Battery saver message

[hermans]

The fix for the pop sound also works.

[rvlasek]

The fix for the pop sound also works.

Wonder why some dealers cannot get the thrust washers and some can????

[aaronj1159]

Guess I need to get this TSB (13-5-1) done myself. I'm getting the battery saver message more and more frequently. I don't think it's having any other effect yet but it's making me nervous. Of course when I had the car in the dealer for the shift knob and some other minor issues it didn't do it for them. But I took a video, so when the ordered parts come in for the other issues I'll show them.

[murphy]

The 12 volt battery is too small to handle the static load when the car is turned off for more than one to two days. TSB 13-05-01 had a slight effect on my car but I still get the message if I don't use the car for a couple of days. The TSB changes the charging profile for the 12 volt battery. If the car is not turned on there is no charging taking place. When the battery voltage drops below their set threshold, which I think is around 11.7 volts, the car turns off everything it can to preserve the 12 volt battery so the car can be started. I suspect that if the car was unused for a couple of weeks the 12 volt battery would have to be jumped to be able to turn the car on.

 

It's frustrating that Ford has not published the specifications for the battery. IMHO, as an Electrical Engineer (retired), the battery should be a deep discharge battery and not a standard car battery. Without published specifications there is no way to tell what it is. The 390 CCA spec is meaningless because the car does not have a starter motor and has no need for a high current discharge capability. What the car needs is a battery that has a flat discharge curve such that the voltage is maintained until just before the battery is completely discharged.

 

My 2 cents.

 

 

I have a voltmeter plugged into the 12 volt power port. When the 12 volt battery is fully charged the voltage at the port stays on for something like 45 minutes when the car is turned off. When the 12 volt battery is low the port turns off when the drivers door is opened.

 

Every time I have connected my 12 volt battery charger the readout on the charger indicates the charge level to be below 50%.

 

 

If the car is driven every day there should not be a problem especially with TSB 13-05-01 installed.

[aaronj1159]

Yeah I drive the car daily. There may have been 1 day in the past few weeks that it wasn't running for at least 10-15 minutes, and it's generally much more than that.

[hermans]

When my FFH was getting the messages it was being driven a total of 8 miles a day (M-F}. Since the TSB work was performed the car now sits for days at a time, sometimes for a week at a time as my wife now drives the MKZ to work. The MKZ is now our primary vehicle. Even after sitting for long periods of time - I no longer get the BS message. Just my experience....

Edited June 10, 2013 by hermans

[coach81]

I've seen this message a few times.. I take the key out.. and go about my business...

[hermans]

Before to long you won't be able to go about your business as your battery will fail. I went through two batteries until I got the TSB done and a third battery. You don't want to just ignore this.

[gkinla]

I had the same problem with the battery saver message in May of this year. My car was built in November 2012 and delivered in December. After several trips to the dealer the FFH tech said he heard that Ford got a batch of bad batteries and elected to change the battery. This was before the TBS was issued, I haven't had a BS message since, except, read below.

 

I just returned from a 9 day vacation with the FFH sitting idle and was concerned that the battery may have discharged. This was at night when I tried the key fob, lights came on, I got in and the FFH started so I turned it off and just left it. The next morning I had to go out and get groceries. When I got to the store something was on the radio that I wanted to finish listening to. I shut the FFH off and the BS message came on. This was probably due to the 9 days of standby, monitoring the systems and draining the LVB. The good news is that I haven't seen the message since. This was four days ago.

 

Anyone who has a late 2012 early 2013 build and has had the TBS battery done without a battery change and is still getting the BS message, I would convince the dealer to change the battery.

Edited June 24, 2013 by gkinla

[Barsoom]

>> I suspect that if the car was unused for a couple of weeks the 12 volt battery would have to be jumped to be able to turn the car on.

 

My FFH 2013 was dead when I returned from a two-week trip. I have not had the TSB done yet, as my dealer seems to be going dumb on the topc, just not being responsive to my suggestions.

 

According to the TSB that is linked from the second page, TSB 13-5-1 has been superseded by TSB 13-6-23. The only difference that I can see is that Ford added a cold-weather requirement to the cause. I wonder if this is going to make my dealer be even more resistent to doing anything?

[Barsoom]

Took the car in to the dealer today.

 

The good news :-( is that they confirmed the clicking noise and order the parts from the other TSB.

 

The bad news :-( is that they saw the cold weather requirement and refused to do the charging TSB.

 

I made the mistake of charging up my battery last week, so it was 12.2 when I left for the dealer this morning. Before I charged it, it was at 11.88 and the Battery Saver message came on every time I shut off the car.

 

I made another appointment for two weeks from now to have the wheels fixed, so I'm going to wait and see how long it takes for the battery to drain and the Power Saver message returns. I should have left it alone and brought it in while it was still issuing the message.

 

Perhaps in two weeks it will be back to abnormal.

[GrySql]

I made the mistake of charging up my battery last week, so it was 12.2 when I left for the dealer this morning. Before I charged it, it was at 11.88 and the Battery Saver message came on every time I shut off the car.

 

I made another appointment for two weeks from now to have the wheels fixed, so I'm going to wait and see how long it takes for the battery to drain and the Power Saver message returns.

The next time you get ANY warning on your display use the Sync system to send a Vehicle Health Report (VHR) to the Ford Sync-my-Ride website where it will be stored for 30 days.

I print out any VHR's that I get from the website and have them at hand when I visit my Dealer, they cannot argue with that.

Any newer VHR's that you send to the website will erase the previous VHR, so make sure to print them out.

 

This info is on page 309 of your Owner's manual.

If you have not set up an account there it's a good idea to do so, there is a lot of other useful info on that website.

