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12 Volt battery died


mczajka
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I wanted to post my recent experience. I've had the car since March with no problems other than some minor annoyances which I will have fixed. I use a Motorola Droid Razr and the MyFordMoble app. I receive text alerts from the car with status configured online.

 

I last drove the car Tuesday evening. I came home at about 6:30 PM. It was hot that day, so I left the garage open for a while and started charging on Level 2. I unplugged the Level 2 early, at 7:55 PM, and got the warning alert that the vehicle had an accidental unplug while charging in the app. The vehicle had about 17 miles of capacity. My phone was set to charge and was sitting near the garage, in the house.

 

When I returned home from work on Wednesday (I did not drive), about 21 hours later, I tried to start the car and it was completely dead. No lights went on when I entered it, and nothing would work. I had not received any low 12 Volt battery alerts.

 

I did try to plug it in with the Level 2, but there was no response from the car. The ring by the port on the car did not light up like it normally does (which makes sense if the 12 Volt was dead). I did receive a text alert though, which I saw at 5:30 pm. Perhaps at that moment, it somehow got enough power to send a message to the cloud that the 12v battery was low? The message was odd...it said "ENERGI'S 12 volt battery is low. Please plug the vehicle in." When I plugged the Level 2 in, the communication to the car did not initiate, so the light on the SPX was not blinking, so I figured nothing was happening. But perhaps there is some way it can draw power and charge the 12 volt battery? I don't know. I did not leave the Level 2 plugged in.

 

I used a friend's 12 volt battery charger (not sure I even used it right though...the car had a positive and negative terminal, but this appears designed for jumping, because the negative just looks like a bolt. I connected it for about an hour, and it appeared to do something because I was able to power the car on and get the engine running in EV hold mode by pressing the accellerator.

 

So my question is, will the Level 2 somehow trickle charge the 12 volt battery if it appears not to be initiated with the car? I did plug the Level 2 back in and completely charge the large battery after the 1 hour 12 volt charge session. Hopefully during this process the 12 volt was also charging more. I don't know. We'll see what happens when I get home tonight after the car has been sitting for another 18 hours or so. I'm still going to take it in for service to get the 12 volt battery tested.

 

 

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The 240 volt charger will charge the 12 volt battery after it finishes charging the HVB.

Typically when I get the text message that the HVB has been charged the yellow light on my Leviton charger is still on.  Sometimes it stays on for a couple more hours before it shuts off.  The current draw by the charger is very low during this period.

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You might check out TSB 13-5-1 (HYBRID AND ENERGI - 12VOLT BATTERY UNABLE TO HOLD CHARGE - CHARGING IMPROVEMENTS (SUPERSEDED BY 13-6-23))

 

http://www.fordservicecontent.com/pubs/content/~WT/~MUS~LEN/3545/tsb13-05-01.pdf

 

 

You can also check out my TSB cheat sheet for more TSB info... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aq27rda5d4oedDVENzJYckQ1U2Y2WXdNZWFXWmhmY1E&usp=sharing

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Something must not have shut off like it was supposed to after you unplugged the car.  Another software bug?  The car cannot charge either battery unless it has power to the on-board electronics in the car that are responsible for charging the batteries.  I know that while waiting to charge with the charge setting set to "Value Charge", the on-board electronics consume 60 watts of power waiting to charge.  Some of that power is used to charge the 12 volt battery until it is time to charge.  But I think it needs to 12 volt battery to initially supply the power.  Otherwise, it gets the 60 watts from the charger.  

Edited by larryh
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Thanks. The car has been fine since, and it is in for service this morning for a 12 volt battery check and a few other minor things. I included the battery tsp. I've also been careful with my cell phone and the connection to the car (but this is still all a mystery to me).

Edited by mczajka
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My battery tested fine. I've since disconnected my phone and bluetooth until I can figure this out (which I can't imagine draw that much power). The fans are running a lot more though with the extreme heat. They run everytime I stop in traffic or at a light. I saw another thread about how the Volt works, because people have had 12 volts go dead on them too, after sitting for a while. This thread talks about how the Volt 12 Volt battery gets charged: http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?58489

 

I'm working to get an answer from Ford on how the Energi models work in this regard. Murphy above said this "The 240 volt charger will charge the 12 volt battery after it finishes charging the HVB." Which could be the case, but I want to verify with Ford. I would hope the 12 Volt is charged like the Volt, during the HVB charge and while you are driving.

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12 volt died again today after a full big battery charge late last night. Drove to work today in 80 deg. temps, a/c, radio, cooling fans go on when I stop in traffic. 2 miles of range left when I parked. 8 hours later, dead as a doornail. I need to take a day off to get this fixed but will be forcing them to install the latest battery TSB, even though it references cold weather. Car is still in a garage in DC. When I arrive in DC, could the battery be at such a low state that the built in AT&T connectivity (to update the cloud) is killing it?

 

Build date was 2/12/13

Edited by mczajka
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The 12 volt battery should be charging the entire time the car is in run mode.

 

I have measured a current spike of over 10 amperes (the limit of my meter is 10 amps) when I request an update from the car via myfordmobile.   It takes several minutes to settle back down to the static draw of around 0.2 ampere.

 

Doing a global window close after the car is turned off is a significant load (5 motors at the same time) on the battery.

 

I have a voltmeter, that plugs into a power tap, in my car all of the time.  Quite often when I turn the car on it shows 11.1 volts.

