mikekoz

Here is a pic of the device which they removed. They did not do a good job of describing how this would affect the operation of the car however. My phone is working with the car as usual and everything else so far is working fine. We picked it up a few weeks ago and so far so good, but I am not going to trust the car until it works normally for several months. It apparently is the TCU as they said though. I have never used any of the functions this module controls so will not miss it! We were given paperwork on what was done to the vehicle, but I am at work and do not have access to it right now.

I have done that a few times since we have had the car and at the end of last year the 12V battery was replaced twice. Calibration was done by Ford and our local auto repair place various times. Ford did it a few times when the car was in warranty. I am going to start driving it again tomorrow and will see how it does. I will not be able to use my phone with the car though. I do not talk and drive but have sometimes played music via bluetooth using my phone or iPad.

Thanks, but they have already done the work and delivered the car to us. I am going to start driving it to work tomorrow so we will see how it goes! If it dies again within the next 30 days (I do not know what their guarantee is on their work) I will just try to get the repair cost refunded and we may have to put money into getting a used vehicle. I am really hoping this resolves the problem because I really do not want to buy another car! 😔

Well, we finally took the car to our Ford dealer and this is what they had to say: Just got done talking with the technician about it. We have found that the Telematic Control Unit is what is turning on and is killing the battery. The unfortunate part is the due to the age of the vehicle, this part is now obsolete and we are not able to get it. This specific part isn't something we can get as a used part either because the TCU uses an internal sim card to connect your mobile devices to the vehicle allowing data between the two. When the TCU is activated in a vehicle, the SIM card becomes activated and is then tied to the serial number of the TCU. The TCU is also associated and registered with the VIN of the vehicle so the TCU unfortunately is unable to be swapped from one vehicle to another. The only options we have currently is to plug the TCU back in and risk it continuing to kill the battery or we can leave the TCU unplugged which only disables the use of mobile devices with the vehicle. They explained it a bit further to me and apparently if they leave the TCU unplugged, we will just not be able to use our mobile phones with the car. I can live with this right now as I never use this feature and just do not talk on the phone while driving. On the other hand, it is a bit odd to me that the part is obsolete, but I am betting a lot of that problem is due to the electronics in this car are made overseas. I also think Ford stopped making the Cmax back in 2018. Have any of you out these had this happen, I am curious!?

Thanks, but that post does not describe the problem we are having. I will call Ford and see what they have to say then make a decision from there. I do appreciate the help!

I guess we will have to take it to Ford. After almost 4 weeks, the car just died again! ? I searched for a recall that would fix this problem, but did not find anything. Does anybody have an idea what Ford would charge for fixing this problem? Our car is long out of warranty and we really do not want to put much money into it.

Our Cmax Energi Has been pretty much dead since October of 2022. Our local repair shop replaced the 12V battery in it and it was OK until just after Christmas. I brought it back to them about a month and a half ago and they reprogrammed the modules, whatever they are! Worked fine for 10 days, then back to deadsville! This past Sunday I removed fuse 79 and charged the battery, and so far it has not died. I may try this workaround if just removing the fuse fixes the problem. If it does, and I cannot figure out how to install this relay, I could always get a bluetooth speaker and play music while I drive from my phone! Everything else on the touch screen seems to work. We really do not want to bring the car to the dealership. It has done this a few times during the 8-9 years we have had it and may just end of selling it if I cannot get it running.

That has been replaced twice since this problem started. Once back in October and again when the car was worked on this last time. I am not an expert, but maybe the main battery is going bad. It has lost about 60% of its capacity since it was new and maybe it quit.

We took the car a month or so ago to our local repair shop and they diagnosed the problem (or what they thought it was) and reprogrammed the system computer and the car worked fine for about 2 weeks. About a week or so ago, I was driving it to work and the audio system started malfunctioning in an odd way. The system would turn on, but the volume control would not work and I could not turn it off. Fortunately, the volume was not too high! It had done this before and normally this was a sign that the car was about to die again, and that is what it did. This past weekend I jumped it and it started up, but after about 5-10 minutes it was dead again. Normally when I jumped it the car would work for a few hours. I guess the only thing left for us to do is take it to Ford and see what they can do, but I think the fix may be more money than what we want to put into it. If we do not take it to Ford, it will turn into an expensive decoration for our driveway! ?

We have had this car for about 10 years and as the title states, the car is just completely dead. I can use a portable jumper to start it, and after that it will work for several hours, but once I park it, it dies again. It has done this randomly ever since we had it, but this is happening more frequently now. About two months ago we had the 12V battery replaced in it after it died, and it has worked great up until a few weeks ago. I was going to have it looked at to see what the problem is, but has this happened to any of you? If so, what was the problem if the battery was OK? If the problem is with the main battery, the car is probably pretty much totaled. The last time I spoke to somebody at Ford about that they told me the main batteries in these vehicles were about $13,000.00 dollars. The main battery capacity is maybe 1/3 of what it was when it was new, but still gives me about 7-10 miles of all battery driving. Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you. I think I need to actually ask them tomorrow or Thursday when they get the new battery if they reset the battery age parameter. I will ASSume they do that, but you never know! ;p). Looks like I also need to invest in a battery charger.

I actually looked at that one, and the Genius 10 and am considering one or the other. How long does the 5 take to fully charge your battery?

