Battery dead

[TnTravler]

Well I've been rocking along (last dead battery was mid-April) fine until yesterday...dead battery!  Instead of having it towed again I connected the battery charger to the car and it started right up...although I got a "Starting System Failure" warning light when I cranked it.  That light went out and I got a yellow wrench symbol that told me to see the manual.  Anyway, I moved the car in the driveway and shut it down...It cranked up again right away.  This morning dead battery.  I guess I will call the roadside assistance and have them come out so it will be on record with Ford.  If it starts (they can tow if not)  I'll take back to the dealer (they had it a week last time) and see if they can figure out what's up.  I'm thinking about ordering one of the gadgets off Amazon that you can plug into the 12V ports inside...that still seem to be working for people?  I know this car is going to let me down when I am on the road...thankfully all events have happened in my driveway.   

[bymaine]

Has anyone had a dead battery in a location other than their house? Seems like almost everyone is finding the CMax dead in their garage (as all 3 of my failures)...

 

- As wrbrooks suggested - could EV+ be continuing to search using GPS thru the night?

- Could bluetooth be searching for our smartphones that are possibly in range thru the night?

 

Another question we may ask is if all/some failures are occurring with paired smartphones?

 

I just left the car at an airport for a week, and it started right up. Wondering if this would be the case if it was left at home? 

 

More food for thought....

[Noah Harbinger]

Has anyone with battery troubles turned off EV+, and had the problem go away? I thought it was interesting that both EV+ and EcoCruise were off by default when I got mine, but that may just be someone who was messing around during testing / test driving. 

[salsaguy]

Noah if i remember correctly from reading here on the forums,  yes they are OFF by default fresh from factory until activated, but actual users should chime in here

[bymaine]

Both were off when I originally picked up the car. I have had them on since then. 

[barrier2entry]

Yes.  My first failure was less than a week after I purchased the vehicle and it was at a friend's house (to which the car had never been before)...

 

Has anyone had a dead battery in a location other than their house? Seems like almost everyone is finding the CMax dead in their garage (as all 3 of my failures)...

 

- As wrbrooks suggested - could EV+ be continuing to search using GPS thru the night?

- Could bluetooth be searching for our smartphones that are possibly in range thru the night?

 

Another question we may ask is if all/some failures are occurring with paired smartphones?

 

I just left the car at an airport for a week, and it started right up. Wondering if this would be the case if it was left at home? 

 

More food for thought....

[bymaine]

Yes.  My first failure was less than a week after I purchased the vehicle and it was at a friend's house (to which the car had never been before)...

barrier, thanks for the feedback

[Don O.]

Status report & update.

Bought CMAX SE on 12/12/12

1st 12V battery failure: 1/18/13. 12V battery replaced. (Had been jumped at home & towed in)

2nd 12V battery failure: 2/23/13. Could not verify a problem. (Had been jumped at home & driven in.)

3rd 12V battery failure: 5/06/13.  Jumped at home & driven in. TSBs 130413 & 130501 performed.

All failures while in the garage for 3-4 days without starting.

Had left it for 4 days in garage in early June without starting as a test. No problems. Lights came on & started immediately.

On 6/16/13, CMAX was out in drive overnight in 1/2" of heavy rain. (Done as garage door needed to be repaired...).

Started immediately on 6/17/13; current date.

No problems or issues to date since 5/06/13.. I do not use a smartphone. No onboard GPS. Present mileage about 2600 mi.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Don O.

[rtshinn]

Well, my Energi was dead this morning. I ended up driving my truck to work.

I was too concerned about getting to work to give it much thought. I have a call in to the dealer, but I'll jump it when I get home.

The bad/good news is this didn't show up until just now. I've had the car since Feb 2nd.

That means whatever the failure mode is, it can occur at any time.

