First Major Repair on Battery

As most of you know, I'm the Sales Manager at Havill Spoerl Ford in Fort Atkinson, WI. We have become the top FFE dealer in the midwest. Recently we had one back in the shop for a battery issue, a first for us. We sold the car new and saw no issues at delivery. The battery meter read normal with the full charge at delivery, I don't remember exactly what the reading was but it was enough for their trip home 40 miles away. After a short time of ownership, the customer started noticing the meter was only reading 35-40 miles after reaching a full charge. As the car is only an in town commuter, the distance shown wasn't a concern so he started plotting the information in a graph and taking notes. After a couple of weeks he sent me an email about the peculiar charging behavior. He noted that his lifetime kWh average was at 200 and that he was still only getting 35-40 miles showing on a full charge. According to those numbers, I figured he should be showing closer to 100 mile range. The part of his email that struck me was that although the car showed a full charge, it still said 2 hours remaining to full charge :shock: . As I thought about it, it seemed to me that only a third of the battery was actually being charged. We decided that it was time to bring the car in and have our technician look at it. The big fear though was that with only 40 miles of range and 40 miles of highway driving, the car wouldn't make it. With help just a phone call away (we were ready to send out a flatbed if necessary), he ventured our way. He did call in when he was just coming into town, worried that he might not make it across town, and asked if he should stop at my house and get a couple extra miles. We told him that if he can get to my house, he can make it to the dealership as it's mostly downhill from there. He managed to get in under his own power.

We had our technician start looking into the issue right away. First thing he did was confirm the issue, it was weird seeing a fully charged meter with the screen still saying 2 hours charge remaining. I'm not sure of all the technical diagnosis that he did, but I know he focused on the voltage differential between the cells of the battery. The pack needs to fall below a certain millivolt differential to function properly and this one was not. The initial procedure is to plug the car in to allow the batteries to re-balance. Initially the batteries were more balanced, but still not within spec. We contacted Ford Hotline for assistance and they mentioned to try the process again, for 24 hours, since it improved the difference. We tried one more time, but this time the differential increased. We called Hotline again and they decided that we had tried everything that we were capable of and that the battery would have to be sent back to Ford for inspection / repair. Ford sent us some specially built wood crates to package the battery in, our technician removed the battery and got it sent out. The removal process was actually fairly easy, with space constraints for the lift being the toughest part.

After a couple days, we got word that the battery was unable to be repaired and that Ford was sending us a new battery pack. We recieved the new pack, installed it into the car and immediatly the battery charge range went over 100 miles. That was what we thought it should have read all the time, with his low kWh average. We did a final check-over to make sure that everything was functioning properly. When that passed all of our tests, we had our detail dept. re-detail the car as if it was a new car delivery. Although the customer has loved the car to this point and would love it even more with the extra range, we wanted to go above and beyond for them. The customer picked up their car, and sent myself and our Service Manager emails thanking us for the way we handled the entire process. I sent him a thank you back as well as he was the one inconvenienced with the loss of his car (we did provide a hybrid as a loaner). It was great to have a customer so interested in the details and technical side of the issue. I know alot of people would have been upset without their new car for a couple weeks, but he was just happy that we kept him informed through the process and ended up with a fix that met or exceeded his expectations.

That, ladies and gentleman, is how dealership customer service should be done!

