Lightning range fail

[greenne]

I think (without primary evidence) the dealer service department is following direct and specific instructions from the engineers in Dearborn. there is a reason it remains uncharged.

I'm touched by your faith, Taxman.

As a former federal employee I expected more of a cynic. Good for you moving away from the dark side.

- Signed.....Employee in Government way too long to have any optimism left...

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[Amps]

I don't have any faith in Ken Garff in Fort Collins

You may be able to get someone who's always interested in EVs, and a Lightning fan, to drop by Ken's place for a chat. He's been abroad, might return soon

@OutofSpecKyle

https://outofspecstudios.com/contact-bedford

 

[Cruiser]

Well I see it is currently charging at the dealership. It's up to 13% and 34 miles in the 56 minutes it's been charging. I think they should be able to try to diagnose it sometime today.

 

[Theo1000]

Well I see it is currently charging at the dealership. It's up to 13% and 34 miles in the 56 minutes it's been charging. I think they should be able to try to diagnose it sometime today.

This is great news as your HVB is in good shape. Even the most minor off spec data on the HVB and the truck will brick itself till the mothership engineers get involved.

Do be surprised to hear from the dealer that nothing is wrong and they cleared all the codes. Push to have the LVB replaced. On the Mach-E several folks were brushed off lightly only to have recurrence.

Almost certain that is the issue.

 

[Cruiser]

This is great news as your HVB is in good shape. Even the most minor off spec data on the HVB and the truck will brick itself till the mothership engineers get involved.

Do be surprised to hear from the dealer that nothing is wrong and they cleared all the codes. Push to have the LVB replaced. On the Mach-E several folks were brushed off lightly only to have recurrence.

Almost certain that is the issue.

I have a load tester for batteries so I can check the 12-volt battery to make sure it has the correct voltage and amp load.

 

[Mike G]

Or the LVB was fine and then just went bad all of a sudden. LVB do that all the time for no rhyme or reason--in hybrids, ICE, or EV. The only difference is in an ICE car(at least those older) is the engine would be fine for awhile and you'd just lose all the accessories. It appears with hybrids/EVs the 12v takes some role in the driving aspect of things.

You're right it does indeed. Had the LVB go dead on my new '21 Powerboost last year and the truck just quit completely, went into park and put the parking brake on. Had to be slowly dragged up the rollback ramp cause the truck wore down the guy's booster pack so bad while trying to get the parking brake off. Dealer suspected it was a 12V battery going bad from sitting in a storage area somewhere in Dearborn before being shipped.

I was about a mile from my house at the time. Ford Roadside Disaster took 3 hours to send a tow truck from a city 20 miles south of me to pick up my truck and take it into my dealer in my town about 15 miles away.

 

[Mike G]

They learned from Mach E. LVB jump points are by the right frunk strut
pp. 420-421 paraphrased

1. Locate the jumper cable symbols on the right-hand side (Frunk) luggage compartment cover.
2. Remove the cover. See Installing and Removing the (Frunk) Luggage Compartment Cover (page 338).
3. Remove the red cap. Connect the positive (+) jumper cable to the positive (+) jump point of the Lightning
4. Make the final connection of the negative (-) jumper cable to the negative (-) ground point of the Lightning
   

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[greenne]

You're right it does indeed. Had the LVB go dead on my new '21 Powerboost last year and the truck just quit completely, went into park and put the parking brake on. Had to be slowly dragged up the rollback ramp cause the truck wore down the guy's booster pack so bad while trying to get the parking brake off. Dealser suspected it was a 12V battery going bad from sitting in a storage area somewhere in Dearborn before being shipped.

I was about a mile from my house at the time. Ford Roadside Disaster took 3 hours to send a tow truck from a city 20 miles south of me to pick up my truck and take it into my dealer in my town about 15 miles away.

The way Ford has the LVB "wired" with the HVB in either the Lightning or hybrids is unique.

When the LVB dies..it dies suddenly without warning.

