Battery replacement at 25k miles (2024 XLT)

[CobraboyHB]

Gonna run the charger for about 5-6 hours then take it on a half hour cruise. Then will check it the next day and see if charge is still low. If so, off to the dealer, as we have 36 month 36K bumper to bumper warranty.

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[OxygenMask]

Gonna run the charger for about 5-6 hours then take it on a half hour cruise. Then will check it the next day and see if charge is still low. If so, off to the dealer, as we have 36 month 36K bumper to bumper warranty.

This is common issue across nearly all late model higher trim Fords. Installing a better battery helps tremendously, but the real answer is the computer monitors charge/discharge and "decides" the battery is low. Usually it's actually not. The start/stop feature is actually a huge culprit, example: Wife goes to Costco, 10-15 minutes each way. Something like 15 stop signs/traffic lights. It takes more than 10-15 minutes of alternator charge to replace what it used to start the car 15 times.

My wife's Escape started giving the battery saver message at 32k, eventually it was almost every day. I charged it overnight with a regular battery charger. Then did a BMS reset. Hasn't done it again in 3 months, so it didn't need a new battery. Yet... A lot of people install a trickle charger and use it occasionally and never had the problem again.

 

[Buellsox]

Toggle off your vehicle hot spot (unless you use it) & auto software downloads. I’ll do the updates manually. My voltage kept dipping too low over a couple days and it would reset my dash from the measurements option back to default. Once I turned those 2 things off it can sit multiple days and doesn’t reset.
I had also toggled off my connectivity, but then realized it killed communication to my Ford app which is how I start my truck a majority of the time as my key is downstairs in a faraday case. But I did only turn the bare minimum to get the Ford Pass App to connect.
Just some ideas….

 

[FergyA]

This is common issue across nearly all late model higher trim Fords. Installing a better battery helps tremendously, but the real answer is the computer monitors charge/discharge and "decides" the battery is low. Usually it's actually not. The start/stop feature is actually a huge culprit, example: Wife goes to Costco, 10-15 minutes each way. Something like 15 stop signs/traffic lights. It takes more than 10-15 minutes of alternator charge to replace what it used to start the car 15 times.

My wife's Escape started giving the battery saver message at 32k, eventually it was almost every day. I charged it overnight with a regular battery charger. Then did a BMS reset. Hasn't done it again in 3 months, so it didn't need a new battery. Yet... A lot of people install a trickle charger and use it occasionally and never had the problem again.

Mine just started losing charge for no reason when sitting, nothing to do with the high battery demands of the vehicle. Those are a given, but when you lose 20-30% battery charge over a weekend while doing nothing besides sitting parked, (and there are no abnormal drains) that's not something even a slightly undersized battery should be doing, regardless of anything else. New battery fixed that, so I'd say it's a bad batch of Ford OEM batteries that went around.

I say this because auto stop/start won't even function while the battery is low. It bypasses until the battery returns to a nominal state of charge (I haven't seen the actual threshold, but if I were to guess I'd say it's probably >85 or 90%). When I was on the bum battery I could drive enough in a day to bring the charge up to where it would reactivate (usually only on long trips), but then 2 days of sitting later the battery would be back at 65% and auto stop/start would again be disabled. That's not a design problem. Now with the new battery even after sitting for a week the auto stop/start usually only takes 10 mins to kick in instead of needing over an hour at 65mph+.

 

[NevadaBob]

This may be the same issue the gen5 Rangers had. The BMS will only allow the battery to charge to something like 80%. Apparently this is fine unless a lot of your driving is short trips, like 15 or 20 minutes or less. If you do a lot of short trips it will never get charged even to 80%. Something like that anyway.

I read that people were having success using Forescan to change the BMS max charge from whatever it was up to 90% or so.

I went through a couple of batteries in the two years I had my 22 Ranger Tremor.

 

[superj]

@NevadaBob is exactly right. your bms setting is 80% if you look at it in forscan. i have not had a battery issue but i noticed the setting two weeks ago while playing in forscan so i raised it to, i think, 93%, so it would charge the battery more. maybe 92 or 95 but somewhere around there.

my truck doesn't have the issue you guys have though since mine is an xl. i don't have all the sensors and stuff but still, the battery setting is to low from the factory.

 

[OxygenMask]

@NevadaBob is exactly right. your bms setting is 80% if you look at it in forscan. i have not had a battery issue but i noticed the setting two weeks ago while playing in forscan so i raised it to, i think, 93%, so it would charge the battery more. maybe 92 or 95 but somewhere around there.

my truck doesn't have the issue you guys have though since mine is an xl. i don't have all the sensors and stuff but still, the battery setting is to low from the factory.

I wonder what their reasoning is. 80% is good for lithium but these are simple lead acid... Maybe EPA - less outgassing?

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