Auto Stop / Start not working

magicbus

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I disconnect my battery for 6 weeks every year when we go to Florida. Haven’t had to do anything but reconnect it when I get home.
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Osco

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Yeah my next battery will be an Interstate. That spec has served me best over the years.
AGM’s will stand up to the higher drain when not in use much better BUT AGM’s do have a higher failure rate and you’ll drop twice the money.
I am resigning myself to a new battery every two to three years. A consumable, no big deal.
Yeah get your choice of battery just make sure it matches or exceeds OEM spec.
Ford, your BS has ridiculous engine off power requirements. You can do better than everyone else.
 

HugeGuyTheory

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I have a 21 OB and just started having this happen as well. First thought was the battery must be not holding a proper charge. I'm betting I will somehow get stuck with the repair cost even though it should be under warranty.
 

Mark S.

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biglarrr

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My 2022 OBX is 8 months old, 4200 miles. No issues until 2 weeks ago. Auto stop/start stopped working.
When I stop with my foot on the brake, the grey A on the dash lights up.
Car is warmed up, no air, no heat, nothing on. Outside temp @ 65F.
Information message for S/S shows " Engine on, working normally," or something like that. Battery cables tight. Battery voltage 12.49.
Anyone have any idea why this stopped working? Am I missing something ?.
Dealer seems uninterested in looking at it because the " Check engine " light is not on.
Foghorn
About the same time frame. 8 months/3600 miles.
Mine quit, and when I took it into Ford, the first mechanic said it won't activate when it's cold.
The temperature was 40F that day, and had been in the seventies or better up to that point.
The next mechanic noted that charge was 50% below minimum for Start/stop to activate.
He charged the battery and declared the problem fixed.
It worked for two days.
I created a spread sheet and started recording resting voltages.
I contacted Ford customer support and they put me on a conference call with the dealer.
The service manager took ownership of the issue, and the end result was a new battery.
It's been working since then.
NOTE: The battery was passing the testing that they normally do when checking a battery.
Per an engineer who was in the shop the final time I had it in, there was a second stage test that they ran which showed the battery had failed.
Judging from all of the responses I've seen on the bad Batteries that have been being put in Ford vehicles for nearly three years, I am continuing to check this new battery periodically.
 


biglarrr

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Hi there – send a message to us with your VIN and approximate mileage. I’ll look into this for you. Thanks!
Ha Ha Ford will look into it. I'd laugh it that wasn't so pathetic.
I called Ford directly, and they didn't have an answer.
The only way I got results was - by starting a spreadsheet, and recording resting voltage, and immediate after driving voltage.
This was on a BS that was only 8 months old with approximately 3000 miles.
Ford Motor company called the local Service center, and the manager took ownership of the problem and basically sat on the tech that he assigned to work on it.
Also - luckily for me, there was an engineer there working on another mystery issue on someone else's vehicle. He told the manager to have the service tech run a second stage check on the battery, that has something to do with sulfation(?).
The battery failed the test, and they could finally justify replacing it.
Stop/Start has been working since, even on the coldest days in November and December.
It takes a little longer when the temperature is in the twenties (Fahrenheit), but it still kicks in after about 10 - 15 minutes.
 

RSH

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I just took my Badlands to the dealer to check out the battery for 2nd time because the auto start stop would work intermittently and also would have random no start episodes and have to be jump started. The 1st time I brought it in they said everything was normal, I don't think they really tested the battery. 2nd time, I left the Badlands at the dealer and said I don't want it back until it's fixed. This time they tested the battery with there super tester, battery tested bad, they replaced it with a Motorcraft AGM battery.
Everything works as it should now
 

biglarrr

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I just took my Badlands to the dealer to check out the battery for 2nd time because the auto start stop would work intermittently and also would have random no start episodes and have to be jump started. The 1st time I brought it in they said everything was normal, I don't think they really tested the battery. 2nd time, I left the Badlands at the dealer and said I don't want it back until it's fixed. This time they tested the battery with there super tester, battery tested bad, they replaced it with a Motorcraft AGM battery.
Everything works as it should now
Pathetic - You may have seen my comments. I got the same response from the dealer.
First time they checked nothing and just put a note on receipt. "Won't work when it gets cold"
Second time they tested it and said it was OK
I called Ford Support, and they put me on a conference call with a service writer who I'm pretty sure couldn't tell a spark plug from a carrot. The call went up the ladder to the manager of the service department, who took ownership, and told me to talk only to him when I brought my BS/OB in the third time.
Even then, they only discovered the battery was bad, when an engineer who was there working on another issue, told them to run the second level test.
They finally ran that test and the battery failed. I don't even know what kind of battery they put in, but I'm guessing I'll be putting one in next year.
One excuse Ford uses is that they got a bad batch of batteries from Mexico, but from reading these threads, this has been going on as far back as 2016. I'm betting that all the electronics on these new cars, along with the inadequate alternators, and/or batteries, is causing the early failures.
I can't do much about the alternator, but I can make sure I purchase a sturdier battery when it's my turn to pay for it.
 

