Stop Safely Now Warning

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JTCalif said:
My wishes, in next EV: better visibility (less blind spots), a bit more range, more efficient heater, and ... a manufacturer that clearly cares about the car. Should make enough, advertise them, and improve the design in time. Would be good if Ford corporate asked what I thought of the car (as they make so few), and if I have recommendations.

Anyone else here old enough to remember the jingle...

"See the USA in your Chevrolet..."
 
After two and a half years of uneventful driving, I got two SSN notifications in less than a week. Both times were when I was braking for a stop sign. Took a bit of fiddling to get the car to restart, but luckily I didn't have to have the car towed.

Needless to say, it's off to the dealer tomorrow to find out what's going on. The car has been so reliable that it's a shock to have this happen twice in such a short period of time.

It's a 2014, and the car has been in for the harness and reprogramming of the powertrain recall.
 
PLEASE do share what you learn, after car is back from service.

What did you mean by "a bit of fiddling?" to get car to restart?
~ ~ ~(maybe open/close door, pause for ___ time, press button, ... OR ?)
What caused the SSN?
What should keep it from happening again?
Are you in a part of out country that gets much snow in winter?

Our FFE has be similarly trouble-free (touch wood), but I would like to be prepared.
 
Mine has been in the shop for three weeks now after an SSN. Will not run. It's dead. No estimate yet of how long it will take to fix.

Lease is due for return in a few days so I may need to have the hulk towed in. Arrrrggghhh
 
It is my turn , SSN appeared on the screen with 3 people inboard and a loaded car back from 3 days off. WOW a 63 pages on SSN problem!!!!!

Never have a problem with the car , but crossing my finger that event never come on the car ; i read a lot on this .30 sec after SSN flash in the dash i called CAA road assistance to tow the car because it is the only solution. The guy from the towing let us know there is only 1 person who can be in the towing , so we have to call the famely to pick up the other two.....

The dealer call me on the first workable day , this morning , and tell me ,like many others , to be patient beecause they have to send the batterie at Ford in USA (Michigan ??? ) to inspect.

I asked for a car for probably 4 to 6 weeks if everything go well. I asked too for an EV but they dont have in spear. Because EV are on the expensive segment in price i do not expect or dreaming to have one by the time the FFE will be fixed .
 
Folks,

I had my FFE for 3 years and finally returned it since the lease was up. The SSN warning came on for me about 6 times and I posted a video about it on YouTube. Was in the dealer 4 times and they couldn't figure out how to fix it. They replaced the entire PCM, then an electrical shunt.

Ford issued recall 13S09 back in 2013 which was supposed to fix the defect and here we are 3 years later still talking about something that they supposedly fixed back in 2014 with a recall.

As I scan through these posts, I'm struck by how little mention there is of law suits or lemon law claims on this issue. There are vague mentions of "lawyer time" or "I would have filed a lemon law claim," but no action.

Have any of you filed any lemon law claims or law suits? What was the outcome? Feel free to email me privately if you don't want to go public.

I'm just curious because my Lemon Law arbitration is coming up soon. Will let you know how it goes.
 
TO ALL FFE OWNERS WHO'VE SUFFERED THE "STOP SAFELY NOW" issue and most others who haven't. I am currently going through the SSN issue from hell. About 2 month ago I got the message, along with a half dozen more warnings, upon starting the car to head for work. The car had to be towed to the dealer. They found the 12v battery dead and replaced it. They also performed some TSBs that were shown for the car. All was fine for a month or so except that my range started to really drop off. It was a very cold period (many mornings below zero) and I wrote it off to that. About three weeks ago the same thing happened. The car was again towed to the dealer. This time they immediately replaced the 12v battery and got the car up but with warnings and codes. Further diagnostics revealed the high voltage wiring harness was suspect. This harness is covered under FSA #15N03. Both the 12v battery and the high voltage wiring harness issues are well know, well documented and acknowledged by Ford. 60,000 miles will be the minimum for coverage with the harness now under extended warranty. This dealer (where I bought the car) admitted they were not certified to work on the FFE and did not have the equipment needed to do the harness replacement. The car was shipped to a dealer in Madison that was equipped to do the work. When they received the car they also replaced the 12v battery which they said failed the load test. Their diagnostics confirmed the wiring harness as bad. During the harness replacement a number of broken and damaged parts were discovered. Ford declined the warranty work because of the damaged parts. After 2 1/2 weeks I had to pay $3200 to get the car back on the road. Since then I have had extensive talks with both dealers, filed a complaint with Ford, and am in the process of writing a formal complaint to the Ford Legal Dept. I am sure none of these will get any relief and I am angry and frustrated! Ironically, I love the car, even though I now hate Ford. All of you out there BEWARE! These are very well known and easily fixed problems that should be covered 100% under warranty. Make sure you can trust your dealer and that you know exactly what they are going to do and how much they intend to charge you.
 
