Car Shutdown after Back Hatch not closed properly

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MegaTron

Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2014
Messages
7
My wife was loading the kids for school and my son didn't close the back hatch good.

She started the car and found the hatch not closed, so they tried to close it and suddenly the car shutdown.

They checked the hatch and it is not closed al the way. They've tried to open it and close it but it will not go past a certain point; meaning, we cannot open the rear hatch or close it all the way.

The car is non-responsive at this point.

Any suggestions or ideas?
 
Very strange.

Maybe try opening/closing all five doors again? Perhaps that might reset something.

Is the car in park?

Can you describe in more detail what you mean by the car is "unable to turn on"? Does anything appear in the dash displays, are any indicator/warning lights on, are any sounds/chimes being made?
 
What exactly do you mean by shut down?? Won't drive? Completely dead, no lights no nothing?? Or??

If completely dead, look at the 12 v battery. Maybe the terminal is loose?


Otherwise call ford and have it towed to dealer. Not your worry
 
There are no lights or display coming on at all.

We plug it into the wall and the charger light illuminates solid blue but the charging ring does not light.

My son put his school supplies in the back and then closed the hatch but it didn't close all the way. It's now stuck between closed all the way and not opening. There is about a 3cm movement that it can be jiggled up and down but the hatch does not open.

The car will not allow us to unlock it with the remote, there is no other manual way we know of to get the hatch to open or close.

Any more thoughts?
 
One other note, the car is in park and we have also had the FOB with the car when trying to start and/or open the hatch.

I just had my wife open and close all the doors, but again, we cannot get the rear hatch to open.

One new update I just learned, my son was putting his stuff into the car while my wife had the key in a different part of the house, so he didn't close the hatch properly while the key was absent from the car, and then he tried to open it to reclose it.

That's when my wife went to the garage and found she couldn't start the car.

Wondering if this is some kind of security feature that has to be reset?
 
No, the car doesn't respond at all to the Key FOB.

Yes, we've tried opening the rear hatch with the FOB.

No luck in either case, and no response from the car.
 
You might try "resetting" the car's 12V system, which drives all the electronics. If you're comfortable doing so, simply pop the hood, and disconnect the 12V battery (specifically the negative terminal), wait a minute, and then reconnect it. Perhaps this will "wake up" the car.

In you're uncomfortable with this, but still want to try, I'd suggest thoroughly researching "disconnect car battery" on the internet until you feel confident. It really isn't that hard, but you need to know a few basic do's and don'ts if you've never done it before. In this case, you're basically going to disconnect the negative terminal taking care not to keep it and yourself away from the positive terminal, and then reconnect it after a minute. The negative terminal typically has a black cover, or is uncovered, while the positive terminal has a red cover. Also, always when working with electricity, best to remove all metal jewelry (rings, necklaces, etc.) that, if they touch something you didn't mean to, might inadvertently turn you into more of a conductor than you'd otherwise be.

If you have the required instruments (e.g, multimeter), you might also try measuring the state of charge of the 12V battery. It could just be an incredible coincidence that, when the liftgate incident occurred, the car was also about the die from a low 12V battery.
 
Thanks Whatssup,

Yes, I'm quite comfortable removing the negative terminal, so I'll try that in order to try to reset the system.

We thought it might be the charge was dead also, but we plugged it back in and it was not charging (i.e. charge ring not illuminated).

Thanks for the ideas and we'll reply back with the results.
 
WattsUp said:
You might try "resetting" the car's 12V system, which drives all the electronics. If you're comfortable doing so, simply pop the hood, and disconnect the 12V battery (specifically the negative terminal), wait a minute, and then reconnect it. Perhaps this will "wake up" the car.
As an alternative experiment (with a similar goal of waking up the car) that might be more familiar to you, you might also try simply "jump starting" the FFE.

Seriously, you can jump start the FFE just like a regular car. The other car's 12V system will power the FFE enough to wake it up and allow you to turn it on, at which point the FFE will start charging its 12V battery from the high-voltage battery (just like a regular car starts charging its 12V battery from the alternator once the engine is running). Then, disconnect the jumper cables, but leave the FFE on so the 12V battery will be charged (you don't have to drive the FFE around, that won't help, just leave it on).

The jump start procedure for the FFE is covered in the manual.

Although this may get the car "functional" again, I would still highly recommend having your dealer check-out the 12V battery.
 
MegaTron said:
We thought it might be the charge was dead also, but we plugged it back in and it was not charging (i.e. charge ring not illuminated)..
Even if the car's high-voltage battery has a charge, if the 12V battery is dead, all of the car's electronics will not function. This includes the charging circuitry. Without the 12V system working, the car cannot recognize the EVSE, nor flip the relays to charge the high-voltage battery. So, plugging in the EVSE while the car's 12V battery is low/dead will do no good. The car will not "know" it has been plugged in.

In that case, you'd either need to jump start the car (which might be able to charge up the 12V battery again, assuming it can be recharged and isn't damaged), take the 12V battery out and trickle charge it (with same assumptions), or swap in a fresh 12V battery.
 
Thanks again Wattssup.

I'll consider the jump if the reset doesn't work.

One other note that makes me think something odd with the battery, we left town for a few days and left the car plugged into the 120v charger for over 3 days straight. We didn't realize the car can discharge that way. When we got back we unplugged the car and then the kids loaded up to go to school, unaware the car could be sitting with a dead battery.

However, the only problem with the theory of there possibly being a dead battery is that we plug in the charger and the charge ring does not illuminate; curious I know.

Wondering if the reset will work if the battery is dead; if not, I'll try the jump start method you described and I'll of course refer to the manual before doing so.

