the 3 power prongs in the charge port. If the connector is opened up too much it'll make less contact, raising the resistance. Car sees it and says 'Nope!'. Same goes for heat. Which can be created by those loose connections. More resistance, more heat. Again. Maybe after an hour the connector (or any connector throughout the car) heats up, adds resistance, car sees it, shuts off the charging. It's a protection measure.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

My wife’s car is at the shop right now for this. Not a software problem. I’ll give you my details. I was waiting until resolution to post much about it.
Wife’s car is an early 2021 AWD ER Premium. Back in mid December, (when it was in the high 30’s to low 40°’s), when charging on her Grizzl-E Classic, set to 40 amps, she noted it hadn’t reached the charge limit overnight a couple of times. She said the ring lights were red. I reset the breaker. Unplugged and replugged the charger. Forced the car to charge during the day so I could monitor. The car would charge for about 45 minutes to an hour and then stop. FordAss was no help as it would just quit updating. Opening the door would show “charge fault” on the instrument cluster and the ring lights would be red. When unplugging the connector, the handle felt a little warm. Barely noticeable.
I immediately thought the Grizzl-E was going bad. I am lucky enough to have two Mach-E and two Grizzl-E. Moving her car to my Grizzl-E showed the same results. My car in her charger works just fine. So not a charger problem. Definitely her car.
And now there are no blue ring lights on her car. The white ring lights come on when I open the charge port. The red ring lights come on when it charge faults. The blue ring lights… totally absent.
Now I’m not completely sure things are getting hot so I get both cars down to 50% charge and plug them both in at 40 amps. Every 15 minutes I measure the temp with a laser IR thermometer, both at the charge port and up the charging plug handle. Her car runs a consistent 15° hotter topping out at 87°. It also charges a little slower, about 2% per hour (though probably not a statistically significant amount). The day I do this, her car continues to charge but it’s now also -8° in the garage. A full 40° colder ambient temp. I conclude a charge port with extra resistance. Too much heat on “warm” days causing a charge fault.
Setting her Grizzl-E to 32 amps, her car charges right along just fine. Plug handle nor charge port warms up at all.
Got the car to the dealer which required a lot of phone calls as my tech is BOOKED. He looked at it yesterday and concluded not only is my charge port bad, but that he’d like to trace and test some other wires too. He didn’t want to put it back together and let me keep charging at home in case things really started to heat up. So the new charge port should arrive on Thursday unless my man Cody, in parts, can get it sped up. We’ll see what else Clarence, EV certified Master Tech, finds.
So that’s my story. Similar to yours but with some home trouble shooting thrown in. I don’t have a list of DTC’s yet.

 

[ancali]

Thank you! That's very helpful and reassuring. Our charger at home is set to 40amp but it also happened on other Level-2 chargers (but not on Level-1 or Level-3 chargers) - a loose connection in the charge port seems to make sense. Coincidentally, the dealer just called saying my car is ready for pickup. I will post an update later!

 

[HutchRed]

I had a similar problem with ours very close to delivery. They ended up having to replace the SBODM to work. They tried the High Voltage Cable and the entire charging port as well as updating the gateway module and those did not fix it.

It has not had that same problem since. My guess is the SBODM was bad from the factory.

Hope this fixes it!

IF you run into an issue later where your 12v battery dies, make sure they check all of the low voltage to high voltage pathways. This happened to us about two or three months after we got first issue resolved and it was another head scratcher for them. (they said it was a bent pin but who knows)

Since then, no problems similar to this.

 

[ancali]

Good news! I have my car back and it charged successfully on our Level-2 charger last night. The report says they found code P0E5F this time and that "Further examination found the charge port housing out of specifications. Accessed, removed and replaced the charge port housing, also replaced all other related seals, gaskets and non-reusable hardware". So far so good!

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Good news! I have my car back and it charged successfully on our Level-2 charger last night. The report says they found code P0E5F this time and that "Further examination found the charge port housing out of specifications. Accessed, removed and replaced the charge port housing, also replaced all other related seals, gaskets and non-reusable hardware". So far so good!

Thanks for sharing. I’ll check on my car Monday and see if that’s the same code the dealer found.

 

[Hammered]

I have lower voltage at my house.

Have you spoken with your PoCo? There's no reason to have poor voltage. I'm continually monitoring our grid here and we're regularly above 240v w/ 245v average.

Unless you've got a power shortage problem and the utilities are intentionally dropping voltages trying to reduce everyone's power usage, they should be making sure you've got stable voltage.

