Major Charge Fault had to call Ford Roadside

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FUEXXON

Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2013
Messages
11
I have 750 miles on the odometer. I started the day off after a charge on my "Ford" "Leviton" 240V 40 amp charger at 100%. I plugged it in when I got to work with about 50% battery life. The chargers at work are made by a company called PEP in Detroit and are 220V 30 AMP I think. I plugged the car in and walked in the office. About 10 minutes later I received a charge fault email. I went out to check the car and the charge rings were spinning around in a circle. I called the charger company in Detroit and spoke to a engineer. He told me to move the car to a different charger so I did. It plugged in and started charging and the charge lights went off as normal. I went in the office and received a email about 40 minutes later that the car was charged. Immediately following this email I received a series of three more that there was a charge fault. I called the engineer back and he told me he was seeing a diode fault on the car side. I went back a few hours later and took the car to lunch. It ran fine and no wrench light or warning. Came back to work and plugged it in and again received a series of 4 emails; 100% charged, charge fault, charge fault, Charge fault and not charging. I was convinced it was the charge station because we have had some pretty serious issues getting them going, well, I was wrong. I drove home and everything seemed fine; 28 mile commute one way. About 20 miles in the wrench light goes off with the warning. Right before this the car had 40 mile range left. I hit ok and cleared the wrench light warning and my range immediately changed to 10 miles and turned yellow and gave me a new battery low warning... o-boy. I got the car home and in my driveway and immediately tried to plug it into my "Ford" "Leviton" 240V 40 AMP charger. The lights were spinning on the plug adapter in a circle and would not stop as I exited the vehicle. I tried to plug it in and the Leviton charger made a cavitation type, almost mechanical, distortion noise. I left it plugged in for maybe 5-10 seconds and pulled the plug. I figured I would wait for the circle pattern on the plug to stop and try again. I did; it turned off and the same thing with the weird noise from the charger happened again. I was going to drive it to the dealership which is about 5 miles away but when I got in the car it read 5 miles and low battery. I called FRA and the tow truck showed in about 15 minutes. This was yesterday. The dealer called me this morning and said the one guy they have is out so they will not look at it until Monday; bummer. I am very disappointed to say the least. I love this car and expected issues but not like this. Anybody have similar issues? What was the outcome? I want my "FUEXXON" back; that is what I named my car :D !!! That hybrid Fusion is looking a lot better….. I really want this car to work!!! Please, anyone, console me!
 
It seems to me that if a problem is going to show up, it's going to happen during the first three months. Once the problems are ironed out things should be better. Hope fully when 3.5.1 My Ford Touch comes out will fix most of the software bugs.
 
Hang in there, fuexxon... thanks for the detailed report. Please keep us posted, hope it comforts you to know that folks here will learn from your misfortune.
 
Not looking good. Been with the dealer for a week. Something is really wrong but they can't tell me what. Called Ford customer care to see what they will do for me. One week of ownership and one week at the dealer.
 
Looking forward to your update, hopefully with a Problem Solved point.

Even better, want to believe that the key info. is shared with the right people at Ford dealerships.
(The one in Novato CA knew little about this FFE model when I was shopping last August; may be much better informed by now.)
 
Alright, here is the story...

No one is 100% sure what happened, however; it seems to be fixed. The only real culprit might have been software and a low 12V battery. For whatever reason my low voltage battery was putting out less than 12V. They flashed it with some new software and charged the low voltage battery and it is back and running good. At this point the dealership has had it longer than me but I still love the car... a little nervous about it but love it! I will also tell you that the new software they updated it with has changed some things. One: and it may be me and have not driven it enough but I think it is consuming more KW when accelerating. One thing that has definitely changed is that when I let off the accelerator it immediately begins to recharge the battery as if it was under braking. For example, now, when I go down a hill and let off the accelerator, no brakes at all, the same sphere that comes up under braking starts. It has shown a little difference in my average regen after a very short drive; cool!

In addition I thought my Leviton charger was fried... nope. Got the car home and it works perfect. Go figure. All is good and I am back saving gas money and burning electrons!!!!
 
Charged fine last night... Leviton started growling again this morning. Charge times seem outrageous too. On 50% charge, 110V plug charger was saying around 11 hours to charge. Poo! Thought I had it this time? No faults from the car yet but this is how it started last time.
 
A full charge at Level 1 is supposed to take around 18 hours, so 11 for half the capacity doesn't seem that "outrageous" an estimate to me. I've also noticed that the initial estimate is usually somewhat longer than charging actually ends up taking... probably just some built-in conservatism. But, if you keep checking while a charge is in progress, you'll notice the estimate "pulling in" as it goes.