Thanks again
 
Now after reading your last post WattsUp, I realize, the 12v battery and the other batteries are separate...duh.

It's probably a dead 12V battery and like you said, once it is alive again, the electronics will come back and we will be able to unlock the hatch.

Great tips...thanks again.
 
MegaTron said:
However, the only problem with the theory of there possibly being a dead battery is that we plug in the charger and the charge ring does not illuminate; curious I know.
Not curious at all if the 12V is low/dead. None of the car's electronics will work, including the charging ring. Although the overall effect may make it seem like it is, the charging ring is not actually "powered" by the EVSE... it is powered internally by the car's 12V system, and turns on once the car recognizes that an EVSE is connected and decides to start charging.

Yes, there was an issue with leaving the car plugged into an EVSE, especially the Level 1 unit included with the car, for long periods of time (days) resulting in the 12V battery draining. I say was because Ford had a recall for this problem that seemed to eliminate the issue by reprogramming the car's firmware. Perhaps you car does not have these firmware modifications applied?

What year is your FFE? Are you the original owner, and did you receive any recall notices (last year)? Have you had all the software updates applied?

Anyway, I hope you get it figured out. It really does sound like the state of the 12V battery is to blame.
 
WattsUp said:
Even if the car's high-voltage battery has a charge, if the 12V battery is dead, all of the car's electronics will not function. This includes the charging circuitry. Without the 12V system working, the car cannot recognize the EVSE, nor flip the relays to charge the high-voltage battery. So, plugging in the EVSE while the car's 12V battery is low/dead will do no good. The car will not "know" it has been plugged in.

In that case, you'd either need to jump start the car (which might be able to charge up the 12V battery again, assuming it can be recharged and isn't damaged), take the 12V battery out and trickle charge it (with same assumptions), or swap in a fresh 12V battery.

I consider that the one flaw in the FFE electrical system design - too much dependence on the small 12v battery its the weak link.
Because of that I feel safer with a good Sears 12v battery charger in my garage and keep a small portable 12v battery jumper device (has its own 12v battery that I recharge every 2 months) in the back.

I have even practiced how to get it out of the back if the 12v battery was too low for the electronic doors, hatch, and windows to work. Its possible to open the driver side door with the backup mechanical key in the FOB then get into the front seats and reach over to the back seats and pull the lever to pull down the rear seats then can jump into the rear area and reach back into the cargo area and pull out the portable 12v battery jumper device to then connect under the hood to the 12v battery to get the car to start in an emergency.

I also purchased on amazon a $5 12v meter accessory that plugs into a 12v accessory (cigarette lighter) port to always monitor the 12v battery level and hopefully catch it if it drops down close to 12.0V (normally 12.4-12.6V) as a warning I need to recharge it in my garage with my premium Sears 12v battery charger. Might want to do that once a month in any case to ensure the 12v battery stays in good shape since I don't drive the FFE daily.

I have only had one case where the 12v battery had dropped low enough (11.x volts) where the FFE wouldn't start. Luckily it was in my home garage and was in the first week I had the car but not driven it for a few days. I believe the 12v battery hadn't been regularly charged while on the dealer lot previously.
My Sears battery charger indicated it had less than 10% charge left, so I did a full charge on it and its been holding charge well since for the past couple weeks even without driving for a few days its still at 12.4V, so maybe it just needed that one full charge and doing that once a month or so might help keep it that way if you don't drive the FFE almost daily for longer trips where it would get a good charge from that.
 
Another option is to go into MFM and set alerts for the 12V battery. When my car was in the shop getting the High Voltage battery replaced, there was nothing there to keep the 12V battery charged. I got notifications via text indicating the 12V battery was low..."[email protected]:no subject / 03:50 PM: EV's 12 volt battery is low. Please plug the vehicle in." In fact, I got multiple texts with the same message...about 15.

Because the battery was dead when the High Voltage battery arrived, I got a new 12V battery too.

Anyway, just a thought.
 
I did get an alert but by then the 12v battery was too low already. It should send a warning before its too low to allow getting into ready to drive mode.
 
Since I experienced my first, and hopefully, only SSN, I keep the following items in my car:
Voltmeter plugged into the 12V accessory port to monitor the 12v battery
12V emergency portable jumpstart. I bought this one from Sears which has a handy push button charge level check.
OBD Bluetooth reader
Small notebook computer that has the Forscan software

My SSN was due to the ABS module failing to communicate to the PCM module. The dealer installed a software patch which seems to have fixed the problem. But after reading all the posts about the 12V battery, I decided to arm myself with a little peace of mind. I have seen voltages drop to 11.9 volts on my 12V battery, but the car still started. Anyone know what the low threshold is?

2014 FFE
 
NightHawk said:
I consider that the one flaw in the FFE electrical system design - too much dependence on the small 12v battery its the weak link.
The Volt seems to suffer from this also. I haven't had a problem with my FFE running down the 12V battery, even after sitting for two weeks... but the Volt has already sucked its 12V battery down to nothing (only once so far), after about a week of non-operation. Could not open the doors electronically, by remote or using the button on the door handle. Had to use the key. All was well after trickle charging overnight.

I'm wondering if other plug-ins have the same shortcoming...
 
The 12V battery is actually a good idea from a reliability point of view. Most car electronics were designed to run on 12V; lights, instrument panel, and the vacuum pump enabling your power brakes. If something happens to the high voltage battery, you wouldn't want to lose those things. The 12V battery also is quite resilient and inexpensive to replace if it gets drained so low it is damaged.

The main problem here is that Ford doesn't use the best batteries in their new cars. Both my Ford Flex and my FFE both required battery replacements before the warranty period expired.
 
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