Unable to shift - 2ND TIME!! - Please stop safely

[cjrodriguez31]

Yeah sorry to hear it happened twice for you, that is a brutal experience for sure... Not very confidence inspiring. Really love the car but I agree with what you said earlier, I don't wanna play a guessing game of "is my car going to do what a car is supposed to do" every time I start it up. Or, if these issues are exacerbated by DCFC, I don't want to be nervous to juice up my car every time I use a DCFC. It's like being scared to put gas in an ICE car... not a good feeling.

Absolutley correct. And on top of that I have a two year old and a 2 month old. Imagine me getting stuck on the highway? I went with Ford so that Id have confidence and I just don’t have it. We are using the ICE suv now for trips because if the MME breaks down out of state what then? You know?

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[dtbaker61]

Its happened twice so far and each time it usually takes 4-5 weeks to fix. It is not a quick repair by any means unfortunately.

So sorry to hear you are one of the unlucky few that have suffered repeat HVBJB failure.... Would mind detailing your 'typical use' pattern ?

typical weather in the weeks BEFORE the failures? (below freezing, or above 80F?)
How/where you store it overnight? (moderate garage, or outside in hot/cold)
How/where your MME 'usually' is during the day? (hot or cold environment?)
do you 'precondition' cabin temp very often?
Typical charging routine? (frequency and type of charger ?)
Frequency of DCFC charging mid-trip, and do you charge to 80% and get right back on the road, or disconnect and wait a while, or .... ?
regular use of cabin max a/c and/or heated seats, steering, etc?
Do you leave A/C, eHeat 'on', or do you turn it off before parking?

What I'm trying to get at is whether or not there is a pattern of use that may be putting more stress on the HVBJB than *most* other people who have not had problems. If we can pin down the cause, we'd be one step closer to a long term fix.

 

[scoopman]

Absolutley correct. And on top of that I have a two year old and a 2 month old. Imagine me getting stuck on the highway? I went with Ford so that Id have confidence and I just don’t have it. We are using the ICE suv now for trips because if the MME breaks down out of state what then? You know?

Same opinion as you. I'm going to evaluate at the end of the summer if Ford has fixed the defect. Right now I have an expensive car that's not doing with confidence the basic things I expect.

 

[newmme]

one of the unlucky few that have suffered repeat HVBJB failure...

How do you know it's a few?

 

[scoopman]

So sorry to hear you are one of the unlucky few that have suffered repeat HVBJB failure.... Would mind detailing your 'typical use' pattern ?

typical weather in the weeks BEFORE the failures? (below freezing, or above 80F?)
How/where you store it overnight? (moderate garage, or outside in hot/cold)
How/where your MME 'usually' is during the day? (hot or cold environment?)
do you 'precondition' cabin temp very often?
Typical charging routine? (frequency and type of charger ?)
Frequency of DCFC charging mid-trip, and do you charge to 80% and get right back on the road, or disconnect and wait a while, or .... ?
regular use of cabin max a/c and/or heated seats, steering, etc?
Do you leave A/C, eHeat 'on', or do you turn it off before parking?

What I'm trying to get at is whether or not there is a pattern of use that may be putting more stress on the HVBJB than *most* other people who have not had problems. If we can pin down the cause, we'd be one step closer to a long term fix.

You might see a pattern no one else has, but my feeling is that this is an engineering-focused problem of thermals / voltage being too high for the parts used, and that over time and cycles of the system being energized and de-energized, the parts can fail.

This could be as simple as an owner pressing the throttle and getting a certain voltage. We're not human data logs and cannot think about how many times we have accelerated objectively and what the voltage and temperature of the contactors was at the time.

There's just no pattern that can really point to behavior that causes this problem, because all of the behavior exhibited by owners is the normal things we should be expected to be doing with this car. Nothing sticks out as notible or a pattern, so you have to just realize there's added risk right now that this could happen to you, and you can't really quantify that risk. It's not tiny but it's not huge, either.