Dear Lespin,

I feel your pain. This happened to me as well. Luckily mine was a lease and I gave it back.

I felt that since this issues seems to be happening across the board, I tried a few big time legal firms to see if they would be interested in filing a Class Action Law suit. Basically, there is enough evidence years after the recall that Ford didn't fix the issue. None of the firms were interested in taking it.

So, I filed a Lemon Law Claim in California with the Better Business Bureau who is the designated arbitrator (yes, you can still do this with a lease)... Spoke with a lawyer on the approach and pitched my case to the arbitrator, with Ford Motor Co. dialed in from Dearborn, MI.

In the end, I won the case and was reimbursed nearly all of my lease payment, about $10K for the Ford Focus Electric Lemon.

Not sure what the laws are in all of your states, but in California, here's what you need:
- Proof that you tried at least 4 times to have the issue repaired by the dealer and all paperwork, and that the issue still exists. I had all the dealer paperwork, and video from my iPhone of when the SSN error occurred with mileage.
- Evidence that this issue is a significant risk to injury or value of the vehicle.
- Mileage that the failure started.

Lespin, not sure what the Lemon Law provisions are in Wisconsin (or wherever you reside), but you might be able to take a similar approach. Let me know if you need more details.
 
lespen said:
During the harness replacement a number of broken and damaged parts were discovered. Ford declined the warranty work because of the damaged parts. After 2 1/2 weeks I had to pay $3200 to get the car back on the road.

What was "broken and damaged" and cost $3200 to fix?
 
After having the recall work done, wiring harness replaced and connectors repaired (by shipping the battery off for that work) -- I had a SSN message yesterday. Luckily, it was in my neighborhood and I was able to stop safely....now. :)

Anyhow, turning off the car, opening the door and then restarting worked fine, and it didn't throw that message the rest of the day.

Though there are no warnings on the dash, do we know if the dealer can see the history as to why it decided to do this? I thought with all the recalls, mine would be good to go. Apparently not.

To be fair, one of the loaner cars I had last time (a brand new < 100 mile V6 Mustang) left me stranded. Had to Uber home and they came to tow it back to Enterprise.
 
I had taken my car to the dealer twice with SSN issues before the recall work. The first time, I did the open-close door thing to get the car going and took it to the dealer later that day. No issue was logged and no defect found. The second time, I actually tried to get the car to start again, but it wouldn't. So I left the car on while in this failing mode and had the car towed to the dealer. Even with the car in a failing condition, there was no log of the failure. But this time, the determined it was the battery and crated it off to be fixed.

With that said, I don't know if Ford has improved the FW to log such issues. I think the issue here is that many failures result with similar symptoms. Although the work you had done likely covers many failing conditions that owners have experienced, I'm sure it doesn't cover everything. Hopefully it was a glitch...as uncomfortable as that may sound.

One thing I can think of that you might check on is the condition of your 12V battery. It seemed early on that some SSN issues were attributed to low 12V battery voltage. Software fixes were apparently put in place to prevent over-draining of the 12V battery; however, if the battery is starting to be faulty, that could be the cause.
 
2014 Ford Focus Electric - 39,330 miles as of 04/20/17 - all recalls/updates completed

Last fall, had 2 SSNs, both coming to a stop after driving slowly in a residential neighborhood. Normal re-set of the car worked. I took the car in and Ford had it for a few days and were about to pull the HVB, but then decided to reload the software. Car was fine until end of February.

