"System stopped to save battery"

Smuddell

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I'm interested to know whether any of you who do a low mileage (ie mostly only 2 or 3 mile trips, anything up to 80 miles a week) regularly get the "System stopped to save battery" message on the big screen, especially in cold weather? My Mach E has been at the dealer today to investigate this, and he says the 12v battery is fine, and software wise nothing needs updating.

Has anybody else experienced this, and has it progressed to one day when the car is completely dead, or just the message regularly popping up?
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I'm interested to know whether any of you who do a low mileage (ie mostly only 2 or 3 mile trips, anything up to 80 miles a week) regularly get the "System stopped to save battery" message on the big screen, especially in cold weather? My Mach E has been at the dealer today to investigate this, and he says the 12v battery is fine, and software wise nothing needs updating.

Has anybody else experienced this, and has it progressed to one day when the car is completely dead, or just the message regularly popping up?
I have this. I do about 3 miles in the morning and 3 miles home in the evening and have this exact issue. I also fully charged my LVB using an MXS 10 charger and it still happens.
 

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I'm interested to know whether any of you who do a low mileage (ie mostly only 2 or 3 mile trips, anything up to 80 miles a week) regularly get the "System stopped to save battery" message on the big screen, especially in cold weather? My Mach E has been at the dealer today to investigate this, and he says the 12v battery is fine, and software wise nothing needs updating.

Has anybody else experienced this, and has it progressed to one day when the car is completely dead, or just the message regularly popping up?
Yes we do many short trips too. Have only seen the message a couple times. No issues with the 12v either.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/new-park-assist-warning-sound.11346/post-281905

Ford Mustang Mach-E "System stopped to save battery" CBFE4EA9-F446-4E1C-BE4C-3C5E93F325A8
 

louibluey

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Yes we do many short trips too. Have only seen the message a couple times. No issues with the 12v either.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/new-park-assist-warning-sound.11346/post-281905

CBFE4EA9-F446-4E1C-BE4C-3C5E93F325A8.jpeg
I have had minor problems with my 12V battery and have seen this message too. I also do a lot of short trips, and occasionally 180 mile trips.

The good news is that I am presently learning about testing the MME 12V AGM, and so far testing on the bench (I got a spare which is now in MME) shows that my one year old LVB is fine, so at least in my situation, no long term damage even where MME care and feeding of the 12V LVB has been less than ideal.
 

vinny2487

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Yes we do many short trips too. Have only seen the message a couple times. No issues with the 12v either.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/new-park-assist-warning-sound.11346/post-281905

Ford Mustang Mach-E "System stopped to save battery" CBFE4EA9-F446-4E1C-BE4C-3C5E93F325A8
Saw this for the first time today too. When I started up the car there was also a new set of start up chimes. Also noticed on the infotainment screen what seemed like the car downloading something. Clicked on it and it says "update installed." Weird thing is that I already had 1.7.1 installed a couple weeks ago, so no clue what was updated.

So far I've done multiple trips today and haven't seen that "system off to save battery" screen pop up again. Here's hoping it's nothing and it's just a bug.
 


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Smuddell

Smuddell

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Update from my dealer today after he had the car on charge overnight, he said the 12v battery isn't reaching the required SOC which would explain why it struggles with my short trips. A battery is on order but there is currently no stock in the UK so hopefully my car won't let me down by failing to start while I wait for this battery!
 
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Smuddell

Smuddell

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That is why I always carry one of these:

https://no.co/gbx45

Never know when you might need it
Their Mach E man did say if the 12v battery does completely die then the big battery would give it a boost but I hadn't heard that before so I'm a bit sceptical!
 

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Update from my dealer today after he had the car on charge overnight, he said the 12v battery isn't reaching the required SOC which would explain why it struggles with my short trips. A battery is on order but there is currently no stock in the UK so hopefully my car won't let me down by failing to start while I wait for this battery!
It could also be a parasitic drain issue, do you have any accessories (such as a dashcam) wired in that would cause a drain?

Using a boost pack on the battery will work to get the Mach-E started if the 12V battery is dead.
 
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Smuddell

Smuddell

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It could also be a parasitic drain issue, do you have any accessories (such as a dashcam) wired in that would cause a drain?

Using a boost pack on the battery will work to get the Mach-E started if the 12V battery is dead.
I do have a dashcam but it was wired into a slot on the fuse-board so it turns off when the car is turned off. No other accessories added.
 

noway

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As far as I have figured out this message is just some leftover stuff from ICE. It appears after a specific numer of minutes of running the media screen without having the "engine running", and will sometimes appear because the media system has started up for some reason (updates, scheduled maintenance, etc). I had it on Sync 3 often on my previous ICE car, it appears to be the exact same thing.

Just have to mention that this battery is constantly being charged by the onboard DCDC converter. It means it will charge it to something around 13,5V and keep it at that level all the time, which is the safe voltage for constant trickle charging. It will not reach the ICE typical level of 14,7+V, so unless someone knows this they will assume the battery is not charging properly when trying to measure the voltage level of it. An ICE vehicle charging the battery only when running will charge it to a much higher voltage than constant maintenance charging will.
 

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Bear in mind that MME has much smaller 12V battery than gas cars.

The SOC of the 12V battery can be checked with obd2 dongle, using Car Scanner Elm Obd2 app. You will see if your battery cannot maintain SOC due to many short trips as they claim, because it will happen even with the new battery.

You can even check on a smartphone whether disconnecting the dashcam for a few days would help in keeping the battery at 90% SOC, which is the optimal level in MME.
 

DaMeatMan

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Yes we do many short trips too. Have only seen the message a couple times. No issues with the 12v either.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/new-park-assist-warning-sound.11346/post-281905

Ford Mustang Mach-E "System stopped to save battery" CBFE4EA9-F446-4E1C-BE4C-3C5E93F325A8
That does not look like any sort of error message, but rather the infotainment system timing out for inactivity and just shutting down like it would normally do when not driving and car is on but not started and only running in accessory mode.

If this was a real fault you would see a red error message displayed on the small instrument cluster display, just like all other vehicle fault codes.

I suspect this is just a software bug that causes sync to believe the vehicle is running in accessory mode with the car not started, rather than an issue with the vehicles low voltage battery, or high voltage battery.
 

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Their Mach E man did say if the 12v battery does completely die then the big battery would give it a boost but I hadn't heard that before so I'm a bit sceptical!
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hybrid2bev

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That does not look like any sort of error message, but rather the infotainment system timing out for inactivity and just shutting down like it would normally do when not driving and car is on but not started and only running in accessory mode.

If this was a real fault you would see an error message displayed on the small instrument cluster display.

I suspect this is just a software bug that causes sync to believe the vehicle is running in accessory mode with the car not started, rather than an issue with the vehicles low voltage battery, or high voltage battery.
This message showed up immediately as I started the car in the morning (not in accessory mode).

Though the departure time had just finished. Got notice in FP that cabin temp was ready. Walk out to car and unplug it. Hop in and start it up...see this screen immediately. Was like this for a few seconds then Sync started up like normal. Just weird.
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