Meanderthal

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Pathetic - You may have seen my comments. I got the same response from the dealer.
First time they checked nothing and just put a note on receipt. "Won't work when it gets cold"
Second time they tested it and said it was OK
I called Ford Support, and they put me on a conference call with a service writer who I'm pretty sure couldn't tell a spark plug from a carrot. The call went up the ladder to the manager of the service department, who took ownership, and told me to talk only to him when I brought my BS/OB in the third time.
Even then, they only discovered the battery was bad, when an engineer who was there working on another issue, told them to run the second level test.
They finally ran that test and the battery failed. I don't even know what kind of battery they put in, but I'm guessing I'll be putting one in next year.
One excuse Ford uses is that they got a bad batch of batteries from Mexico, but from reading these threads, this has been going on as far back as 2016. I'm betting that all the electronics on these new cars, along with the inadequate alternators, and/or batteries, is causing the early failures.
I can't do much about the alternator, but I can make sure I purchase a sturdier battery when it's my turn to pay for it.
I don’t think it is primarily a load issue from the electronics but the real issue is that the electronics are very sensitive to the battery’s state of charge. If you had a vehicle that was 10 years old a battery in the same condition would probably work fine. It all comes down to the same result but it is a different way of looking at the problem. I’m not saying that the electronics don’t add to the load on the battery, they certainly do. It is definitely a combination of more loading and sensitivity.
 

biglarrr

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I don’t think it is primarily a load issue from the electronics but the real issue is that the electronics are very sensitive to the battery’s state of charge. If you had a vehicle that was 10 years old a battery in the same condition would probably work fine. It all comes down to the same result but it is a different way of looking at the problem. I’m not saying that the electronics don’t add to the load on the battery, they certainly do. It is definitely a combination of more loading and sensitivity.
I hear ya, but I'm basing my idea on some daily monitoring I was doing when I was trying to win the battle for battery replacement.
If I make less than a 15 minute trip, the battery will barely come up on the voltage reading.
This is with nothing but the radio on most of the time.
A 30 minute or more drive would bring the battery up close to expected numbers, although even with the new battery, the highest post drive voltage I've recorded is 12.62.
Just yesterday, we made about an hour long drive with two stops - 30 minutes, and 5 minutes.
We had the heated seats on - on low - for the first ten minutes of the drive, but only the heater (no defroster), and the radio, the rest of the time, and when we got home, I checked the battery voltage and it was 12.22), It was actually 12.27 when I checked about an hour before we left.
The charging seems highly inadequate. I don't know if it's the regulator, or the alternator, but either way it barely keeps up, under light load driving.
Used to be that you could fully charge an ailing battery with five minutes of driving. - OK not fully charge, but enough that it would start a warm engine.
 


Meanderthal

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I hear ya, but I'm basing my idea on some daily monitoring I was doing when I was trying to win the battle for battery replacement.
If I make less than a 15 minute trip, the battery will barely come up on the voltage reading.
This is with nothing but the radio on most of the time.
A 30 minute or more drive would bring the battery up close to expected numbers, although even with the new battery, the highest post drive voltage I've recorded is 12.62.
Just yesterday, we made about an hour long drive with two stops - 30 minutes, and 5 minutes.
We had the heated seats on - on low - for the first ten minutes of the drive, but only the heater (no defroster), and the radio, the rest of the time, and when we got home, I checked the battery voltage and it was 12.22), It was actually 12.27 when I checked about an hour before we left.
The charging seems highly inadequate. I don't know if it's the regulator, or the alternator, but either way it barely keeps up, under light load driving.
Used to be that you could fully charge an ailing battery with five minutes of driving. - OK not fully charge, but enough that it would start a warm engine.
It does sound like you have a charging issue. I don’t know what the amp rating of the alternator is or what a base load of the vehicle is. I do know that my ASS system will kick in (when the weather isn’t extreme) within 5-10 minutes of driving. To me that says that at least the vehicle systems think that the battery is recharged. My commute to work is about 25 minutes and on the way home it is more like 35 minutes. That is my primary drive and mine is garaged, so the temps are less extreme on the battery.
 

biglarrr

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It does sound like you have a charging issue. I don’t know what the amp rating of the alternator is or what a base load of the vehicle is. I do know that my ASS system will kick in (when the weather isn’t extreme) within 5-10 minutes of driving. To me that says that at least the vehicle systems think that the battery is recharged. My commute to work is about 25 minutes and on the way home it is more like 35 minutes. That is my primary drive and mine is garaged, so the temps are less extreme on the battery.
Yes - My Auto S/S has been working since I got the new battery. I've even still been frequently logging the before and after voltages. And the lowest I've seen is 12.09. Before the new battery, the voltage was dropping every day the car wasn't driven. Once I didn't drive it for three days, and the voltage was down to 11.4.
We haven't had any frigid temps yet, but at 28F, the Auto S/S kicked in at about 12 minutes.
You've probably seen that list of 15 things that have to be in the right range before it works, and even cabin temp can keep it from kicking in. Anyway, I'm thriled that a new battery resolved the issue, and I wish I could rub the first tech's face in that fact, but ya know that burning bridges thing.
Gotta be nice - damn it.
 

Meanderthal

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tjbronco

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Just to add to this thread. My auto stop/start worked fine for most of the first year I had the car ( Jan 2022 to now - pretty much this year) - and it stopped when the weather got cold this fall (November-ish). I assumed it was the discussed battery issue. I even turned off the climate control completely - didn't help. Last week - after not working for about a month - it started to work again. It is colder now than when it originally quit working. I have a long commute (about 70 miles round trip) - so the battery should always get a good charge. I have looked at the check list someone posted - I should meet the criteria for auto stop/start - so not sure why it is so flaky. I like the feature - I get better mileage when it is working.
 

magicbus

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I love winter. I have the steering wheel heater on all the time and no longer have to turn off the auto stop/start. :sunglasses:
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