[mechanics200]

I have a 2018 Explorer and when I do not use for a couple of days I get a message on my cell phone that remote features are disabled to save battery. I will put a battery charger on for several hours. The charger shows a fully charged battery but the message remains on my phone. Anyone have an idea why charging the battery does not remove this notice? Thanks

 

[Noangel]

After charging, have you operated the vehicle several times to see if the indication clears?

 

[mechanics200]

After charging, have you operated the vehicle several times to see if the indication clears?

Very rarely will it work properly after driving. Most trips are less than an hour. Poor design if it so quickly removes the use of the passenger door handle to unlock the car.

 

[MikeHTally]

The message will remain, but the condition usually doesn't. My 2020 does that due to short trips.

 

[mechanics200]

I charge my battery twice a week for at least five hours each time. Even after charging I need a couple of hours or so driving for the message to clear on my FordPass app on my cellphone. Until that happens the condition remains. If after I shut off the car and plug something into the 12 volt socket it will not be live. When the condition clears the socket remains live for an hour or so. It appears that a charged battery is not sufficient to change the condition it clearly requires some extended driving for whatever chip gets rebooted. Not sure if that has anything to do with the messages I sometimes get on the dash that "key not detected" or after shutting off car "start car or key needed".

 

[J_C]

It's got smart charging so it doesn't know you're charging it, thinks it needs to run a while so "smart" isn't as "smart" as it could be, but maybe that's not all bad because the smarter it gets, the harder it is to work with.

If this is the original factory battery, it's probably just due to be replaced. You should be able to go longer than a couple days if the battery is good, unless you have some kind of parasitic drain problem. It seems kind of excessive to charge the battery twice a week, just to lower cost per year of new batteries a little... if that's the situation.

If it takes a group 65, walmart and costco have pretty good deals on those. If it came with a group 59, check the battery tray available area because it'll probably fit the larger group 65 too and those often cost less than group 59.

 

[mechanics200]

Battery was replaced last year. Never heard of smart charging. Dealer also charged the battery and never mentioned that . What exactly is smart charging? This is the third battery in that vehicle. I mentioned that I would charge the battery and the dealer never commented. Are you trying to say that only running the car will charge the battery? Thanks for the information.

 

[J_C]

No, not only running the car will charge it. This generation of vehicle uses an advanced charging system (aka Ford BMS) where it mostly charges the battery in deceleration events to eek out a little better fuel economy, and perpetually keeps the battery at a lower state of charge to accomplish this, but also can't drain too low because critical high current features like the electric steering depend on it.

This state of charge level can be programmed, and it also changes the charging algorithm based on battery age, battery voltage, type and capacity of the battery, and shuts subsystems down when the battery does not appear to be functioning properly.

The first thing to determine is what is the parasitic drain level once the vehicle has entered its lowest power state, which it will time out to, perhaps in an hour since you mentioned that interval previously, or it could be shorter than that for certain subsystems.

It is sensing a lower than normal battery voltage based on the driving conditions it's been in. The important thing is to determine why. Maybe you have an intermittent rear wiper failure, or seat adjust, or flaky door latch switch, leaky diode in the alternator, or are leaving something plugged into the cigarette outlet that continues to drain the battery... but whatever the cause, either you have a continued excessive battery drain, or your battery is wearing out. Taking it to get a cranking amps test done is another thing to try. It could be charging up to an acceptable voltage so your charger stops (as it should) but has low current capacity and droops in voltage under a load.

There's more info out there about the Ford BMS (battery monitoring system), here's just the first video I came across:

It seems odd to me that you mentioned that you would charge the battery (to the dealer) and without any specific reason why you might have caused it to excessively discharge enough to need external charging, the dealer didn't indicate that you should not have to do this and that it's a sign of a problem... a problem they should have offered to fix.

 

[mechanics200]

Thank you for the very detailed response. What caused me to notice in addition to the Ford Pass email was that the passenger door handle would not unlock the car.Normally alone I would enter the driver side but for a few years my wife has suffered from dementia and I always go to the passenger side to assist her to enter. If I had not needed to do that I likely would not have noticed anything. It has been to two different dealers and they said everything is fine and I need to drive the vehicle more. They would charge the battery before we would leave and the passenger handle would work to unlock the doors then. They told me the battery needs to be charged if I drive so little. Both dealers and an independent shop found nothing draining the battery except the devices that are active in the vehicle when it is parked.. One dealer did change the battery and last year I had a new one installed by the independent shop. For a while after the new batteries were installed the pass handle did unlock the vehicle. That lasted about two weeks after which the handle would not unlock when touched. I keep the key fob in a zippered case with the other keys so it is usually quicker to walk to the driver door rather than pull it out. My wife needs some assistance so I usually hold her hand to keep her from tripping.

 

[J_C]

I can understand it draining if you had not driven it for over a week, but something is wrong if it is draining a battery in good health, in only a couple days of not driving it. They may not have found the fault but something is still wrong.

Did you tell them this happens if the time span between driving is only 2-3 days? If they heard that and still stated everyitng is fine, you need a different shop as it seems like they simply don't want to bother doing warranty work (at what is probably a lower profit to them). You might try to escalate this to someone higher up at Ford if the dealership shop service manager or owner won't help. Who? I don't know.

 

[mechanics200]

I have told both dealers. Even after I charge for several hours nothing changes. Occasionally if I drive for an hour or so the door handle will work to unlock. Fortunately almost anything else works OK. Many times I also get a message that "key not detected" or when turning off car a message" start now or key required". This happens even with two fobs in the car. I cannot keep going back to Dealer as I would need an aid to stay with my wife. That cost about $ 150 for three or four minimum hours. At the completion of my charging the gage shows a full charge.