 

IMHO the battery is way too small for the load it has to handle.

 

I had the original TSB installed before it was replaced by the new one.  I have seen no effect on the battery voltage decay when the car sits unused for a few days.

 

I wonder if the HVB fans fire up when the car is off if it gets too hot.

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Back to the cooling fans for the big battery. I don't like the fact that these can go on when I get near the car, and the car hasn't been powered on yet. Again, all these things have happened only in the last two weeks as the air temp. started getting into the upper 80's/90's. When I first got the car, and for several months, the cooling fans would only go on when charging the car at night, and it appeared that there were a few fan power levels...like low, and high. High would kick in, in a hot garage.

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I just wonder with the heat why we haven't seen more people in Phoenix and other parts of the country complaining. I have to go on vacation in Aug. and the car will be sitting at the airport for 6-7 days. I have a battery powered jumper ordered but you shouldn't have to do this with a $42,000 car.

In case it does die have you practiced unlocking the car with the metal key?

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Yes, I couldn't figure it out last night. After reading the online manual, it was still confusing, but I figured it out this morning, charged the 12 volt for 1/2 hour, and I was off and running back to the dealer. My battery jumper is coming tomorrow. It should be interesting when I go on vacation next month and leave the car sitting in the airport lot. Perhaps I should get a solar trickle charger.

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In all my driving so far the fans have never come on if I'm stopped in traffic or stopped at a traffic light.  I hope your dealer can diagnose and resolve your issue mczajka.

 

I have never purchased a first model year vehicle with the thought that any bugs would be resolved in subsequent model years.  But I decided to buy a 2013 because I wanted the Ginger Ale Energi Titanium.  So far so good with my Energi, and I do not regret not waiting.  Anyone else?

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I agree Nherring. Hey, my car is still at the dealer. After two days of troubleshooting with no problems, I had them drive it around one more time then let it sit last night. I got a low battery notification and some strange info coming from the Ford App. Bet your Energi can't do 255 miles on the battery like mine can! LOL...Waiting for service to call me back after they try to get into the car, which I think it dead. At least I got this alert this time. I haven't been getting any notifications.

 

Hey, I have the range of a Tesla!

 

Low 12 volt battery alert

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Ford needs to come up with more robust/failsafe control hardware/sofware for the car.  If things aren't working properly, the software/hardware should degrade gracefully.  It needs to recognize things aren't working properly.  If the 12-volt battery is low, it needs to stop the drain on the battery.  For example, don't connect to Ford Mobile when the 12-volt battery is low or do other things that require a lot of power that aren't really necessary.

 

Unfortunately it is difficult to thoroughly test and debug such new and complex designs, anticipating every possible contingency.  And the initial buyers are forced to help debug their products and identify quality problems in their manufacturing processes.  I would hope after they get all these problems straightened out they would at least thank us for the risks that we are taking when buying a newly designed product in which the bugs have not all been worked out by at least providing software updates to the control modules (which we would have in the first place had they tested the problem earlier).  I really like the Fusion Energi.  I would be very disappointed if it did not work correctly and were continually plagued with problems.  It has a lot of state of the art and innovative engineering design.  It would be ashamed if they could not come up with a reliable way to execute that design.

Edited by larryh
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The 12 volt battery should be charging the entire time the car is in run mode.

 

I have measured a current spike of over 10 amperes (the limit of my meter is 10 amps) when I request an update from the car via myfordmobile.   It takes several minutes to settle back down to the static draw of around 0.2 ampere.

 

Doing a global window close after the car is turned off is a significant load (5 motors at the same time) on the battery.

 

I have a voltmeter, that plugs into a power tap, in my car all of the time.  Quite often when I turn the car on it shows 11.1 volts.

 

IMHO the battery is way too small for the load it has to handle.

 

I had the original TSB installed before it was replaced by the new one.  I have seen no effect on the battery voltage decay when the car sits unused for a few days.

 

I wonder if the HVB fans fire up when the car is off if it gets too hot.

So if the charge on the 12 Volt battery is low, the car is going to contact MyFord Mobile drawing current which spikes over 10 amps from the battery and doesn't die down for several minutes so that it can send out a notification that the battery charge is low?  If the battery weren't dead yet, that would probably finish it off.

 

How do you measure the current from the battery without disconnecting it?  If you disconnect it, then you will have reset everything as described on page 244 of the manual.

Edited by larryh
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And yes, the car is dead. This is good for me, because now I hope they believe what I am saying. Unfortunately, you have to use the car to get it to fail. If you use a charging station every night, you may not uncover this problem. This is all building up to me going on a flight in a few weeks. I hope it's resolved by then, otherwise when I return, my car will be dead in the airport parking lot, and I will have to use my new battery jumper.

 

This brings me back to the Volt, which I really wanted, but due to my height, the comfort factor is nowhere near the Fusion. But I recall them driving Volts in the deserts and in the snow, testing it for years.

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This is a good question. I don't think so. It was only about 1 gallon of water and the wells that hold the air compressor and charger caught it, as well as the covering over them, which appears to be designed to capture liquid in the case of a spill. What a horrible design this would be though if this stuff wasn't protected. Wouldn't you agree?

 

I've since contacted the dealer to let them know about this. Thanks for reminding me. The car was fine right after this happened and wasn't really a problem until a little over 3 weeks later. I immediately caught the spill and was able to dry out the top piece which can be removed.

Edited by mczajka
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