[TnTravler]

Quick update...my car has been in the shop two days. Talked to the advisor this evening and he said they are talking with the Ford engineer trying to figure out what's wrong. They had them check for water in the connectors, wiring harness in a couple of different spots...all to no avail. When I got it to them it had "2 warnings" showing on the panel...He says the car is showing 10 codes on it right now. He also said that the TSB's outlined don't apply...not sure if that's because of the build date (3/21/13) or why exactly. He said they have checked the battery drain when off and it is fine, not discharging. It was strange, after I got it started the clock showed 7:34 and never advanced on the 30 minute drive to the dealer...I pointed it out but not sure what that was about. I called Donlen fleet to see if they kept a data base of company cars, wanted to advise them, but they said they didn't. With our company having what must be several thousand cars on the road and the new CMax being what they are going to it will be interesting to see what happens. I was on the front end of getting a CMax, others will as they move to their next vehicle. I will post as things progress.

Edited June 20, 2013 by TnTravler

[rtshinn]

DUH!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Battery dead again this AM, but I think I may know what’s happening.

 

Both times I went to Swenson’s Drive In to eat. After you finish eating you turn on your car headlights to get the server to take the tray.

Last night for sure, I left the headlights in the ‘ON’ position.

This morning after the car was dead, I looked at my Vehicle Settings on the left display and my Home Light setting was set to Manual, which means that the lights won’t turn off automatically.

Don’t know if I accidentally set them that way or if it was reset during the 3.5.1 upgrade. Who knows.

 

I’m going to watch and see how it behaves after this and let you know. I have a battery jumper I can take with me that works fine to get it started.

[Laurel]

We get a persistent ding, ding, ding, ding if we leave the lights on and exit the car..  I guess you didn't?  I didn't even know that  a person could set up the headlights in "vehicle settings".  I just use the knob left of the steering wheel.

[rtshinn]

I did not hear it

[advsysal]

As a final follow-up for my CMax which was having battery issues...  After the dealership had the car for over a month trying to figure out the issue with Ford engineering, we were able to work out a buyback through Ford. This process took several more months as Ford outsources the customer service department for their buyback program to another outfit who was less than stellar to deal with. We now own a Prius V which starts reliably. Definitely miss the CMax power.

[rtshinn]

Ok, my theory is invalid. Dead battery again this AM.

Dealer coming to get it in about 1/2 hour.

[salman]

By my memory, Advsysal is the 3rd buy back reported on this forum. 

 

It seems as if water intrusion into the electrical connectors (see thread by that name for details) is not proving to be a widespread cause of dead 12 volt problems, but I would still recommend that anyone suffering an unsolved 12 volt problem make sure their dealer has checked the connectors.

 

And it seems the TSBs with software upgrades related to battery charging are not fixing the problem.

 

All of which means the root cause still remains an unsolved mystery.

[TnTravler]

Got my car back this afternoon.  They did a couple of updates TSB 13-5-1 (12 volt battery unable to hold a charge), TSB 13-4-22 (Wrench Lamp with DTC P061A/U1011/P060C - Reduction in vehicle power), and  TSB 13-6-22 (Hybrid/Energi - Check Engine and/or wrench lamp and various DTCS).

 

On the clock not advancing (since I jumped it) - From the service tech to engineering: "Any known concerns for this problem tried unhooking the battery and setting clock multiple times and only the cluster changes and the radio display stays the same."  Ford Engineering response - "Clock accuracy concerns are currently being investigated by engineering.  Please continue to monitor OASIS for updates for this concern."    But I left the lot with the clock not advancing. You can go through the set menu and when you hit enter nothing happens.

 

On the dead battery - the tech asked Ford - Is there known concern for all these codes checked main 12V battery and it passes all test at this time.  

 

They gave me the printouts from the "Self Test" but it looks like gibberish to me.  They are print screens for "Secondary OBD Control Module C" & "Body Control Module (BCM Module)"  These are the codes:

DTC              Module

B10D7:87     BCM

B1287:11     BCM

P0887:00     SOBDM-C

P1934:87     BCM

P1A10:00     BCM

U0140:00     PSCM

U3001:00     BECM

U3003:13     PSCM

U3003:16     BECM

U3003:16     BCM

 

Fords response was check for water in all the points that have been outlined in other posts + check the wiring harness in two spots to ensure no chaffing.  They also said the vehicle is equipped with two Data Link Connectors..ensure customer does not / did not have a Snap Shot Device from their insurance company connected.