Aside from not doing road trips in my car and carrying my kids in it anywhere but in my local area, I've instituted whatever I can think of within reason. Some of these behaviors include getting my battery up to temp before driving (thru pre-conditioning and starting / cooling down the car before turning off a couple of minutes), not putting as much energy into the car at once thru charging (no DCFC, lowered amps on my L2), and by driving more conservatively as much as I can.

I'm seeing this as a temporary measure -- again, after I'm back from my summer vacation and heading into August and the fall, I gotta re-evaluate my relationship with this car if we still have an unacceptable status quo of no official statement from Ford, and no fix for this design defect.

Honestly if there was an equivalent competitor right now, I'd probably be seriously considering it.

 

[dtbaker61]

How do you know it's a few?

'a few' on this forum I have been following for the last 18 months.

out of the 30 or so people that have reported HVBJB problems on this Forum, I recall only 3 or 4 that have had repeat failures. Considering the number of Mach-es delivered, and the number of people in this Forum, I use the term 'few' loosely.

This failure seems to be boiling down to some specific combination of loads, or 'sequencing' of loads starting/stopping, that frys under-sized Contactors inside the HVBJB. Until the beefier Contactors, or sequencing errors, or cooling is improved.... I'd like to figure out the pattern of use that's causing the overloads so that I can (continue) to avoid it.

I have NOT had any problems with HVBJB or LVB.... been driving my since 2/2021, and have about 14k miles on so far. I know MY pattern of use, and am trying to figure out what's different with the people that have had failures, particularly multiple failures.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

a few' on this forum I have been following for the last 18 months.

While those experiencing thus failure are justifiably upset, angry, shocked etc. the numbers as a percentage of owners is undoubtedly quite low. Forums tend to amplify every fruit, bug and breakdown. That’s not a get out of jail free card for any manufacturer though. We also need to be cognizant of the time it can take to trace the failure to the their root causes.

 

[scoopman]

'a few' on this forum I have been following for the last 18 months.

out of the 30 or so people that have reported HVBJB problems on this Forum, I recall only 3 or 4 that have had repeat failures. Considering the number of Mach-es delivered, and the number of people in this Forum, I use the term 'few' loosely.

This failure seems to be boiling down to some specific combination of loads, or 'sequencing' of loads starting/stopping, that frys under-sized Contactors inside the HVBJB. Until the beefier Contactors, or sequencing errors, or cooling is improved.... I'd like to figure out the pattern of use that's causing the overloads so that I can (continue) to avoid it.

I have NOT had any problems with HVBJB or LVB.... been driving my since 2/2021, and have about 14k miles on so far. I know MY pattern of use, and am trying to figure out what's different with the people that have had failures, particularly multiple failures.

Can you think of doing anything else other than what I outline?

(Of course you can also drive it without thinking about this and be okay with the risk -- I'm just not really that okay with it).

 

[dtbaker61]

Can you think of doing anything else other than what I outline?

(Of course you can also drive it without thinking about this and be okay with the risk -- I'm just not really that okay with it).

I drive my MME pretty hard... not extended 'tracking' full on accell/braking.... but 'spirited' driving in the mountains for sure as well as around town. I do have a Select AWD, with SR battery, and have less current load when accelerating than a GT or GTPE... but we've seen Selects fail as well, so I think contributing factors may include other things that might occur when Contactors are opening/closing.

I would consider the following practices as 'additional possibilities' that *may* reduce loads on the Contactors that *seem* to be the weak point of the HVBJB:

- avoid DCFC whenever possible, and allow 20 minutes after disconnect with MME 'on' to precondition and bring down battery temp before hitting it with drive loads. Extended time on DCFC at 100+kw is a lot more current than steady state highway driving, and there is a fair amount of heat building up around the charger and HV connections.

- if disconnecting L2 charge in progress, depress thumblatch, wait for clicks, and then pull the plug.

