12V Battery Replaced

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Pearl

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 13, 2016
Messages
283
Location
Northeast Ohio
I've had my CPO 2013 FFE for 17 months now. Never a lick of a problem with it. I had been having some annoying "Key Not Found" messages when trying to start the car for a few weeks. I assumed it was a nearly 5 year old Key Fob battery dying. It happened in both key fobs. I put off changing the coin cell batteries in both fobs. Yesterday, for the first time, I get a text message that the 12V battery is low, and please plug in the vehicle. I get out to the car about a half hour later, and it is totally dead, no dome lights, not instrument cluster, nothing. The battery voltage is about 6.5V, I plug it in to L1 EVSE. This morning, still dead, battery voltage dipped to under 5 volts.
I went over to a Ford Dealer, and bought a new battery (BXT-67R). Easily changed out the battery in about ten minutes. Everything is back on.
My build date is October 2012, so this seems reasonable for the original 12V battery to last nearly 5 years.

This was by far the easiest battery swap I have done in my entire life. No corroded terminals, no non-budging bolts, it wasn't snowing, or raining, or 10 degrees out. I'm quite happy with how it worked out.

The only part that puzzles me, is the very late "low battery" warning. It really didn't give me sufficient time to replace the battery before it had a fatal error.

In hindsight, I thing the inability to communicate with both key fobs aver the past few weeks should have been my warning that the battery was dying.
 
Pearl said:
I've had my CPO 2013 FFE for 17 months now. Never a lick of a problem with it. I had been having some annoying "Key Not Found" messages when trying to start the car for a few weeks. I assumed it was a nearly 5 year old Key Fob battery dying. It happened in both key fobs. I put off changing the coin cell batteries in both fobs. Yesterday, for the first time, I get a text message that the 12V battery is low, and please plug in the vehicle. I get out to the car about a half hour later, and it is totally dead, no dome lights, not instrument cluster, nothing. The battery voltage is about 6.5V, I plug it in to L1 EVSE. This morning, still dead, battery voltage dipped to under 5 volts.
I went over to a Ford Dealer, and bought a new battery (BXT-67R). Easily changed out the battery in about ten minutes. Everything is back on.
My build date is October 2012, so this seems reasonable for the original 12V battery to last nearly 5 years.

This was by far the easiest battery swap I have done in my entire life. No corroded terminals, no non-budging bolts, it wasn't snowing, or raining, or 10 degrees out. I'm quite happy with how it worked out.

The only part that puzzles me, is the very late "low battery" warning. It really didn't give me sufficient time to replace the battery before it had a fatal error.

In hindsight, I thing the inability to communicate with both key fobs aver the past few weeks should have been my warning that the battery was dying.

The 12V battery on my 2015 FFE just gave out. I received the text message about a low battery, and my car was also completely dead; couldn't even open the door without using the blade key. I would hook up my 12V jumper battery and everything came back alive. I noticed that the 12V battery had to have some sort of charge before my car would begin charging from either my L2 EVSE or L1 EVSE.

Replacing the battery (covered under warranty) fixed the issue.

Keith
 
Did you try to recharge and test the battery before replacing it? My car has randomly gone dead (as in 7v) in as little as 4 hours. Yet it tests ok when I have the battery charged and tested. Yeah and everytime I've gotten the 12v low text it's always too late. There seems to be something that randomly doesn't shut down in these cars and ford has no way of diagnosing the problem.
 
Did you unhook the battery from the car to charge it? first time mine went dead I burned up a charger trying to charge the battery because the car was trying to run a coolant pump or something. I guess motorcraft batteries are not what they used to be. my first motorcraft lasted 10 years. my second motorcraft I replaced at 9 years and was still working a year later when I sold my 68 VW that I had put it in as a temporary battery. I don't think I've ever gotten less than 8 years out of a battery. I guess I've just been lucky.
 
My 12V battery was dead this morning with 7v :shock:
I jumped it and was on my way. I'm pretty certain the battery is ok...just like triangles, will need to figure out where the draw is coming from.
 
I did not disconnect the battery when attempting to charge, but I believe the battery was dead enough which is why even after overnight charge it would not get up past 7V.

I did not try to jump start the car either, which probably would have worked, and would have only helped me avoid swapping out the battery in my wife's office parking lot.
 
I have found that the motorcraft 12v batteries are junk. They die mysteriously within 3 years or so. Not covered on a ice vehicle. Ive had 3 die like this on new ford vehicles, relatives have had similar experiences. My new to me 2013 ffe has a brand new motorcraft 12v in it. If it had been up to me I would have replaced it with an aftermarket battery, but the dealer uses motorcraft , so be it. If I end up with any issues related to the 12v battery I will not hesitate to replace it with one from advance auto.
 
Carbuff said:
I have found that the motorcraft 12v batteries are junk. They die mysteriously within 3 years or so. Not covered on a ice vehicle. Ive had 3 die like this on new ford vehicles, relatives have had similar experiences. My new to me 2013 ffe has a brand new motorcraft 12v in it. If it had been up to me I would have replaced it with an aftermarket battery, but the dealer uses motorcraft , so be it. If I end up with any issues related to the 12v battery I will not hesitate to replace it with one from advance auto.

Ditto. My Motorcraft gave up at just over two years. However, I've noticed that with a lot of batteries from various manufacturers. Both of my Nissans ('12 Armada, '00 Maxima) need new batteries every three years, like clockwork. That is true whether the battery is from Nissan, from WalMart, from Costco, or anything else. But, the battery in my 65 Buick lasted almost 10 years. I'm wondering if the constant drain caused by newer cars is the real cause of batteries not lasting as long as they used to.
 
Just to follow up, the battery was dead. I thought it would be pro-rated since it was replaced by Ford while under the 36mo warranty 37 months ago, but no, they don't. They only pro-rate if you bought it. So if it died a month earlier, they'd have replaced it for free.

Turns out this battery is an odd-ball. I'd have replaced it with an Interstate battery but you need to order it because the size and configuration is very uncommon. So, I ended up paying $135 at the dealer for a new battery. I charged up the old battery and but a load on it with a meter attached. It only gave 4Ah before the battery dropped to 10.39V and cut out under a 4A load. Then I took the dead battery in for my core deposit.

I was sure to get a clear explanation on how the warranty works. "SAVE THE RECEIPT", that's what my service adviser said..."you'll need it." Which is what I figured. These batteries are bad as mentioned earlier and as previously experienced myself. Anyway, if the battery does go bad, you do need to bring it in with the car so they can check the charging system...that's what they said. I suppose if they "find" an issue, it gives them an opportunity to make some money. I really like Costco's policy...they don't even check. Return the battery no questions asked...but as I said, no one has this size in stock; not even Costco.

So, at first sign of trouble, order your new battery so you don't have to buy another Motorcraft one.
 
5 years on my 12v BXT-67R. Works OK I think. ................. Reading this thread, maybe one should replace at 5 years regardless, just to avoid being caught. It's $135 at some auto parts stores, so the expensive dealership isn't the only option.
That same model of 12v battery lasted 3 years on a Ford C-Max I had recently, so I'm guessing a 5 year old one in the Focus is about ready for lead recycling.

I remember searching for a replacement BXT-67R-equivalent, and it seemed the Motorcraft one was as cheap or cheaper than a Duralast or something else, so I did replace with a Motorcraft. Comfortable with that, since I didn't know how "sensitive" the C-Max Hybrid system would be to some other brand with possibly different capacity. (An '08 BMW 530xi I had 3 years ago was weirdly incredibly sensitive to watt-hours capacity and internal resistance variations.)
 
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