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Hey Guys. I am the Service Manager at Havill-Spoerl Ford Lincoln, where John works. I also own a FFE and have over 10K gas-free miles. I also have a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid with over 130k miles on it. I have to say, it was nice to have everything flow for this repair, and to have a customer that was as interested in the process as we were. He was a pleasure to work with and made everything much easier. John was correct in that the battery did not give much indication that there was a problem, just a range/charge time conflict. No codes in the system at all. It made perfect sense that the battery was not working properly when we understood what we were looking at; the HV_BATT_VAR_V, which was the diffence between the highest to lowest battery cell charge voltage. The cells are 4V each, and there are 88 of them. The variation maximum was supposed to be less than .015V, but ours was .312V. They advised us to keep the charger plugged in for a few hours until the battery was over 90% charged according to the scan tool. We did this and saw the reading drop a bit after a few hours, so we kept it plugged in for 24 hours. After we looked at it the following day, the reading had reversed course and started to climb. Eventually it read .317V, and it was apparent that it was not going to correct itself. Ford prompted us to use a process developed for just this situation, and encouraged frequent updates to them and the customer. I have been working for Ford for 25 years. Ford has been producing electrified vehicles for over 10 years. This is the first battery replacement that I have encountered, and it was bad very early in it's life-cycle. I have a lot of confidence in their products and their commitment to customer satisfaction.

I'm really relieved to hear that the removal/replacement process was fairly easy; the videos from the factory had me concerned.

Would you mind providing an idea of the time elapsed between when Ford decided the battery pack could not be repaired and the replacement battery arrived at your dealership? My Focus is currently at my dealer with a new pack(s?) on order; my Service Manager said that he would let me know when he had shipping information, but I'm curious about what kind of time-frame we're looking at. --[The pack seems to have failed/been defective in a similar manner to the one you replaced (HEV_BAT_VAR_V of about .22V and getting worse daily)].

I wish I could come to your dealer for service! Thanks for sharing and for treating your customers well. If only all Ford dealers would take that same attitude!

My car died of an SSN. Battery diagnostics were run. It took 3-4 days to determine that the battery was bad. They packaged it up and sent it to Ford. Service rep told me they replace the battery, but I think they just repaired it. The turn-around time was 3 weeks on the battery. By the time all was done, it was a 40 day rental. 6 weeks from car in to car-out.

Great story John.

Hope I never have to play the card, but I'll keep you guys in mind if my dealer has trouble fixing something. You are at exactly the too far range - 95 miles.

EVA said:

You are at exactly the too far range - 95 miles.

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Any charging stations in between?

Oh I'm sure there are.

Re: Gladestorm,
The entire process took 21 days from start to finish. I believe the time from determining that the battery was un-repairable to our doorstep was about 7 days. I'm pretty sure we delayed the process by 1 day, just to make sure our ducks were all in a row before ordering it through normal channels.

Thanks Bolt - I wasn't sure what the supply chain looked like. I'm on day 6.

EVA said:

Oh I'm sure there are.

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There are three charging stations in Rockford that are not too far from the interstate. Believe me, I've considered this option if I were to purchase a car from John.

davideos said:

My car died of an SSN. Battery diagnostics were run. It took 3-4 days to determine that the battery was bad. They packaged it up and sent it to Ford. Service rep told me they replace the battery, but I think they just repaired it. The turn-around time was 3 weeks on the battery. By the time all was done, it was a 40 day rental. 6 weeks from car in to car-out.

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Did Ford cover the rental car expenses during this period?

Yes, they paid the whole $1200. The service adviser said that Ford would call me and offer to pay my fuel expenses, but they never did. I'm not too upset that they didn't, but it would have been nice.

But be sure if you get a rental that Ford is designated to be billed. The dealer was designated for the first 3 days and once it was determined that it would take longer, Ford took ownership. I called the service adviser just to be sure. There was no time when I was responsible or may have been responsible to pay the bill. Just be sure of that before taking a rental.

davideos said:

Yes, they paid the whole $1200. The service adviser said that Ford would call me and offer to pay my fuel expenses, but they never did. I'm not too upset that they didn't, but it would have been nice.

But be sure if you get a rental that Ford is designated to be billed. The dealer was designated for the first 3 days and once it was determined that it would take longer, Ford took ownership. I called the service adviser just to be sure. There was no time when I was responsible or may have been responsible to pay the bill. Just be sure of that before taking a rental.

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Thanks. Covering the fuel would have been nice.