- turn HVAC 'off' when parking so that it doesn't fire up all at once when you turn car on

- wait a few seconds after turning car 'on' before shifting into gear... giving inverter and dc-dc time to 'pre-charge' internally as various systems come online

 

[mkhuffman]

My MME is also in for the HVBJB, just got it in Tuesday for the issue.

@DevSecOps has asked for the part number used when they put the new HVBJB in your car to see if maybe Ford has made a change we are not aware of yet. If you can, could you check that?

I drive my MME pretty hard... not extended 'tracking' full on accell/braking.... but 'spirited' driving in the mountains for sure as well as around town. I do have a Select AWD, with SR battery, and have less current load when accelerating than a GT or GTPE... but we've seen Selects fail as well, so I think contributing factors may include other things that might occur when Contactors are opening/closing.

I would consider the following practices as 'additional possibilities' that *may* reduce loads on the Contactors that *seem* to be the weak point of the HVBJB:

- avoid DCFC whenever possible, and allow 20 minutes after disconnect with MME 'on' to precondition and bring down battery temp before hitting it with drive loads. Extended time on DCFC at 100+kw is a lot more current than steady state highway driving, and there is a fair amount of heat building up around the charger and HV connections.

- if disconnecting L2 charge in progress, depress thumblatch, wait for clicks, and then pull the plug.

- turn HVAC 'off' when parking so that it doesn't fire up all at once when you turn car on

- wait a few seconds after turning car 'on' before shifting into gear... giving inverter and dc-dc time to 'pre-charge' internally as various systems come online

Seems like doing something feels better than doing nothing, but I saw at least one person report a failure and they have only charged using the 120V Ford charger. It doesn't get any easier on the system than that and yet he still has a failure. Pure 120V charging is rare and HVBJB failures are rare, yet someone has both.

Personally I think there must be some variation in the manufacturing process that makes some cars more susceptible than others. There are tolerances and while the parts are within spec, the combination of certain parts increase the chance of failure.

If that is true, there is likely no behavior we can change that will make a difference.

Just guessing again...

 

[LS61303]

@DevSecOps has asked for the part number used when they put the new HVBJB in your car to see if maybe Ford has made a change we are not aware of yet. If you can, could you check that?



Seems like doing something feels better than doing nothing, but I saw at least one person report a failure and they have only charged using the 120V Ford charger. It doesn't get any easier on the system than that and yet he still has a failure. Pure 120V charging is rare and HVBJB failures are rare, yet someone has both.

Personally I think there must be some variation in the manufacturing process that makes some cars more susceptible than others. There are tolerances and while the parts are within spec, the combination of certain parts increase the chance of failure.

If that is true, there is likely no behavior we can change that will make a difference.

Just guessing again...

@mkhuffman @DevSecOps Apparently my service center is expecting the new HVBJB this week which is a miracle, so I should be able to provide the number soon.

 

[heisnuts]

My MME is also in for the HVBJB, just got it in Tuesday for the issue. Just wondering what your experience has been like since you are one of the most recent folks who have theirs in. Have you gotten yours back? Was your service center able to get a HVBJB quickly?

Mine was down for 10 days and although they did offer a car I declined since my wife works from home we had another car at home.

I am coming up on 2,000 miles since my repair last month. This includes about 600 miles last weekend where I had 2 stops at EA stations for a quick recharge. The rest of the miles are work and my normal back roads pleasure cruising that still has not gotten old even coming up on 9,000 miles now. So far I have not had one hiccup with it since the repair.

I suspect Ford knows a lot more than we know here. I also believe they think they have a solution and might be rolling that out now on the cars that come in for repair. I have decided that I like this car so much that I am not going to let this setback ruin my enjoyment of it. I realize that there is a chance of another failure, but I just factor that into the planning that goes along with this car. When we were on our trip last weekend, I already knew where the local Ford dealers were located and made sure there were local Enterprise locations available too. I think the only thing that would nudge me to take our ICE car would be if we were going somewhere remote where there were either no DC fast chargers, Ford dealers and rental cars in the area we were going.