I put off buying a charger until I was able to take the car to Ford, which was this morn. We did get a new battery for it in July of 2019 and it is bad already. The guy at Ford said it went bad because the car sat in the driveway for three months without being driven. This does not sound right to me! Our Edge also sat for several months before being driven and it was fine. I have been driving since I was 18 and I have never had a battery go bad this quick, NEVER. I am 60 now! I know everybody says "they do not make things like they used to", but really!!?? They are replacing the battery under warranty so cost is not the issue here. I guess I should buy a charger, but now we are considering just selling the car and I do not want to put a lot of money into this thing. At the same time, I do not want this to happen again. Is the person at Ford correct? Can the 12V battery go bad because the car is not driven very often?

Thank you. I was actually looking at that one. The only thing it did not seem to have that I was looking for was a way to put a quick connect\disconnect attachment on it. It would be used outdoors as our garage is used for storage. I wanted a way of running a cable out to the car from the garage. Putting a quick disconnect on the terminals under the hood then running it out the front of the car with the hood down seemed like a good idea in case it rained.

I think getting a battery charger is a good idea, even if I need a new battery now. I have looked at a bunch on Amazon. Do you, or anybody out there, have any suggestions? Is one any better than the other?

I looked in our glove box and came up empty. I also logged into my Ford account online and did not find any record there, so I am guessing the electrical problems the car was having last year were fixed without replacing the battery. I also found a few videos on YouTube where people had the same problem. Right before it happens, the audio system flakes out. That has happened to me every time this has happened. Some say that this is a problem with the ACM and to pull fuse 79. Apparently, when this happens and the car is turned off, the ACM still draws power from the 12V battery and drains the battery. I had to pull that fuse and another a few times to get the audio system working again, but never realized that the ACM would do this.

We have a 2013 Cmax Energi. The Sync version has not been upgraded on the car in several years. I do not even know if there is an available update. The car can connect to our home wifi, although it seems to have a limit on the length of your wifi password. I would have to do a temp change to our router password to connect the car. My question is, can I even update Sync this way? I do not want to go through the trouble if this is not going to work anyway!

Thanks everybody. I am also going to call them tomorrow to see if they have a record of replacing the battery. I have looked everywhere, but do not see any receipt or paperwork for a battery. Will this charge the battery? I use this to jump start the car. You cannot see them, but it has two jumper cables attached to it on the other end. My guess is no as it has a battery built into it, and it would run down long before 12 hours, if that is what is needed to fully charge the car battery.

We have a 2013 Cmax Energi that is about 6 years old. We bought it while Ford was closing out the 2013's and got a pretty good deal on it. When all this Covid crap started, I stopped driving it and it stayed in the driveway for over 3 months. Last month when I started driving to work a few days a week, the first time I went to start the car it was dead as a doorknob! This has happened a few times, but normally after I jump start it, then drive it a bit, everything returns to normal. I just figured it was dead because I had not driven or started it in 3 months. Last week when I was going to take it to work, it was dead again. I connected our portable charger to it to jump the battery, and it started. I only let it run for about 5 minutes or so as it was really hot outside, and did not drive it. After I disconnected the battery, it went dead again. This morning I went out and the car was dead again, and I put a multitester to the terminals under the hood where I attach the jumper cables to, and it registered 2.1V. After jumping and starting the car, I drive it for about a mile or so, and after turning off the engine, the battery tested at 12.6V. The car started and the electronics seemed to work afterwards also. I will see how it is later today, but my big question is, is our 12V battery going bad? We thought we had it replaced last year, but we cannot find the receipt. Last year we had an issue where the car was dead almost every time I went to start it, and even when it did start, some of the electronics in the car like the audio system and electric windows did not work correctly. I saw on another post how to get to the battery, but apparently to get the date on the battery it has to be removed, and I just do not feel comfortable doing that. Any ideas???

I cannot get into the technical specs of my battery, just the real life effects of age. When our Cmax was 2 years old and under, the car would go 15-24 miles on electric power. The battery gauge on the dash would show 18-24 miles after a fill charge depending on the temperature outside. Now, after owning the car for six years, the gauge will show 8 to 11 miles, and in reality, gets less. I would say the battery craps out after about 6-10 miles. Ford said if the battery goes, they are about $13,000 to replace, which is about half of what we paid for the car, so it would total it. The car still runs great and Ford said it is possible the car would still operate on gas only if the battery completely went out. The cars warranty has expired, but I am not sure how the battery warranty works. I think they told us it was seven years, but not sure if it is 7 years or after so many miles like the rest of the car.

I think maybe this update is supposed to be installed by the dealer!

I just did a search and found the same info you did, so what I downloaded will not work. Does anybody have a link to version 3.10?

I did receive that notification in the mail, but the link it gave me did not have the software there, or I could not find it.

Here is the link I used: https://owner.ford.com/support.html#/categories Supposed to be an update to Sync3. I would assume if the software was not compatible with the vehicle, one would get a message during install stating so! Or maybe not and my audio system goes POOF! ? I just went there logged in under my account, choose my Cmax, and downloaded the files and instructions. I will try the trick with the fuse!

We currently have a 2013 Cmax Energi with no navigation. Over the past few weeks, when playing music using a USB thumb drive or hard drive, I get some sort of error flashing on the screen (Comes up and leaves too quick to read), then the system shuts off, reboots, says it is doing scheduled maintenance, then works OK for about 10-15 minutes before it does it all again. I do not have the problem if nothing is plugged into the USB ports and I am playing the CD player or radio. I just downloaded software update 5.11 and will install it this eve and hope it fixes the the problem, but have any of you seen this? Thanks! Edit: I am going to assume this version should work with our car since the webpage had me put in the vehicle type and year after I logged into Syncmyride! ?