 

tech says they checked all these items and did the updates and no codes present.  Ford says release to customer.

 

We will see. 

Edited June 20, 2013 by TnTravler

[Adair]

Do you have navigation? If so, you can try to sync your clock with the navigation. Mine has worked fine since doing this.... Good luck on the other stuff. Our collective fingers are crossed for you!!

[TnTravler]

Do you have navigation? If so, you can try to sync your clock with the navigation. Mine has worked fine since doing this.... Good luck on the other stuff. Our collective fingers are crossed for you!!

No navigation...but thanks for the suggestion!

[mbedit]

I'm sorry to see people are still fighting this issue!

 

I hadn't checked back in awhile, but I got a call from Ford Engineering out of the blue today, and it was related to these continuing issues.

 

In a nutshell, it sounds like they are working multiple software issues that have been causing batteries to drain.

 

They were looking for some more info, and while my replacement C-Max has been working fine, the line of questions did spark recollection of an odd incident I had a few weeks ago.

 

I was just parking when my phone rang (which is synced to the blue tooth). It rang through the C-max sync, but I didn't answer it, instead I shut the car off and exited. I ran an errand, and came back, and when I restarted the C-Max and the phone went to sync, it started to ring through the sync, and it said it was the person that called me when I exited the C-Max. When I tried to answer, it would say something like connect failed, but then it would keep dialing and ringing through the C-Max.

 

I believe I had to turn the blue tooth on my phone off, and force a disconnect and then turn it back on and reconnect it to make it stop!

 

Anyhow, Ford said that this is still one issue that others have reported and they speculate that the phone module isn't dropping the blue tooth connection for some people, which in turn is causing the module to run and drain batteries.

 

They also said Ford is very very aware that there are still issues and are really working hard to sove them, which is why I think they are reaching out a bit.

 

I still haven't had any real trouble with my replace now, going on 6 months, and I hope I don't, but this issue certainly seems to be taking a toll on an otherwise fine vehicle.

 

I see people are speculating about rain issues, and maybe there are some that have some sort of issue, but it rains like a mad-man here, I park mine outside because I don't a garage, and I still haven't had any issues (knocks on wood!)

[salman]

mbedit

 

the concerns about rain - more specifically water intrusion into electrical connectors - came to the forum from me. After I had the TS B software updates done in May I had another dead battery episode. Ford engineers told my service dept to check 5 connectors for water intrusion because, evidently, they had seen a problem there before. My car had been high pressure washed by the dealer after the TSB updates (very nice of them!). Turned out that a couple of my connectors had water in them and Ford had the dealer replace the whole wiring harness, a $900 part if memory serves.

 

Since then I have posted several times advising people to have their service dept ask Ford about the connectors. Does not seem to explain many cases..... which means it is still a bit of a mystery.

 

Pretty amazing that the engineers are still calling you. Clearly you established a good relationship with them.

 

Thanks for posting this information.

[Laurel]

mbedit thanks for checking in and updating us.  Interesting info. that you related.  I'm glad your new C-Max is serving you well (knocking on wood too).

[mbedit]

Wow. Good to know Salman!

 

Mental note to self. No pressure washing of the C-Max!

 

Laurel, thanks, Ford also said they still have the buy back and they are going through it and trying to recreate some of these other issues. 

 

I saw on the Poll Thread, that the 201A model seems to have taken a jump in hits! The two low base models still seem to have the most hits, but I think someone pointed out that those models are likely to sell more units due to the lower cost.

[homestead]

Anyone know when they fixed the wiring harness for water intrusion?  Would be good to know when they

started building cars with the new harnesses.

[salsaguy]

with the true root cause stll unknown, it's very likely that a strange combination of software bugs and cell phone situations could very likely be contributing to this. if it was purely hardware it would be more repeatable and easier to diagnose.  if it was just software same thing.but it's definitely a special situation / combination that causes it. Ford and most auto companies have very smart engineers on their teams, so if they can't solve a problem I'm sure it drives them crazy, as it makes them look bad to the customers and to their peers.