 

[LS61303]

Mine was down for 10 days and although they did offer a car I declined since my wife works from home we had another car at home.

I am coming up on 2,000 miles since my repair last month. This includes about 600 miles last weekend where I had 2 stops at EA stations for a quick recharge. The rest of the miles are work and my normal back roads pleasure cruising that still has not gotten old even coming up on 9,000 miles now. So far I have not had one hiccup with it since the repair.

I suspect Ford knows a lot more than we know here. I also believe they think they have a solution and might be rolling that out now on the cars that come in for repair. I have decided that I like this car so much that I am not going to let this setback ruin my enjoyment of it. I realize that there is a chance of another failure, but I just factor that into the planning that goes along with this car. When we were on our trip last weekend, I already knew where the local Ford dealers were located and made sure there were local Enterprise locations available too. I think the only thing that would nudge me to take our ICE car would be if we were going somewhere remote where there were either no DC fast chargers, Ford dealers and rental cars in the area we were going.

Thanks for sharing! 10 days really isn’t too bad at all, glad they were able to get yours hammered out. I will be doing the same thing as you when I get it back; I have a trip to Atlanta planned in August and I am going to be fast charging along the way, but before that I am going to fast charge here in town a few times to try and weed out any further issues before I am 500 miles away from home…

I learned today that Ford sent my dealer the wrong part (still working on getting part numbers) because they assumed it was bad and wanted to be proactive. While I appreciate them trying to get parts to dealers quickly, in the world of IT what they did is called “template matching“, which is always discouraged when troubleshooting issues. It baffles me that no one, not the service techs or Ford engineers that can see every bit of data from my car, don’t have a way to concretely determine a part failure instead of just throwing parts at it. Now I am down a week already due to them “assuming” it was one thing and making the service center wait for the wrong part. The actual part we need is backordered indefinitely of course… Really hard to be patient when its summer, I bought the car to enjoy it, and on top of that my loaner is taking $5/gallon gas that I otherwise would not have had to worry about. Meh.

 

[LS61303]

Thanks for sharing! 10 days really isn’t too bad at all, glad they were able to get yours hammered out. I will be doing the same thing as you when I get it back; I have a trip to Atlanta planned in August and I am going to be fast charging along the way, but before that I am going to fast charge here in town a few times to try and weed out any further issues before I am 500 miles away from home…

I learned today that Ford sent my dealer the wrong part (still working on getting part numbers) because they assumed it was bad and wanted to be proactive. While I appreciate them trying to get parts to dealers quickly, in the world of IT what they did is called “template matching“, which is always discouraged when troubleshooting issues. It baffles me that no one, not the service techs or Ford engineers that can see every bit of data from my car, don’t have a way to concretely determine a part failure instead of just throwing parts at it. Now I am down a week already due to them “assuming” it was one thing and making the service center wait for the wrong part. The actual part we need is backordered indefinitely of course… Really hard to be patient when its summer, I bought the car to enjoy it, and on top of that my loaner is taking $5/gallon gas that I otherwise would not have had to worry about. Meh.

@DevSecOps Feel free to reference the second paragraph of the post above for some additional details, but I was able to get the part number that they ordered and are waiting on (indefinitely backordered) - NK4Z666B. They weren’t able to tell me which part they received instead. Hoping you can provide some insight, and that this helps your research. Should I go ahead and start barking up the Ford corporate tree?

 

[DevSecOps]

@DevSecOps Feel free to reference the second paragraph of the post above for some additional details, but I was able to get the part number that they ordered and are waiting on (indefinitely backordered) - NK4Z666B. They weren’t able to tell me which part they received instead. Hoping you can provide some insight, and that this helps your research. Should I go ahead and start barking up the Ford corporate tree?

DM me with your VIN and we'll talk there.

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