meyersnole Posted April 7, 2017 at 10:15 PM Report Share Posted April 7, 2017 at 10:15 PM I really did not think it would last as long as it did, as I have one of the very first examples of the 2013s off the line. One of the cars that sat in Mexico as they worked out production issues. I have had issues from the first days of owning the car with the systems shutting down because the battery did not have enough capacity to keep the car on once I turned the car off. But up until the time it failed it never triggered the 12 volt battery is low message, that is until it totally failed. If you are relying on that to tell message to tell you when the battery is low, don't. I got lucky, because I never followed Murphy's advice of attaching a string to the trunk release and hiding it in the rear seat (I think I will do this now though). The car was dead. Nothing... was odd to see everything dark. What was even more odd is that the car was plugged in, so you would have thought that the car would have been asking the charger to charge the 12v battery. In my case opening the car door was just too much load for the 12v and it shut down. Fortunately it recovered after a few min, long enough to hit the start button and turn the car on. Once the car was on you would never know there was an issue. I was thinking about putting in a AGM battery like I have in my previous 2 cars when this one failed, but I needed my car right away and did not want to have to disassemble my whole trunk and modify the battery tray...and what if I had messed that up? Decided on a Duralast (Johnson Controls) as it seems to get good ratings, and the price was right at just a hair over $100. If I have issues I will post, but the Duralast 67R-DL seems to be a perfect fit for the car and I am back up and running! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Limey Posted April 15, 2017 at 06:50 AM Report Share Posted April 15, 2017 at 06:50 AM I just had this happen to me, got back from working on the opposite coast and the car is completely dead, yet I left the high voltage battery fully charged. It has me wondering if the 12V is dead, or if it just wasn't getting any charge from the engine not being on as I've done about 200 miles on charges alone since buying it last month. Having to buy a battery for a month old (used) car is annoying, especially since I already need a tire, alignment and balancing. That's the last time I go to carmax. Bait and switch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murphy Posted April 15, 2017 at 10:14 AM Report Share Posted April 15, 2017 at 10:14 AM The 12 volt battery does not get charged when the car is off. The engine is not involved. There is no alternator or starter motor for that matter. The 12 volt battery is charged by a DC to DC converter that is only active when the car is on. When the car is off the high voltage battery is disconnected from the car by contactors. 12 volts is required to engage the contactors to connect the HVB. A used car has likely been sitting on a lot for a while. If the 12 volt battery goes dead, that permanently damages the battery due to material flaking off of the plates and creating a pile of debris at the bottom of each cell. Unlike old traditional cars today's cars are loaded with microprocessors that are always on putting a small load on the 12 volt battery. Given enough time they will drain the battery. If your car is going to sit unused for a week or more connect a battery maintainer to the battery jump terminals under the hood to keep the battery charged. Connecting the EVSE to charge the HVB will not keep the 12 volt battery charged since once it finishes charging the HVB and the 12 volt battery it will not reconnect to resume charging. This problem is not unique to the Energi. Tesla took the opposite approach. They reconnect the HVB when the 12 volt battery needs charging. That guarantees that the 12 volt battery stays charged and transfers the drain to the HVB. They have a much bigger HVB, 100 kWh vs 7.6 kWh in the Energi, so the drain on the HVB is not as significant as it would be in the Energi. Gkinla and ctwomey 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meyersnole Posted April 15, 2017 at 11:59 AM Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2017 at 11:59 AM (edited) I just had this happen to me, got back from working on the opposite coast and the car is completely dead, yet I left the high voltage battery fully charged. It has me wondering if the 12V is dead, or if it just wasn't getting any charge from the engine not being on as I've done about 200 miles on charges alone since buying it last month. Having to buy a battery for a month old (used) car is annoying, especially since I already need a tire, alignment and balancing. That's the last time I go to carmax. Bait and switch! Anytime you get a car from the secondary market you run the risk that the vehicle has sat idle for some time. Even new, if the dealership does not turn over the inventory quickly you could run into a battery that has deep cycled a few times and significantly shortened its life. Fortunately the battery is not very expensive and keeping in mind the systems short comings (see murphy's excellent explanation above) you can avert troubles in the future. If you are worried about being stranded there are two other suggestions that could be followed to mitigate problems. 