From February 24th until April 20th, I experienced 10 separate SSNs. At first, similar to last fall, driving slowly (residential area) coming to a stop with the SSN warning and normal re-set. Then, instead of a warning at or approaching a stop, it didn't occur until I started moving after a stop. A couple of times, I was able to continue to drive with the SSN message on, which was weird. I did it just to see what would happen and nothing happened. The other times, when pressing down on the accelerator after a stop, the car would lurch, the SSN would signal and the car would stop/die. Toward the end, it was happening after a long wait at a red light, press down on the accelerator, lurch and die. I was always able to re-set the car. It was interesting to see how the SSNs were happening in similar circumstances, but changing slightly (almost stopped, to completely stopped, to attempting to move again, then almost guaranteed at a long stop).

Normally, I downshift to L when approaching a stop. I changed to braking only. That didn't seem to help. At first, the SSNs were a few weeks apart, then got to be nearly every day, and two times twice a day. The last few days before the appointment, every time I came to a stop, I put the car in park as I waited for the light to change or was just at a stop sign. Once ready to move, shift to drive and off I went without an SSN. I may have just been lucky doing this. It's not the most efficient way to drive. I also was probably lucky not to have a situation where I couldn't re-set the car.

I get the car to the dealer. The dealer was able to replicate the SSN. The dealer worked with the Ford hotline for several days testing this and that. Finally, they found that the "HVB disconnect not latching all the way and causing same message (SSN) to come on." They replaced the disconnect switch. I picked up the car on May 2nd and all seems right with the world. It might take me a few more days not to constantly monitor the traffic situation (for a possible SSN) or looking down at the dash expecting to see an SSN when I take off from a stop to driving normally without the stress of SSNs.

The Ford service guy was funny. He said working on this car reminded him of the Geico commercials with the guy saying "I'm not a security guard, I'm a security monitor..." The car's software was clueless as to what the problem was, but it knew it had a problem. My MyFordMobile account did document the SSNs with "Warning light on".

I could have taken the car in right away, but I live in a mostly rural area, and I was closely monitoring what was happening with making notes on my iPhone (mileage mark, time, when the SSN alert happened). Then, I became curious as the timing of the SSNs changed. I told the Ford folks all of this. The SSNs only happened at stops. The few times with people behind me, they had wait 13 or 14 seconds until the car re-set.

Anyway, I just thought I'd post this so that if anyone else has a similar issue they might want to have Ford look seriously at the HBV disconnect switch.
 
Ford Focus Electric 2012, 53,000km logged and no troubles till now.
Car would not start and got the yellow wrench and SSN error. Had the car towed to the ford dealer and they recharged my 12v battery.
4 Days later same problem, so i decided to check and my 12v battery was dead again.

I have been reading for years now on this forum and still i ask what is causing the battery not to charge? Apparently my battery was tested and it works fine, even after 3 years, therefore i assume its something that is not charging the battery. So i am asking what do i tell them at ford to look at since they have no clue.

As well 6 months ago i went in for a recall where they say they had to remove my main battery and clean the contacts and put some kind of lubricant on them to keep them from rusting and eventually ruining the battery. After the work was complete the person told me that i was lucky my battery was clean, especially since i only winter drove the car for less than 1 month last year.

One problem i noticed when i got the car back 6 months ago was that frequently the car when i started it would ask me if the car was still plugged into the charger? i had to answer no and press start again to start the car. This problem never happened before. Kind of strange this started happening all of a sudden after they touched it.

Anyhow i will wait till ford gets it and let them recharge the 12v battery for the second time so they can now see the problem is bigger than a fluck 1 time battery dead. They kept asking me if i forgot lights on or something, i assume they think i killed the battery by mistake, i guess they are wrong now and the real problems begin.

I will keep people posted on my situation and possible fix!!
 
Bill said:
I could have taken the car in right away, but I live in a mostly rural area, and I was closely monitoring what was happening with making notes on my iPhone (mileage mark, time, when the SSN alert happened). Then, I became curious as the timing of the SSNs changed. I told the Ford folks all of this. The SSNs only happened at stops. The few times with people behind me, they had wait 13 or 14 seconds until the car re-set.

It sounds like you and I are cut from the same cloth. It is often more important for me to understand the entire nature of a problem than to get it fixed quickly. :D (Plus, I know that providing them more information which characterises the problem will improve the chances of bringing a real solution.)
 
nuuk1 said:
Ford Focus Electric 2012, 53,000km logged and no troubles till now.

