Misadventures and a bricked car

[Space_Pony]

Turns out you we right, bad LVB. Good call.

I'm amazed that a battery would last less than 3 years in a car that is garaged most of the time. Considering the number of people who have complained about this, it makes you wonder what kind of cheap batteries is Ford installing ? They certainly saved much less than $100 on a car that costs over $50K.

A battery stored at a low charge will fail much sooner than one stored at a higher charge. It sounds like more of these batteries are failing when the MME's are not driven much and subsequently a lower state of charge.
I drive at least 30 miles every work day and the LVB is always between 80-92% when I check it. I believe my LVB should last several years as long as my driving pattern continues.
I guess they designed these cars to be driven daily to work.

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[valeriol]

A battery stored at a low charge will fail much sooner than one stored at a higher charge. It sounds like more of these batteries are failing when the MME's are not driven much and subsequently a lower state of charge.
I drive at least 30 miles every work day and the LVB is always between 80-92% when I check it. I believe my LVB should last several years as long as my driving pattern continues.
I guess they designed these cars to be driven daily to work.

I'll keep that in mind.
Thanks,

 

[RobbertPatrison]

Interesting, why does it require 30 minutes to go to sleep ? Wonder if there’s any way to adjust that.

I've been scratching my head as to why the car does not go to sleep quickly after locking. My best guess is that the Battery Control Module is monitoring the battery, but I'm not sure.More likely it is just bad software. Making several short trips per day is taxing on the battery.

I methodically measured the 12V battery discharge current using a clamp multimeter. The weird thing is that the pattern is not always the same, but the 12Vbattery power drain looks like this:

• 0:00: switch the car off and lock 12V SoC = 87%
  10 Amp (~120 Watt) for 4 minutes (lights are off)
• 0:04
  2.5 Amp (~30 Watt) for the next 30 minutes
• 0:05: front USB sockets switch off
  2.5 Amp (~30 Watt)
• 0:30: Car finally goes to sleep: 12V cigarette adapter and rear USB switch off
  12V SoC has dropped to 79% (so would not do OTA anymore)
  0.02 Amp power draw after 30 minutes

The battery loses 8% SoC , quite needlessly. Sometimes the car wakes up, e.g. for PAAK when the phone gets in BlueTooth range.

 

[valeriol]

A battery stored at a low charge will fail much sooner than one stored at a higher charge. It sounds like more of these batteries are failing when the MME's are not driven much and subsequently a lower state of charge.
I drive at least 30 miles every work day and the LVB is always between 80-92% when I check it. I believe my LVB should last several years as long as my driving pattern continues.
I guess they designed these cars to be driven daily to work.

The Ford technician just confirmed that. So I'll change my trigger for recharging, from 50% to 75%.

 

[RobbertPatrison]

A battery stored at a low charge will fail much sooner than one stored at a higher charge. It sounds like more of these batteries are failing when the MME's are not driven much and subsequently a lower state of charge.
I drive at least 30 miles every work day and the LVB is always between 80-92% when I check it. I believe my LVB should last several years as long as my driving pattern continues.
I guess they designed these cars to be driven daily to work.

Weirdly, Ford lets the LVB SoC sink below 30% before the DC/DC wakes up to charge it. Such a low state is not good for AGM batteries. Tesla had updated it software to change that.

I drive ~35 miles daily in 2-4 trips. Despite that, my 12V LVB had to be replaced twice already. The LVB battery SoC is ~90% after each trip, and then sinks to 80% or less within an hour. That is because my MME is insomniac. Overnight it might drop as low as 50%. I wonder whether all MMEs do this? It almost must be because it is software that rules.

 

[alexgorod]

I'm amazed that a battery would last less than 3 years in a car that is garaged most of the time.

I had to replace the battery in my wife's 2.5-year-old CRV this winter. The car is mostly driven for a very short distance (about 2 miles to work and then back) and didn't survive the cold weather, even though it is stored in the garage.

 

[alexgorod]

Overnight it might drop as low as 50%. I wonder whether all MMEs do this?

Just checked - 56% after 18 hours in the garage. I think that it was below 80% when I came home yesterday.

 

[RobbertPatrison]

Just checked - 56% after 18 hours in the garage. I think that it was below 80% when I came home yesterday.

That ~20% drop is similar to what I am seeing. So it sounds like a software issue that is programmed to wear out 12V batteries. I think Ford must address this.

 

[alexgorod]

I think Ford must address this.