Had it happened 3x on out two older Ford hybrids. If you're lucky, you can jump start it to get home. If not you'll need a tow. (I am making the assumption Ford didn't reinvent the wheel and build upon past R&D of Hybrid platforms for its new era of Hybrids/EVs).

None of us know for sure if this is the problem with OPs truck, but if I were troubleshooting that is where I would start looking...

 

[Theo1000]

I have a load tester for batteries so I can check the 12-volt battery to make sure it has the correct voltage and amp load.

Sounds like a start, just be aware that even slight off spec performance from the LVB and the BMS will sometimes shut things off to protect from damage. Often times these slight variations may not even be detectable out side of the BMS. This is very different from ICE vehicles. On EV's the problems with LVB has proven almost impossible to detect baring a completely dead unit. All the EV's I owned have had this issue all the way back to the 2010 Volt and the Rav4.

At least on Mach-E zero folks were able to detect problems before and sometimes after problems were detected. No consistent pro-active replacement technique was found.

 

[beatle]

This is great news as your HVB is in good shape. Even the most minor off spec data on the HVB and the truck will brick itself till the mothership engineers get involved.

Do be surprised to hear from the dealer that nothing is wrong and they cleared all the codes. Push to have the LVB replaced. On the Mach-E several folks were brushed off lightly only to have recurrence.

Almost certain that is the issue.

Seems a bit hasty to give the HVB a clean bill of health just by seeing it charge. It could still have a bad cell. I sure wouldn't want to have my truck handed back to me after a failure to drive unless the battery was really and truly dead and reading as such. The fact that it was "dead" at 5% is pretty suspect. Without more data on the systems, we're still just speculating on the cause of failure.

 

[vandy1981]

All the EV's I owned have had this issue all the way back to the 2010 Volt and the Rav4.

My I-Pace had the same issue and it took a few trips to the dealer (one with the car on a flatbed) to figure it out. I diagnosed the issue myself after I installed bluetooth battery voltage loggers on the accessory LVB and auxiliary LVB. Turned out there was a software bug that was preventing the BMS from charging the auxiliary LVB when parked. Eventually the LVB got destroyed by frequent deep discharges. Since the auxiliary battery is used to power the HVB relays, safety systems and the brake master cylinder pump in the event of a HVB failure at speed, the car could not be driven even if the HVB was at full charge.

The LVB battery should always be the first thing you check if your EV throws errors.

 

[sotek2345]

Seems a bit hasty to give the HVB a clean bill of health just by seeing it charge. It could still have a bad cell. I sure wouldn't want to have my truck handed back to me after a failure to drive unless the battery was really and truly dead and reading as such. The fact that it was "dead" at 5% is pretty suspect. Without more data on the systems, we're still just speculating on the cause of failure.

This is an internet forum - speculation without information is pretty much our job!

 

[beatle]

This is an internet forum - speculation without information is pretty much our job!

In that case I bet it's just a bad tank of electrons. Probably had been sitting in storage for a while during the TPMS recall and the electrons oxidized and turned into electric gelatin which clogged the high voltage tubes. Should be able to free it up and get the truck working by blowing into the tubes from the motor side.

 

[sotek2345]

In that case I bet it's just a bad tank of electrons. Probably had been sitting in storage for a while during the TPMS recall and the electrons oxidized and turned into electric gelatin which clogged the high voltage tubes. Should be able to free it up and get the truck working by blowing into the tubes from the motor side.

You forgot this is a dual motor setup - you need to blow down and refill the turboencabulator first.

 

[FlasherZ]

LVB's also have several different failure modes (open cell, shorted cell, etc.) and exhibit different characteristics in those modes. In some of these modes, I've seen Tesla cars respond by just closing the HV contactors and allowing the DC-DC converter to stay active constantly until the battery is replaced. But in certain cases, you don't want to do that because it can create problems in the bad LVB.

I've heard horror stories about other manufacturers who haven't paid the same attention to the LV system health. Let's hope they all up their game and make it easier to diagnose these things.

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