[mrobinso8]

Barsoom. You should call Ford Customer Service at 1-800-392-367 and tell them about your problems. They should open a case number and notify your dealer. That is what they did in my case. They talked to the Service Manager who I now deal with, not a service writer. TSB applied. Also, if possible you might find a new dealer to work with. If you can make sure the old dealer knows this and that they are loosing future business. PS. TSB did not help and the Ford District Rep is talking to engineering on the issue. My dealer is fine but the problem exceeds their capabilities.

[Barsoom]

Thanks for both suggestions.

 

As soon as the battery saver message comes back, I will take a health check report. I did this once before just to see what it looks like, but it didn't look to comprehensive to me. Maybe I didn't look closely enough at it.

 

My dealer is tops. The sales people were very open and helpful during the TBD last year. Service, otherwise, has been excellent. CHP takes their highway cruisers there for service.

 

I have read that the TSB does not always work. That concerns me, too. The early builds had the wrong shifter knob, missing spacer washers in the wheels, and a power drain problem somewhere in the auxiliary systems. The shifter and spacer I can contribute to the labor quality in Hermosilla as they learn the new assembly, but the power drain is either poor parts or assembly or design error.

 

One thing that my service writer was insistant on was that the battery is a cold-crank and nothing is wrong with it. At one point, he said that it's the same kind of battery that's in the front of regular cars. I told him that I thought those were different batteries designed for sudden high cranking power. The auxiliary battery is designed for slow, constant power discharge. He was sure of himself.

 

I chose to stay with this service writer all throughout because I wanted to see how it played out. For future issues, I will ask for another writer to compare. He was not my first writer.

[hermans]

It's not the same, it's far less powerful. What's the date of your 12v battery? Ford has acknowledged that they got a bad batch of batteries that were made in 9/12. Your dealer should know this. I went through two batteries with a 9?12 date. My third battery was built in 12?12

[Barsoom]

I looked for the date but couldn't find one. I saw a serial number on the top. Do I have to remove the battery to see where the date us stamped?

[aaronj1159]

I don't suppose anyone has come across another fix for this issue that does not have the cold weather requirement? I'm starting to get the Battery Saver message after every drive, not just the short ones. I'm sure I'm going to find my battery dead at some point soon.

[1551retired]

I looked for the date but couldn't find one. I saw a serial number on the top. Do I have to remove the battery to see where the date us stamped?

Can't find my date code either. Maybe someone can tell us how to read the serial number or if the battery must be removed.

[acdii]

I don't suppose anyone has come across another fix for this issue that does not have the cold weather requirement? I'm starting to get the Battery Saver message after every drive, not just the short ones. I'm sure I'm going to find my battery dead at some point soon.

See, now if you had a friend with a load tester and some time, you could park a block from the dealer, have him load the battery until its nearly drained, and walk to the dealer and say, HEY its DEAD! Go get it. Then have the mekinic walk his charging station down to the car to jump it.

 

At that point you can demand they replace the battery!

[aaronj1159]

See, now if you had a friend with a load tester and some time, you could park a block from the dealer, have him load the battery until its nearly drained, and walk to the dealer and say, HEY its DEAD! Go get it. Then have the mekinic walk his charging station down to the car to jump it.

 

At that point you can demand they replace the battery!

I took a nice descriptive video of the occurrence... gonna show it to them on my next trip. Dunno if that's going to do anything but it's evidence at least.

[1551retired]

Can't find my date code either. Maybe someone can tell us how to read the serial number or if the battery must be removed.

So no one can tell us how to find and read the date code?

[B25Nut]

I had all the updates done to my FFH last week. They all were very effective, except for one: The Battery Saver fix. I was suspicious the night I got the car home and the battery only lasted for 14 minutes while I was re-entering my preferences. The BS message after shutdown did not appear again until last night, then again this morning. Last month I had my battery tested under load and it passed with flying colors. My conclusion is that the battery has a capacity that is way too low (duh!), and no software change will fix it. Ford tried to save a few pounds, but they need to make a larger battery standard equipment.

[rfruth]

Wonder if Fusion hybrid, C-max & Energis use the same 12v (2013 MY)

[mrobinso8]

My wife has the BXT-96R-500 in her C-Max. I have the BXT-96R-590 in my Fusion Hybrid. Same physical size. Ford customer service has told me that the Ford engineers told her that getting the battery saver message and being unable to listen to the radio in accessory mode is "Normal". My question to her was why the accessory mode then? My question to anyone reading this is has anyone replaced the 12 volt from Ford with anything else like the Optima battery and if so, did it solve the problem? I hate to buy a new battery for a car that is not a year old yet and to be insulting have that not solve the problem. The battery was replaced once the end of January and all computer updates have been done.

[murphy]

My wife has the BXT-96R-500 in her C-Max. I have the BXT-96R-590 in my Fusion Hybrid. Same physical size. Ford customer service has told me that the Ford engineers told her that getting the battery saver message and being unable to listen to the radio in accessory mode is "Normal". My question to her was why the accessory mode then? My question to anyone reading this is has anyone replaced the 12 volt from Ford with anything else like the Optima battery and if so, did it solve the problem? I hate to buy a new battery for a car that is not a year old yet and to be insulting have that not solve the problem. The battery was replaced once the end of January and all computer updates have been done.

Are you sure that is the battery in your car? You can't go by the Owner's Manual. The table on page 302 lists batteries that only fit the standard gasoline engine model. My Energi has a BXT-99R-390 in a compartment on the left side of the trunk. The battery tray is too small to take a standard size battery, I tried and the tray is too short to accept a standard size battery. In any event the car needs a deep discharge battery, such as an AGM battery, instead of a "starting" battery.