Battery just died - no warnings or any signs

[NewStockyBalboa]

Hi all,

2021 BS OB, with 59K miles. No issues with my car since I bought it brand new. Except for that stuck EVAP Solenoid.

But recently, I went to try to turn the car on, and it did not turn on. It was clicking or trying to turn on but it was struggling for its life.

I called my insurance roadside assistance, and the technician arrived and checked the battery life. It was dead, 0.0% charge. He says that doesn't seem right. The batteries life grade was at 7.7%. According to him, battery percentage should be at least 25% to try and jumpstart.

But those were the numbers we read. Only thing to do was actually just replace the battery. So I did. Paid $300. But the car was up and running immediately.

My question is, how come there were no signs of low voltage or anything really on the dashboard? This is concerning because what if I was going on a road trip or I was stuck in bad weather.

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[Dude]

Impossible to answer your question
We weren’t there so we cannot know what signs were present
If in your 2021 at 59k miles was the OE Battery that’s a long time for a battery to last. If it wasn’t the OE Battery, how old was the battery. With driving experience like what you experienced you now know batteries do not always give you a heads up and you cannot depend on the vehicle to tell you. You are now better prepared for future battery failures.

if nothing else, in the future keep track of your battery voltage in “real-time”and the easiest way to do that is with a $17 device that plugs into your 12V Port.

For sure your battery voltage has been dropping in the weeks prior to the failure you experienced.

https://a.co/d/hlEmkIu

 

[hellb0y]

Sounds pretty normal to me…

I change my car battery every 36 months…regardless….batteries don’t last as long anymore because new vehicles are “on” all the time.

 

[Rawah652]

There's an active recall out now to address this very issue. You can get it done in 30-45 minutes with the Ford mobile service. There's been some anecdotal reports that people still have issues after the upgrade, but I'm curious if you have had that performed yet?

Some background on why this is even an issue in the first place: While there are a ton of advantages in using the newer lithium-ion batteries that these vehicles have, one of the major drawbacks is the very steep discharge curve. Old lead-acid batteries have a flatter discharge curve, which means they give you plenty of warning when they are dying. Lithium-ion batteries just don't do this- they can be on very little charge and give you almost full voltage- making traditional voltage monitors pretty useless. Here's a graphical example of what I'm talking about:

I have a battery tender/monitor, and hooked it up to my Bronco when the recall first came out to see how my battery was doing. The tender read under 25% charge, but it still had full voltage. So buying simple volt monitor for these kinds of batteries is just a waste of money.

My personal solution to this is to have a battery jumpstarter on hand in the vehicle- I got it for a wilderness camping trip and it's been great for the last two years. I put it on the charger every 6 months, but I've never seen the battery on the unit be under 85%, even after use. The brand I have is Hulkman and while I haven't had to use it on my vehicle, it easily jumpstarted a buddy's CRV with a completely dead battery from a bad alternator. I'd recommend putting a sticky note on the unit though so you don't forget how to put it into 'force charge' mode when you have a severly drained battery.

 

[NewStockyBalboa]

Impossible to answer your question
We weren’t there so we cannot know what signs were present
If in your 2021 at 59k miles was the OE Battery that’s a long time for a battery to last. If it wasn’t the OE Battery, how old was the battery. With driving experience like what you experienced you now know batteries do not always give you a heads up and you cannot depend on the vehicle to tell you. You are now better prepared for future battery failures.

if nothing else, in the future keep track of your battery voltage in “real-time”and the easiest way to do that is with a $17 device that plugs into your 12V Port.

For sure your battery voltage has been dropping in the weeks prior to the failure you experienced.

https://a.co/d/hlEmkIu

Yes. Original OE battery. Okay yea then it just ran it's course I guess. My concern on all of this is the no notifications on the dash.

Thanks for the information. I will look into one of those voltage display adapters.

 

[NewStockyBalboa]

There's an active recall out now to address this very issue. You can get it done in 30-45 minutes with the Ford mobile service. There's been some anecdotal reports that people still have issues after the upgrade, but I'm curious if you have had that performed yet?

Some background on why this is even an issue in the first place: While there are a ton of advantages in using the newer lithium-ion batteries that these vehicles have, one of the major drawbacks is the very steep discharge curve. Old lead-acid batteries have a flatter discharge curve, which means they give you plenty of warning when they are dying. Lithium-ion batteries just don't do this- they can be on very little charge and give you almost full voltage- making traditional voltage monitors pretty useless. Here's a graphical example of what I'm talking about:

I have a battery tender/monitor, and hooked it up to my Bronco when the recall first came out to see how my battery was doing. The tender read under 25% charge, but it still had full voltage. So buying simple volt monitor for these kinds of batteries is just a waste of money.

My personal solution to this is to have a battery jumpstarter on hand in the vehicle- I got it for a wilderness camping trip and it's been great for the last two years. I put it on the charger every 6 months, but I've never seen the battery on the unit be under 85%, even after use. The brand I have is Hulkman and while I haven't had to use it on my vehicle, it easily jumpstarted a buddy's CRV with a completely dead battery from a bad alternator. I'd recommend putting a sticky note on the unit though so you don't forget how to put it into 'force charge' mode when you have a severly drained battery.

Thank you for this, I had no idea this recall was sent out. I just usually wait till I receive something in the mail then contact my dealer for the fix, if it exists. I'm not sure if my battery would've been able to recharge because the tech showed me the tool and the battery life cycle was at 7.7%. Similar to iPhone battery health information. And charge was at 0%. Tool said to replace battery. So I did and was good to go. I'll look into one of those NOCO Boost jumpers on Amazon.