1) Tie a string to the release cable in the trunk and run it through your seat to the backseat. The trunk will not open with out power.2) Carry a portable jump pack -- the car does not need a lot of juice to start. Just enough to wake the systems up. I just do the first one, as with my driving habits the original battery lasted me just over 4 years... not bad for an oem. If there was a decent AGM version battery designed for this car I would have bought it, but if I get 4 more years out of this battery I will be happy. Personally I am not interested in buying another battery and carrying it around with me just in case. I am usually in high traffic areas and not worried about being stranded. I read in another thread that they had their battery replaced at the dealer and the new battery had more than 390 CCAs, that would have been nice... but my dealer was too far away for a quick run by and so I just went to the auto parts store. Need to drop back by to see about the BMS reset. (on my list of things to do, but not high as the car is working great) Edit: BMS Reset reset not necessary. The car will do it once it sits 8 hours (overnight?). Edited May 23, 2017 at 04:23 PM by meyersnole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaggy314 Posted May 4, 2017 at 06:04 PM Report Share Posted May 4, 2017 at 06:04 PM This problem is not unique to the Energi. Tesla took the opposite approach. They reconnect the HVB when the 12 volt battery needs charging. That guarantees that the 12 volt battery stays charged and transfers the drain to the HVB. They have a much bigger HVB, 100 kWh vs 7.6 kWh in the Energi, so the drain on the HVB is not as significant as it would be in the Energi. The downside is Tesla has to replace their 12 vt. batteries more often as they then cycle them a BUNCH and kills it in 18-36 months. There is a lot of talk on the Tesla Motors Club forums about this, people have hooked volt and temp meters and graphed it out. You get the first 1-2 replaced under warranty in 4 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Creed III Posted May 10, 2017 at 12:49 PM Report Share Posted May 10, 2017 at 12:49 PM FYI, my Energi is experiencing 12volt issues again so I called the dealer: turns out, there is a software update for the 12volt battery drain issue that was issued in early April. Appointment with the dealer tonight for the software update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Creed III Posted May 19, 2017 at 01:15 PM Report Share Posted May 19, 2017 at 01:15 PM Got my car back a few days ago: turns out that there were software updates from early April that needed applied for the TCU and ACM for, you guessed it, 12volt battery drain issues. So far, so good now. ctwomey 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHolter Posted May 31, 2017 at 05:25 AM Report Share Posted May 31, 2017 at 05:25 AM I just purchased a used 2016 Energi SE, the 12v battery was dead, the dealer replaced it and then said about 4 hours later the car wouldn't start again. My question is those of you who own 2016 do you have this problem and how did you fix it. Also would you recommend this car, is it good or bad.Thanks for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murphy Posted May 31, 2017 at 09:44 AM Report Share Posted May 31, 2017 at 09:44 AM I just purchased a used 2016 Energi SE, the 12v battery was dead, the dealer replaced it and then said about 4 hours later the car wouldn't start again. My question is those of you who own 2016 do you have this problem and how did you fix it. Also would you recommend this car, is it good or bad.Thanks for your help.Did he charge the new battery before he installed it?Did the tech have the car on in accessory mode to listen to the radio while he worked on it for four hours? The car is loaded with electronics that are powered by the 12 volt battery. Most modern computerized cars have a tendency to drain the 12 volt battery. A parked Tesla recharges the 12 volt battery up to 5 times a day from the high voltage battery. An Energi can't do that because the high voltage battery is only 7.6 kWh versus the Tesla 60 kWh to 100 kWh battery. When my Energi will be sitting unused for several days I connect a 12 volt battery maintainer to the battery. Bradustin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHolter Posted May 31, 2017 at 04:54 PM Report Share Posted May 31, 2017 at 04:54 PM Do you like your car I am worried about the dependability now. Is this a car worth investing in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murphy Posted May 31, 2017 at 06:42 PM Report Share Posted May 31, 2017 at 06:42 PM Do you like your car I am worried about the dependability now. Is this a car worth investing in.Yes I like my car. I kept it when I bought a Tesla. The only thing I have spent money on in over four years of ownership is two oil changes. I also bought a 7 year 36,000 mile warranty (ESP) for it. The 7 years will expire before the mileage does. A car is not an investment. It loses significant value when it is driven off of the lot. Maybe if kept for 50 years it would become a collectors item and gain in value. I won't be around in 50 years so I will never know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyagade Posted September 4, 2017 at 05:37 PM Report Share Posted September 4, 2017 at 05:37 PM Suddenly, while out on errands, I couldn't remote unlock my 2015 Fusion Energi nor open trunk lid; I had to manually unlock driver door and use inside trunk release button, but luckily vehicle was driveable. Drove home and started getting messages "12v battery is low..." After doing some online research, I connected battery recharger to under-hood connections points and "recharged" 12v battery (or at least until I received full charge light on charger). Then disconnected charger, checked vehicle to "start" and "started" okay (but I didn't choose to drive it at all...for fear of getting stranded out on the road). Then several minutes later, I start receiving 12v battery low messages...again. Then went back to vehicle and tried to start again, but "no-go"; it was completely dead...no instrument cluster, touchscreen....nada! I'm presuming that 12v battery is completely a "goner" and won't even hold a charge (only 26K miles and it's not even three years old yet!). My question is, if I jump-start vehicle (HVB is fully charged) to get it "started" to drive to dealer (~30 miles) service, will vehicle continue to be driveable with 12v battery fully dead? If I start drive on electric and when I run out of HVB juice, will vehicle switch to (and be able to start) gas engine with dead 12v battery? I'm not sure how switchover from electric to gas actually works. