MY WORST FEAR. '23 MACH-e TURNED OFF WHILE DRIVING!

[McQueen]

You got more balls than me. If I experienced this I’ll be damned if I’m gonna keep driving 11 miles to a dr appt and THEN going shopping afterwards lol. I’d coast that car to the closest ford dealer service lot and tell them to not call me until they’ve found out what’s wrong with it lol.

Extreme pain will cloud logic and reason. BTW: "My" dealership finally called me an hour or so ago; 28+ hours after my desperate voicemails, texts to "Service" and messages into its website. A pleasant woman asked me for all of the information I'd repeatedly submitted 2 days ago; including what happened. Now here's where my patience and allegiance to Ford (actually, the UAW) is at the breaking point. Per the pleasant woman: "Mobile Service" personnel can't swing by and check my 12 volt battery for around 3 weeks (but medical professionals cancel my appointments to fit someone in whenever someone else has a more serious "emergency"); if I won't risk driving it again, it can be picked-up; but, she doesn't think I'll get a loaner vehicle. [I've got to find/dig out the purchase papers].
I'm also going to check to see what I can get for a '23 Premium AWD Mach-e, built "11/23" and with only 5,600 miles.

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[House MD]

Have you tried contacting Ford advisors via text?
‭(734) 892-0892‬
https://www.ford.com/help/24-7-live-support/

 

[bbulkow]

I would connect an obd2 dongle ASAP and pull out the codes from that time. Put them in a text file, and send them to ford's BEV team. And eyeball them yourself.

My experience with dealers, when I did exactly this, they told me "there are no codes". Dealers.... aren't on the top of my happy list

 

[67 Stang Convertible]

Extreme pain will cloud logic and reason. BTW: "My" dealership finally called me an hour or so ago; 28+ hours after my desperate voicemails, texts to "Service" and messages into its website. A pleasant woman asked me for all of the information I'd repeatedly submitted 2 days ago; including what happened. Now here's where my patience and allegiance to Ford (actually, the UAW) is at the breaking point. Per the pleasant woman: "Mobile Service" personnel can't swing by and check my 12 volt battery for around 3 weeks (but medical professionals cancel my appointments to fit someone in whenever someone else has a more serious "emergency"); if I won't risk driving it again, it can be picked-up; but, she doesn't think I'll get a loaner vehicle. [I've got to find/dig out the purchase papers].
I'm also going to check to see what I can get for a '23 Premium AWD Mach-e, built "11/23" and with only 5,600 miles.

From a financial standpoint that is not the best decision. You will take a "bath" on the car. Logic dictates you flush out the 12 Volt battery 1st. Just go down to your local Auto Parts Store and they should be able to test it or just take a couple 100$ flier and change it. These cars are unpredictable with a low 12 Volt!!! Use the collective knowledge and advise from the forum!!

 

[McQueen]

FWIW Update: June 13 (7:30 a.m.), Friday. Got two (2) more "Charging Errors" last night; but did not unplug and re-plug as auto-directed the last time, because the car continued to be charging (and still is right now). Left messages on Ford's main website, which redirects me to the dealer.... Left another urgent message about the car shutting off while driving (really, do I have to keep repeating, since Tuesday, the same info?!). Noted that these exchanges with "Service" have been going on since Tuesday morning, the car is safely in my garage but I DO NOT TRUST DRIVING IT ANYWHERE. Asked for a "manager" or someone with authority to to please call me before the weekend (to let me know if I just need to pull more money out of the retirement account to rent a car for who-knows-how-long). Those funds have already taken a huge hit thanks to YKW, and the whole reason for buying a "new" car, with a "warranty," was to relieve us in our retirements of the stresses and costs of unreliable transportation; especially given the other, unanticipated and more ominous crises we're dealing with. The "messages" I'm getting back from Ford are: "take a number."
Another interesting APP feature: after you click on the "Charging Error" notification, it disappears entirely. Click notifications again and it's gone....

 

[McQueen]

From a financial standpoint that is not the best decision. You will take a "bath" on the car. Logic dictates you flush out the 12 Volt battery 1st. Just go down to your local Auto Parts Store and they should be able to test it or just take a couple 100$ flier and change it. These cars are unpredictable with a low 12 Volt!!! Use the collective knowledge and advise from the forum!!

You're probably right. I guess taking a principled position with a manufacturer unwilling to respond to a critical product failure with any professionalism, much less "sensitivity," ultimately is a losing proposition anyway. But will an auto parts store be able to access the 12 volt battery? The sense I get is that getting to it requires some disassembling(?)