 

[NewStockyBalboa]

Sounds pretty normal to me…

I change my car battery every 36 months…regardless….batteries don’t last as long anymore because new vehicles are “on” all the time.

Good point. I guess better to be safe then sorry. Especially if one has the harsh winters.

 

[Rawah652]

Thank you for this, I had no idea this recall was sent out. I just usually wait till I receive something in the mail then contact my dealer for the fix, if it exists. I'm not sure if my battery would've been able to recharge because the tech showed me the tool and the battery life cycle was at 7.7%. Similar to iPhone battery health information. And charge was at 0%. Tool said to replace battery. So I did and was good to go. I'll look into one of those NOCO Boost jumpers on Amazon.

No problem! And yeah, it won't help an absolutely completely dead battery. But if you had attempted to charge it, maybe it would have worked enough to get you to the nearest part store (or dealer if using the warranty).

With all the battery issues people are having, I'm probably going to get mine load tested to see where it's at. It's a little over 2 years old but I haven't been able to take care of the battery for optimal life.

 

[Dude]

Yes. Original OE battery. Okay yea then it just ran its course I guess. My concern on all of this is the no notifications on the dash.
Thanks for the information. I will look into one of those voltage display adapters.

Yea I think the battery ran its course and the fact you got 59k miles on the 2021 vintage battery is excellent.

Where I live due to the extreme heat, I consider the battery as a maintenance item and I replace the battery on a 2 year cycle regardless if it shows any signs. Now that I have the voltage monitor, I can push that time and probably gain up to 12 months more.

btw my OE battery was the EFB, it failed a week ago to hold a charge (although it started the vehicle just fine and never had a single issue until the charge issue a week ago). OE EFB (battery) lasted 2.5 years 26k miles and dealership replaced under warranty with an AGM Battery.

Prior to adopting the 2 year replacement cycle, at the first hint the battery was going out (like a slow crank), I immediately dropped everything and got a new battery because the heat here kills batteries dead with minimal to no warning.

That’s not your case, you got no known warning but you did get 59k on a 2021 vehicle which is excellent for Bronco Sports. Not the best case but far from what some other owners experienced.

Full disclosure: that voltage monitor in the prior post is not very accurate (spec says +/-0.2V) so it’s good for seeing real-time trends but not for knowing an accurate voltage - see the following post for more info on that topic, it is Post #85:
https://www.broncosportforum.com/forum/threads/recall-work-failed.11628/post-198582

 

[João Leme]

Hello everyone, I'm going to share some information here that might be related to the topic of battery failure. Still under investigation...

My BS BL has a little over 10.000 miles and has been in use for a year and a few months. Recently, the Auto-Start-Stop was failing and I suspected it was related to the recall and the reprogramming of the PCM. In addition, unfortunately, there was another possible cause that could be related to the start-stop failure (the car got stuck and moisture could have gotten into the connectors, which could also cause the engine to fail during start-stop). Anyway, after checking all the connectors and testing the car the issue remained and I came across a scenario related to the start-stop and I found it interesting:

1 - When stopping the car with only the Start-Stop on, the engine automatically turns off (so far so good), so at this point I did a test several times by staying stopped for as long as possible to see what would happen. The expectation is that the car's engine doesn't die at least. After several attempts, the same thing always happened: The car first reduces the air conditioning considerably in the first minute with the engine off, and turns it on automatically after about 2 minutes, as it should, either to resume charging the battery (a warning is displayed on the dashboard that the engine has been restarted for this purpose) or to keep the air cooling running.

Result: This test showed that the start-stop function is working properly, even after the recall.

2 - Also tested several times. When stopping the car with Auto-hold and Start-stop on, the engine turns off automatically (so far so good), it also reduces the air conditioning as it did before, but when the car is stopped for 2 minutes the engine dies, always, and the warning "Shift to P and restart Engine" appears.

Apparently it is related to the car's battery management programming, cause Ford analyst said so... They are trying now at the dealership to do some updates to see if this stops happening.

Any case similar?

 

[Dude]

That’s very interesting for the possible tie of Auto Start Stop engaged with Auto Hold engaged!! And with Recall 24S24 completed. Let’s hope the Ford analyst figures out what’s going on.

I haven’t enabled Auto Start Stop since January 2024 but prior to January 2024 I had always used Auto Start Stop and Auto Hold with no issues. But that is all prior to Recall 24S24.

 

[DesertRat19]

Hi all,

2021 BS OB, with 59K miles. No issues with my car since I bought it brand new. Except for that stuck EVAP Solenoid.

But recently, I went to try to turn the car on, and it did not turn on. It was clicking or trying to turn on but it was struggling for its life.

I called my insurance roadside assistance, and the technician arrived and checked the battery life. It was dead, 0.0% charge. He says that doesn't seem right. The batteries life grade was at 7.7%. According to him, battery percentage should be at least 25% to try and jumpstart.

But those were the numbers we read. Only thing to do was actually just replace the battery. So I did. Paid $300. But the car was up and running immediately.

My question is, how come there were no signs of low voltage or anything really on the dashboard? This is concerning because what if I was going on a road trip or I was stuck in bad weather.

My experience has been there are no warning signs. They just don’t start one day. It sucks but that’s what happens.

 

[Kraken1]

I was at my Ford dealer yesterday getting an oil change on my 2021 BS Sport and asked him about my battery life and he said he has yet to see one fail or sell one.

 

[Webini]

Hopefully you replaced your battery with an AGM type!

 

[Kraken1]

Hopefully, you replaced your battery with an AGM type!

There is nothing wrong with my battery, I was just asking.
But when the time comes I will be sure to get an AGM type.
Thanks.

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