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murphy Posted September 4, 2017 at 08:19 PM Report Share Posted September 4, 2017 at 08:19 PM If the car is off, the HVB is completely disconnected from the car. 12 volts is required to reconnect it, If the 12 volt battery has no shorted cells the DC to DC converter will provide 12 volts as long as the car is on. If the electric drive portion of the HVB gets depleted to 0, then the car switches to hybrid mode and the engine keeps the hybrid portion of the HVB charged to 50%. Do you have access to a 12 volt 7 AH gel cell battery? They are common in UPSs (Uninterruptable Power Supplies). I keep one in my glove compartment along with a 12 gauge wire jumper cable. Has the battery been dead in the past? When a wet cell lead acid battery is completely discharged material flakes off of the plates and collects at the bottom of the cells. If the pile of junk gets high enough to reach the bottom of the plates it will short out the cell. Do you have a volt meter? Start the car and measure the voltage at the battery terminals in the trunk. If it is 13 volts or higher the car should stay running for the drive. Take another driver along, since you do not want to turn it off when you arrive at the dealer. The engine is started by the HVB. Since you are going 30 miles, I would put the car in EV Later mode to force running on the engine (hybrid mode). meyersnole 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meyersnole Posted September 5, 2017 at 05:05 PM Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2017 at 05:05 PM Do you like your car I am worried about the dependability now. Is this a car worth investing in. Missed this post earlier, to add to Murphy's post... I too very much like this car. Along with Murphy my biggest complaint about this car is the incredible depreciation (especially since I was an early adopter and purchased before the 5K price reduction!). Unlike Murphy, I drive this car a little more and the ODO has rolled over 50,000 and I have over changed the oil more out of convenience (I sometimes let the dealer do it when I am there for the inspection or one of the many recalls). Speaking of recalls, can't say I am happy that there have been so many... but I am happy that to date Ford has stood behind this car. Love driving around town in EV only mode and probably will not purchase a car with out adaptive cruise ever again! The collision warning system saved my car one time when a kid on the phone turned right in front of me, still can't believe I didn't hit them. I like big cars and this one just felt more comfortable than the Volt, which I would have bought other than the its awkward interior. It is football season and I will be making many trips up and down 95 on the East coast and this car is very comfortable to drive and even driving in the 70's I get 40-42mpg, which I think is outstanding. Add in most of my local driving is EV only and my lifetime MPGe is over 52 and I am a happy camper. I have no concerns with reliability, but I also purchased a 7 year ESP but at 100,000 miles. Usually I try and sell with a little warranty left, but I may keep this car longer if it keeps meeting my needs. Just one control unit failure or the like will be worth it... basically I felt there were so many computers on this car that it was risky not to purchase it. Especially since I ticked all the boxes and bought a loaded example, sensors and computers everywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyagade Posted September 5, 2017 at 09:49 PM Report Share Posted September 5, 2017 at 09:49 PM Murphy...thanks for the info. But to answer some of your questions, I first had problems last Friday when out on errands; that was first time...no previous warnings/MFM messages. I have two voltmeters....somewhere amongst my pile of junk in home/garage; needless to say, I can't remember where they are stored. I had to jumpstart with another car battery this morning...just to get it started to drive to dealer....luckily it didn't die on the way. My portable jump-start battery (that I have for 22-year Acura that I drive once every two weeks or so) didn't have enough juice to power the 12v system. I ended driving to nearest Ford dealer, ~5 miles of local streets, instead of purchase dealer, ~30 miles; too scared of getting stranded somewhere along the 30 miles of freeways. Just picked up car and returned from dealer; they told me 12v battery was dead...and they replaced under warranty. They told me battery warranty restarts 3-year/36K miles coverage...yeah...but not that I'm looking forward to such a sudden need/replacement again. I hate to think if I was in Phoenix (I live in L.A.) for an upcoming weekend wedding and the battery died....ugh!Anyways, dealer replaced with a BXT-99R; I thought OEM/replacement was a Grp 65R? 99R is 3/4-inch shorter in length, but 470CCA vs. 390CCA (for 65R)...according to BCI specs charts. Does that mean new/replacement should last longer (or have better performance)...everything else being equal? I too opted for 7-year/100K ESP, but bought at purchase; I too thought, too many expensive electronics nowadays, especially compared to my older ICE only cars. More for "peace-of-mind". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wendy S Posted February 23, 2021 at 04:13 PM Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 at 04:13 PM I just heard back from my dealer.... put a brand new 12V battery in the trunk of 2017 energi, charged the car overnight, car was dead. dealer is saying the car has "open circuits" that are damaged for whatever reason and now all the wiring has to be replaced and need another new 12V battery. $1400 later.... has anyone else had this happen, and how do we prevent the circuits from being damaged/corroded?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blaize Posted October 23, 2021 at 09:19 PM Report Share Posted October 23, 2021 at 09:19 PM i have a ford fusion 2016 energi titanium and i didn’t drive it for like 2-3 days then i came back and was trying to unlock it but wouldn’t unlock i had to unlock it from taking off the door handle and so i jumped the battery and let it charge with the plug in for a full charge i drove it a day later fine then went to drive it again the next day and is now doing the same thing where i can’t unlock it what do i do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murphy Posted October 23, 2021 at 09:57 PM Report Share Posted October 23, 2021 at 09:57 PM Buy a new 12 volt battery. If the car is going to sit not driven connect a battery charger to the terminals under the hood. A wet cell 12 volt battery that goes completely dead is permanently damaged. The car should have an AGM battery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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