Charge Fault - won't charge

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TexaCali

Well-known member
Joined
May 12, 2014
Messages
122
Location
San Jose, CA
Hey Gang,

My 2014 FFE has been relatively trouble free, but now it won't take a charge. I've tried both the factory Level 1 charger and a Level 2 charger with the same result. Car is set to "charge now", after the usual relay clicking and hearing some fluids move around, the entire charge ring flashes on and off. Turning the car on and looking at the charging page it just says "Fault".

I've checked the fuses under the hood. Is there any sort of simple "reset" procedure that might clear the fault? I'm going to take it in, but there is only 25% on the battery and I'd like to at least get some more charge into it so I don't have to have it towed.

Thanks,
Mark
 
Unhooking the 12V battery will reset the computer but you need a tool connected to the ODBII port to clear any codes. If you are lucky your battery has failed and you will get a free upgrade to the 33.5 kWh battery. If not and it is your charge port you may be in for a big repair bill. Not sure about the port itself but I was told that the LED ring which I believe is a part of the charge port is not covered by the EV component warranty... Good luck and let us know what they find out.
 
Thanks guys.

I don't have a OBDII scanner, so can't pull any codes. I should probably get one though....

I did try placing the 12V battery on a charger just to make sure a low 12V wasn't causing a fault, but no dice.

Drove the car to the dealership this morning and dropped it off with only a few miles of charge to spare. They said it would take a day or two before their electric car specialist could get to it. So now I wait. Fortunately I have another vehicle to drive.....Keeping my fingers crossed for a free 33.5 kWh battery upgrade!!!

I'll post updates as I hear more.
 
Well, I got a call from Ford this morning. They say the SOBDM module had failed, covered under warranty. He also mentioned some other module that failed, but I couldn't quite make out what it was. And then he told me to be compatible they also had to replace the battery. I thought I had won the lottery for a minute, until he told me it wasn't covered under warranty and would be $169, at which point I realized it was the 12V battery. Oh well. Car is 4.5 years old, not gonna complain too much about updating the silly lead acid battery that they shouldn't have used in the first place (was not even sealed, required adding water and you had to unbolt stuff to get to the fill ports.....who thought of this? Why not a small LiPo? Heck something from a computer laptop would have worked better and probably been cheaper).

Won't be fixed until Friday as they are waiting on parts....so I'll be driving my truck a bit more.
 
Yeah, the sobdm is basically the charger, so it makes sense that it was causing the no charge issue. Mine was replaced under warranty also. I hope it works out well.
 
Lithium is a poor choice for a starter battery if you live where it gets below freezing. A sub freezing lithium battery puts out next to nothing and is damaged if charged (ie car is turned on) while the battery is cold soaked at sub freezing temps. So until they change the design so that a 12V system is not required or design the car such that the traction battery won't be drained just sitting doing nothing. We are stuck with the necessity of a 12V lead acid battery.
 
Well the car is still at the dealer. They claim the part didn't come in until Friday and it came in on a palate - Ford apparently sent them a very large sub assembly that contains the high voltage battery cage and they had to pull the high voltage battery to install the new module. Service manager claims they are going to re-install my high voltage battery and not a new one (bummer). I'm hopeful they will discover an incompatibility between the old battery and the new battery cage....we will see.

It has been almost two weeks since I dropped the car off for repair. Driving my diesel Excursion around town is starting to get tiring and expensive. I really miss my FFE. I also realize now what is going to kill this car one day.....it probably won't be the battery, but some electronic component (like the charging module) that fails after the car is out of warranty. I'm guessing the cost of such a repair would exceed the value of a 10+ year old FFE.
 
Interesting. When my sobdm got replaced, it was a fairly quick procedure. They certainly didnt have to remove the battery. And my dealer really hasnt a clue with these cars. The motor, well that was another story. A whole month for that. But I agree totally on what will be the end of this car. Some module will go bad out of warranty and will cost more than the car is worth.
 
Yeah, I bet most dealers (mine included) are pretty clueless on these cars.

When I made the decision to purchase this car the math was pretty easy - at $20k after rebates and incentives, and ~$0.03/mile for electricity, the total cost of ownership is $0.23/mile (plus tires and vehicle registration, insurance, etc), IF you drive the car 100k miles and then scrap it at zero value. Scraping the car at zero (or near) zero value at the end of life seems pretty likely at this point...but the 100k mile figure may have been optimistic. My car is ~4.5 years old and only has ~35k miles. I know the battery warranty is 10 years/100k miles, not sure if that applies to the rest of the electrical drive system. But even if it does, looks like 10 years is going to come before 100k miles in my case.
 
Got a call from the dealer this afternoon, obviously some young guy who is still learning the ropes. Said they had completed the repair and it was all fixed, but it still wasn't charging properly and the tech was still tinkering with it, but it would be ready tomorrow and he would call me tomorrow with an update. Great. So bottom line, they swapped stuff out, put everything back together and it isn't working right and they don't know why.