I have been reading for years now on this forum and still i ask what is causing the battery not to charge? Apparently my battery was tested and it works fine, even after 3 years, therefore i assume its something that is not charging the battery. So i am asking what do i tell them at ford to look at since they have no clue.
The problem isn't that your car isn't charging the battery. The problem is that is doing something when the car is off that drains your 12V battery dead. I had this happen to my FFE with faulty EVSE. The EVSE had a false GFI trip so it wouldn't supply 240V to the car. Well the car realizing it was plugged in was running one of the coolant pumps. Since those pumps run off the 12 system and there was no incoming current to charge either battery you can guess what happend... I burned up a charger trying to simply charge the 12V back up. The problem was that pump was still trying to run and my battery charger couldn't handle the load of the pump and charging the battery.

nuuk1 said:
One problem i noticed when i got the car back 6 months ago was that frequently the car when i started it would ask me if the car was still plugged into the charger? i had to answer no and press start again to start the car. This problem never happened before.
I think this is the smoking gun to your problem! This kind of gives us a hint that you may have a fault in the charge port or related circuits/modules. If the car thinks its plugged in and it really isn't, it may be trying to run pumps or other 12V systems that would otherwise be fine to do when plugged in and the EVSE is energized since the HV battery would be charging and the DC-DC converter would be on to charge the 12V battery and run the 12V systems. Good luck. Hopefully you get some savvy techs that can exorcise the demons. Keep us informed with what happens.
 
Update:

Apparently they ran tests and found that the ABS module was over heating the relay (possible fuse??)
They switched relays with others that were not over heating and they say that the new relay was also overheating therefore ruling out a faulty relay. The have since ordered a new ABS module and i am waiting for it to come in. Problem is that it is no longer covered on the warranty but they will somehow cover a portion of the cost.

At that time they will test to see if i am still losing charge on the battery to see if the problem is fixed.

I did a few things though, i checked and noticed that the have never changed my wire harness which ford has often said might be defective on these models as well as other people on these forums.

Second i mentioned maybe my battery was just shot and needed replacement, but they said they had tested it and it was fine.

My biggest concern was that had a part been pulling electricity from the 12v battery i would not be able to start my car in the morning, but i was driving all day and when the car stopped thats when i got the error. I noticed when i plugged in the car the charger would not start and the whole ring was flashing off and on and i looked in the car and when i pressed start the SSN error came on.
Had the battery been dead the next day i could conclude that something was discharging the battery, but since i stopped the car and the error came on the battery was already dead. I tested the battery and it was at 2amps. Dead! Therefore i assume the dc to dc converter was not charging the battery, hence the dc converter is broken or the battery was dead.

I told them just put a new battery and we will know for sure, but they said they had to follow ford recommendation to change the ABS module which is a big job $1000. I was trying to tell them this to save time but apparently this car is serviced by so few dealers, even they are confused.

So now i drive my SUV and blow $100 dollars a week in gas, they had the car 3 weeks. Either way i will end up the loser. I'm sorry but i think Ford really dropped the ball on this experiment, car haha.

I love this car i hope it ends up well. Has anyone out there ever fixed this problem?
 
Hello,

After a long while, I'm back. I thought I'd posted an update but sadly I now see that I didn't.

The conclusion of my SSN saga ended up ok. The dealership and Ford came through for us. They supplied us a cost-free rental while the car was being repaired. When we got our Focus back they cut us a cheque for all our gas expensed incurred while we had the rental, and then some. Thank you for that, Ford. I just wish we hadn't been kept in the dark as to what our compensation would be until the very end.

We kept the car until September 2016 when our lease ended and returned the car to Ford.

Encouraged by Ford's "doing the right thing" and by the new larger battery and DC charging, and by zero percent lease financing, an increased Ontario government rebate on this vehicle to $14000 and a $3500 price drop from last year's model, I went in the first week of May 2017 and leased another FFE (2017)! I couldn't turn down the deal. It's $245 per month all in with a 20,000km per year mileage allowance. A friend of mine also came with me and leased one for himself, and then his sister did a few days later!

Here's to hoping the SSN problems are history never to be repeated! Come on Ford! I'm trusting you!

Minus the problems, we loved our Focus Electric!
 
Got a 2017 FFE two days ago, I've had the SSN problem twice now. Not sure what the next step is, particularly since it's so soon after getting it. I've contacted the dealership so I'll see what they say.
 
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