Also be aware that the charging rate is not linear, it slows down as the battery's charge level goes up (e.g., charging the last 50% will take longer than the first 50%). You were already half full. I would not expect the time to reach a full charge from half would simply be the full 18-hour charge time divided by 2, it should be slightly longer than that.

Lastly, if your home has slightly low voltage from the electric utility (107 instead of 120, for example, which would still be within tolerance in the US), charge times will be proportionately longer. The 18 hour full charge estimate may be for a "perfect" 120V power supply.
 
Hi FUEXXON,

I had a similar issue with mine, the car would only charge from one outlet (110V) at my house, but no other charger or outlet. Turned out the outlet at the house that was 3-prong outlet that was wired incorrectly and had a "floating" ground wire (No-ground connection). The Ford dealership took about 2 days to trouble shoot the problem. They told me the fault isolation manual kept telling them to replace the battery. The contacted the Ford engineers and they had to rewrite the test manual to determine there was a loose connection within the charging unit located below the rear seat, access from below the vehicle.

I have what they wrote up on the repair receipt. I can provide that to you if the problem isn't fully fixed.

Now I have CopperTop running and charging great! :D :D
Just wish I could have gotten my employer to install chargers as well.

Good luck, and keep with it I believe the technicians at the factory may still have some new processes they have to get used to with this new technology.
 
WattsUp said:
Lastly, if your home has slightly low voltage from the electric utility (107 instead of 120, for example, which would still be within tolerance in the US), charge times will be proportionately longer. The 18 hour full charge estimate may be for a "perfect" 120V power supply.

Let's be careful with what we're saying here. While voltages can and do swing somewhat and still be within spec, 107V is just slightly outside the bounds of what's realistic.

In the U.S., the power standard is ANSI C84.1, which says that you should be getting 120V on each leg of your 240V service, +/- 5%. That means 114V-126V L1-N or L2-N, or 228V-252V L1-L2. Sure we can all see brownouts and surges beyond these tolerances, but this should be the norm. Here's an example of how PG&E meets the ANSI standard. The table on page 2 spells it out pretty simply.

Keep in mind however that this is the service entrance voltage, and you're "allowed" an additional 3% drop for subpanels, and 5% drop for outlets as the power leaves your main panel and go throughout your house. I put "allowed" in quotes because 1) As far as I know, the NEC only has recommendations for controlling voltage drop because it's largely already handled as an effect of the other parts of the code, and 2) most people over spec their specialty circuits to prevent this large a drop anyway.

Another way to look at it is that equipment manufacturers are aware of these types of fluctuating conditions, so to accommodate it they generally spec the operating voltage of, say an appliance, at 120V +/- 10%, which would be 108V-132V at the outlet, absolute worst case, and they're expecting the actual voltage to fall well within that range.

FWIW, in my modern construction home (~2010), I see almost no voltage drop at any outlet vs. what my service voltage is.


WP
 
Car has been running great but now they want it back. They are not being specific on what they intend to do but they want it for 2 days or more. In addition, my line voltage at the house averages 117v so low ac voltage was not the issue. It is definitely charging slower on low voltage, however; the high voltage charge seems to be going faster now that I have my level 2 charger replaced. I would guess 15-20% faster on level 2 and about as slow on low voltage. I will let the forum know what they do to my car.
 
Well, it died Monday with a issue with the low voltage battery. Died right on the charger. It was sitting for two days without being driven and when I went out to drive it the doors would not unlock... 100% dead. I put a normal low voltage charger on it and hit it with 40 amps@12V for about 20 minutes and it started long enough to get it on the flatbed and take it back to the dealer. It has been their all week and now they are telling me they are going to replace the charge plug on the car, the charger and a few other items. Probably will not see it for another few weeks. Not sure what I am going to do now?
 
FUEXXON said:
Well, it died Monday with a issue with the low voltage battery. Died right on the charger. It was sitting for two days without being driven and when I went out to drive it the doors would not unlock... 100% dead. I put a normal low voltage charger on it and hit it with 40 amps@12V for about 20 minutes and it started long enough to get it on the flatbed and take it back to the dealer. It has been their all week and now they are telling me they are going to replace the charge plug on the car, the charger and a few other items. Probably will not see it for another few weeks. Not sure what I am going to do now?

Well, unless you are a cyclist or can do public transportation, I would start by being a little nicer to Exxon. :p

Seriously though thanks for keeping us updated and good luck!
 
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