I told him to please test it thoroughly and insure everything was 100% before I came to pick it up. The kid clearly needs to learn a thing or two about delivering a msg....the car is fixed and the repair completed, but it still isn't working right......it will be ready early tomorrow but he will call me around noon with an update.....Wow, what a mess.
 
Unless Ford upped the warranty on the FFE since I bought mine, the warranty is 8 years or 100k miles for the battery/ev components. Did you buy an extended warranty? Glad you're getting the car back. Knocking on wood that they actually fixed it.
 
Back when my car was supposed to be fixed months ago, my service manager told me that ford had upped the warranty on these cars but never got into details. He said he would discuss it with me when I picked it up. Obviously that never happened but I still wonder about this supposed warranty upgrade for the FFE.
 
I was just going off memory....I thought it was 10 years/100k miles, but I could be wrong. Can't check the owners manual right now 'cuz it is still at the dealer. Didn't get a call with any status updates, so I assume that means they are still having issues with it and don't know what's up. I'll call in the morning and see if they can tell me anything. Maybe I should ask about the warranty too....
 
Update: Just spoke with the senior service adviser. The car still won't charge and they are on the tech support line with Ford trying to figure it out. SOBDM was replaced and everything checks out, no faults registered with any of the diagnostics, but plug it in and it refuses to charge. Their best guess at this point is a problem with the wiring harness, but that should have generated an error with the diagnostics. Sounds like they will be painstakingly going through the wiring harness by hand, but we will see what the engineers at Ford say.....please let it be the battery!!!! Maybe some sort of internal fault with the charging/balancing connections in the battery pack? Hey, I'm just hoping for an upgrade!

They did agree to give me a loaner car this coming Monday. Filled up the Excursion yesterday for the 2nd time this week....$171 in Diesel! Boy do I need my electric car back!
 
I hope they can figure it out in due time. My personal experience is that mystery problems with the ffe dont get solved quickly. (over 7 months for mine and counting) There are a few more here with similar stories. Good luck!
 
carbuff said:
I hope they can figure it out in due time. My personal experience is that mystery problems with the ffe dont get solved quickly. (over 7 months for mine and counting) There are a few more here with similar stories. Good luck!

7 months! Yikes! Most states have lemon laws, and it seems like 7 months to fix an issue under warranty should fall in that category. Might be worth checking.

In theory these cars should be much more simple than ICE vehicles to repair and maintain. The inability to quickly repair the problems is baffling. Are the dealers incompetent? The diagnostics poorly thought out? My guess is the dealers aren't really vested in trying to maintain these cars. I live in the Silicon Valley area, you can't cross a one lane street here without hitting three Teslas. My car is at the largest Ford dealer in the area and yet they only have one "hybrid" technician. That tells me a ton.
 
TexaCali said:
carbuff said:
I hope they can figure it out in due time. My personal experience is that mystery problems with the ffe dont get solved quickly. (over 7 months for mine and counting) There are a few more here with similar stories. Good luck!

7 months! Yikes! Most states have lemon laws, and it seems like 7 months to fix an issue under warranty should fall in that category. Might be worth checking.

In theory these cars should be much more simple than ICE vehicles to repair and maintain. The inability to quickly repair the problems is baffling. Are the dealers incompetent? The diagnostics poorly thought out? My guess is the dealers aren't really vested in trying to maintain these cars. I live in the Silicon Valley area, you can't cross a one lane street here without hitting three Teslas. My car is at the largest Ford dealer in the area and yet they only have one "hybrid" technician. That tells me a ton.

Unfortunately my car missed the cutoff for the lemon law, used car, only 90 days in NY. But still under full warranty so try and fix it, they will. Forever. LOL. All those things you said about ford and evs are pretty much spot on. Its a shame.
 
carbuff said:
I hope they can figure it out in due time. My personal experience is that mystery problems with the ffe dont get solved quickly. (over 7 months for mine and counting) There are a few more here with similar stories. Good luck!
I don't know what you're talking about?!?! It only took them 5 months and countless trips to the dealer to figure out my new TCU module and RFA module were killing my 12V battery.

Carbuff it seems like you are approaching if not already at a Breach of Warranty case since they cant seem to fix it.
 
triangles said:
carbuff said:
I hope they can figure it out in due time. My personal experience is that mystery problems with the ffe dont get solved quickly. (over 7 months for mine and counting) There are a few more here with similar stories. Good luck!
I don't know what you're talking about?!?! It only took them 5 months and countless trips to the dealer to figure out my new TCU module and RFA module were killing my 12V battery.

Carbuff it seems like you are approaching if not already at a Breach of Warranty case since they cant seem to fix it.

:lol: Yeah, Ford sucks. LOL.
 
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