 

[Star Lord]

You're probably right. I guess taking a principled position with a manufacturer unwilling to respond to a critical product failure with any professionalism, much less "sensitivity," ultimately is a losing proposition anyway. But will an auto parts store be able to access the 12 volt battery? The sense I get is that getting to it requires some disassembling(?)

That's still under warranty. I hate paying for something that's still under warranty. Checking and replacing a battery is the most simplest of tasks. The dealer should be able to do this in 15 minutes. If there is any option to go to another dealer or a Quick Lane I would do that too.

 

[Mike G]

That's still under warranty. I hate paying for something that's still under warranty. Checking and replacing a battery is the most simplest of tasks. The dealer should be able to do this in 15 minutes. If there is any option to go to another dealer or a Quick Lane I would do that too.

In order to have that battery checked the service department would be required to have the car and connect it to their battery tester...which can take a while because it thoroughly tests the capacity and provides a report that the service advisor uses to validate the battery replacement warranty claim...so they can get paid by Ford. It's not as easy as it might appear on the surface.

 

[Mike G]

There's always "Roadside Assistance"...that would get your car taken to the shop where they could look at it. It's kindof hard for them to ignore it when it shows up on the back of a rollback.

I've sent you a DM with other suggestions, here's the phone number of Ford's BEV team 800-392-3673.

 

[Star Lord]

You should be about to call roadside even if it sits in your driveway.

 

[McQueen]

Have you tried contacting Ford advisors via text?
‭(734) 892-0892‬
https://www.ford.com/help/24-7-live-support/

Just finished-up on the merry-go-round. All "helpful" leads are back to the dealership and/or BBB. No help whatsoever. Keep submitting all the same info; keeping getting re-directed. Meanwhile, and despite the "Charging Error" notifications (which I have not seen on the touchscreen and which disappear off the app when clicked), the car is charging up to 100% right now (that time of the once-a-month). I don't trust driving it again. Ford expressly has not cared.

 

[McQueen]

There's always "Roadside Assistance"...that would get your car taken to the shop where they could look at it. It's kindof hard for them to ignore it when it shows up on the back of a rollback.

I've sent you a DM with other suggestions, here's the phone number of Ford's BEV team 800-392-3673.

Thank you. This forum has been illuminating; while Ford has been impenetrably opaque. Getting the car to the shop is not the problem (reviews I should have read before the purchase are appallingly bad on the dealership's "Service Dept."). If the dealership would just assure me there's a loaner waiting, I could get the car there this afternoon with Roadside Service.

 

[MachhE-CT]

It is unfortunate Ford has been a PIA. But is suspect that you aren’t on the charger long enough to charge the 12 V battery. If you are only charging once a month on a L1 charger you aren’t driving enough for the HV battery to charge the 12 V battery it was my understanding that if you use L1 which I did for the first months you plug it in every night and perhaps set a top
Charge of 75%. Also use departure time to have car cool down and precondition the battery before you get in the car. But seriously you might to cough up the bucks for 50 AMP 4 wire receptacle and use “L2. L2 is still an AC charge and won’t hurt your battery in the least. At this point I think your 12 V is toast. Heat kills batteries more than cold.

 

[EasyPass]

Have you tried contacting Ford advisors via text?
‭(734) 892-0892‬
https://www.ford.com/help/24-7-live-support/

In my several interactions with Text Messaging Customer Support, I have found this service, while responsive, to be fairly useless with inane responses and plenty of outgoing referrals to other support services within Ford. Afterwards, it takes several iterations just to get back to closing out the conversation....annoying.

If it's a non-urgent issue the knowledge and response on this board is head and shoulders a better resource, IMHO.

 

[EasyPass]

This story raises a couple of circumstances from my past that are only tangentially related, and may not add anything of value to the discussion:

- On driving in my '99 Mercury Cougar to work one morning on an Interstate, the engine silently went dead at 65mph. I was able to coast to the berm with the clutch un-engaged and call for help. Turns out a valve stem broke and killed the whole operation. Bottom line, no permanent damage to the engine, luckily, outside of needing to replace the entire valve. Dodged a bullet twice on this by my analysis.

- My wife's car is a 2017 Ford Fusion Energi PHEV with 32k miles and purchased new in 2016. The 12 volt battery is original, and has a few times passed a technical health check........still going strong.

- My '21 MME is going to be four in July. Currently clocking 32k miles, the AGM battery is original and passed a technical health check 2k miles ago. I regularly check its status with Car Scanner (Sure wish Ford would instrument this metric). All seems to be stable in operation.

I guess the point here might be that reliability is a game of probabilities. Failures can occur without warning and ongoing useful functionality is matter of a bucketful of variables that can't be entirely anticipated.

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