 

[azerik]

I’ve been in this house for 15 years. When I moved in they said the box should be updated. I’ve alway chalked it up to that until I check voltages around the area. Most houses in my area are low. But also most boxes around here are as old as mine too. I found out when using a variac for coffee roasting. Never thought to ask the power company though. We also have a good number of power failures around here. People hitting poles, transformers etc popping. I have a couple UPS’s in the house for my computers and networking. Routinely seeing 111 with random dips into 109 in summer.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I’ve been in this house for 15 years. When I moved in they said the box should be updated. I’ve alway chalked it up to that until I check voltages around the area. Most houses in my area are low. But also most boxes around here are as old as mine too. I found out when using a variac for coffee roasting. Never thought to ask the power company though. We also have a good number of power failures around here. People hitting poles, transformers etc popping. I have a couple UPS’s in the house for my computers and networking. Routinely seeing 111 with random dips into 109 in summer.

The voltage at your electric meter should not be less than 114V/228V for more than a few seconds. If it's below that, your electric utility is obligated to correct the condition (you need to call them to report low voltage). Ask if they can change the tap on the transformer to a higher voltage. They should be able to do this as long as the unloaded service voltage doesn't exceed 126V.

It is best to call them about an hour before you expect the low voltage to occur so they can measure it themselves when they arrive. They will pull your meter and measure it there for their "official" reading.

 

[Garbone]

My wife’s car is at the shop right now for this. Not a software problem. I’ll give you my details. I was waiting until resolution to post much about it.
Wife’s car is an early 2021 AWD ER Premium. Back in mid December, (when it was in the high 30’s to low 40°’s), when charging on her Grizzl-E Classic, set to 40 amps, she noted it hadn’t reached the charge limit overnight a couple of times. She said the ring lights were red. I reset the breaker. Unplugged and replugged the charger. Forced the car to charge during the day so I could monitor. The car would charge for about 45 minutes to an hour and then stop. FordAss was no help as it would just quit updating. Opening the door would show “charge fault” on the instrument cluster and the ring lights would be red. When unplugging the connector, the handle felt a little warm. Barely noticeable.
I immediately thought the Grizzl-E was going bad. I am lucky enough to have two Mach-E and two Grizzl-E. Moving her car to my Grizzl-E showed the same results. My car in her charger works just fine. So not a charger problem. Definitely her car.
And now there are no blue ring lights on her car. The white ring lights come on when I open the charge port. The red ring lights come on when it charge faults. The blue ring lights… totally absent.
Now I’m not completely sure things are getting hot so I get both cars down to 50% charge and plug them both in at 40 amps. Every 15 minutes I measure the temp with a laser IR thermometer, both at the charge port and up the charging plug handle. Her car runs a consistent 15° hotter topping out at 87°. It also charges a little slower, about 2% per hour (though probably not a statistically significant amount). The day I do this, her car continues to charge but it’s now also -8° in the garage. A full 40° colder ambient temp. I conclude a charge port with extra resistance. Too much heat on “warm” days causing a charge fault.
Setting her Grizzl-E to 32 amps, her car charges right along just fine. Plug handle nor charge port warms up at all.
Got the car to the dealer which required a lot of phone calls as my tech is BOOKED. He looked at it yesterday and concluded not only is my charge port bad, but that he’d like to trace and test some other wires too. He didn’t want to put it back together and let me keep charging at home in case things really started to heat up. So the new charge port should arrive on Thursday unless my man Cody, in parts, can get it sped up. We’ll see what else Clarence, EV certified Master Tech, finds.
So that’s my story. Similar to yours but with some home trouble shooting thrown in. I don’t have a list of DTC’s yet.

Thank for sharing this. My wife's 21 has developed the same issue.

The bottom session is my 22 from 50%. The rest is her 21.

FordPass is junk. I can go into my Emporia app and restart her 21 without replugging through the car an not the charger, not so with FordPass.

Looks like hers will be heading to the shop.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Just a little update on things here in the frozen north. Davidson Ford of Watertown has had the car for two weeks now. It was also showing the P0E5F that Ancali was showing, as well as a bunch of others. The charge port was replaced after waiting on parts. Following this, the SOBDM wouldn’t communicate. We are now waiting on that part. In the meantime Davidson has provied us with a brand new 2023 MME Premium AWD ER in blaCk. It’s like having my old original MME back in the garage.

Sponsored