I think it did, in 24-PU0121-FTDI-FX. I got in shortly after my post in this thread, and now the lowest LVB level I saw was in high 60s.

 

[Space_Pony]

I drove about 200 miles yesterday and saw that my lvb is at 98%, so bring on the ota updates that I haven't received in well over a month!

 

[rreddy3]

I drove about 200 miles yesterday and saw that my lvb is at 98%, so bring on the ota updates that I haven't received in well over a month!

I’ve had my car a little over 3 weeks. It is a 2023 Premium AWD X range. It has received 2 OTA updates, the last on April 4. I have no idea if it is anywhere near current on updates.

I don’t recall seeing LVB status in the Ford Pass app on my phone. Is LVB status on the Ford Pass app, and I’m just not looking in the right place, or is LVB status somewhere in the owner’s account area on Ford.com?

I noticed one of the comments in this thread suggested, I think, L1 (which I understand to be 110v) charging as a way to maintain the LVB SOC at a reasonably high level. If I understood that correctly, my question is, would 240v L2 also provide that effect or would L2 be a little too much and too fast a charge to have the desired LVB maintenance effect?

Thank you.

 

[rreddy3]

I’ve had my car a little over 3 weeks. It is a 2023 Premium AWD X range. It has received 2 OTA updates, the last on April 4. I have no idea if it is anywhere near current on updates.

I don’t recall seeing LVB status in the Ford Pass app on my phone. Is LVB status on the Ford Pass app, and I’m just not looking in the right place, or is LVB status somewhere in the owner’s account area on Ford.com?

I noticed one of the comments in this thread suggested, I think, L1 (which I understand to be 110v) charging as a way to maintain the LVB SOC at a reasonably high level. If I understood that correctly, my question is, would 240v L2 also provide that effect or would L2 be a little too much and too fast a charge to have the desired LVB maintenance effect?

Thank you.

The car is kept in my garage at home.

charging with Ford travel/mobile device on 110. ChargePoint 240v will be installed on the 22d.

I have also gone very conservative on HVB battery limiing its SOC to 70% or 80 tops, I don’t think I’ve let it fall below 60 or low 60s.

In three weeks the car only has 287 miles givenor take a few. At delivery it had about 35 miles and I think I put about half those on in two test drives.

I am retired and there are times when the car may not be used for 2 or 3 days.
Thus far trips have been short. Although sometimes when I take it to run errands I will just do some random driving because the car is fun to drive.
Reading/scanning through this thread makes me wonder if I am building up to LVB issues.

Instead of worrying about maybe the answer is treat it like the Mustang it is and just get, drive it, let the tunes rip in the stereo, and have a good time.

An aside, the first new car I bought was a 1969 Aculpoco Blue Mustang convertible. It had a black interior , vinyl I’m sure. I was in the USAF stationed at Barksdale in NW Louisiana. The car had a 302 v8. I couldn’t afford a 4 speed so I had the 3 speed. I seem to recall there was a very inexpensive “heavy duty” or sport suspension option i did have.

 

[RickMachE]

I’ve had my car a little over 3 weeks. It is a 2023 Premium AWD X range. It has received 2 OTA updates, the last on April 4. I have no idea if it is anywhere near current on updates.

I don’t recall seeing LVB status in the Ford Pass app on my phone. Is LVB status on the Ford Pass app, and I’m just not looking in the right place, or is LVB status somewhere in the owner’s account area on Ford.com?

I noticed one of the comments in this thread suggested, I think, L1 (which I understand to be 110v) charging as a way to maintain the LVB SOC at a reasonably high level. If I understood that correctly, my question is, would 240v L2 also provide that effect or would L2 be a little too much and too fast a charge to have the desired LVB maintenance effect?

Thank you.

Level 2 charges it fine IF the charging period is long enough.

 

[rreddy3]

Thanks Rick. What is your sense of how long is long enough on L2 to benefit the LVB?

 

[RobbertPatrison]

Thanks Rick. What is your sense of how long is long enough on L2 to benefit the LVB?

I don't think it matters that much. 2 hours should be enough to fully charge the 12V battery, and L1 and L2 will ake much longer than that. I measure that that charge current drops to less than 1A after 1 hour. The 12V battery charges anytime the car is 'on': driving or while the HV battery is charging.

Charging 110V L1 is not only slower, it is also less energy efficient than L2. The energy loss in the charger is over 12%. at slow rates. The faster, the lower the loss.

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