Plug in to maintain 12v battery

[brewski]

Situation:
I just returned from the airport. The truck sat for 10 days NOT plugged in.
About an hour drive home.
Plugged in and scheduled to start at midnight.
About an hour later I got 2 messages that were the same:
"plug in to maintain 12v battery"
then a bit later:
"electrical system drain..."
I have nothing plugged into the truck...other than the charger.
I went to look and make sure I hadn't left a light on or something, nope.
Though the charger was showing in charge mode well before midnight.

Today all is normal.

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[Heliian]

Your 12v battery was low. Charging or running the truck charges the 12v.

 

[brewski]

Your 12v battery was low. Charging or running the truck charges the 12v.

I had run the truck for an hour plus prior to this.

 

[Amps]

I had run the truck for an hour plus prior to this.

From my most recent experience, that ain't enough. You can monitor the 12V battery voltage using a plug-in thingy like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N00I4TM

 

[Aspesi4]

I got a similar issue the other day. I didn't charge for a few days and really didn't use the truck. The battery drain error then turned into an error I needed service.

I was wondering if it had a lot to do with the failed update that I have been experiencing lately.

 

[jthiesse13]

I got the exact some messages yesterday. I drove the truck the day before so there’s no reason the 12v battery should have been low. I did nothing until this morning when I left for work and all seems ok now. WTH!?!

 

[brewski]

From my most recent experience, that ain't enough. You can monitor the 12V battery voltage using a plug-in thingy like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N00I4TM

I'm not buying that thingy...my big thingy should tell me this info.

 

[Maxx]

I was wondering if it had a lot to do with the failed update that I have been experiencing lately.

I am getting the failed update problem too but my battery is at 12.80 V when off and no battery error message. The truck has been sitting for four days and was chaged to 65% SOC before then for 6 hours.

The software update is strange. It does not tell me version number or any details. It looks like software team may have been drinking again.

 

[swajames]

I'm not buying that thingy...my big thingy should tell me this info.

Well it doesn't, at least for now, and those electrical drain warnings have happened to many of us with no obvious actual drain. With so many software updates etc reliant on good 12v charge it's probably better to know your current 12V SOC rather than guess and for $11 it seems to me to be a good solution until we can find the information another way.

 

[ddbrooke]

Buying an OBD scanner is a cheap easy way to either geek out over all the available data or just use it when you need an answer. I added this page in the Car Scanner app. The sensors you need to map to the screen are '12v battery voltage' and '12v battery SOC'. As you can see here my voltage was good at 14.45, but my SOC was 46%. A Power Up update had failed 5 nights in a row. So I plugged in to my charger and the update completed overnight. When I checked the app in the morning, the SOC was 88%.
There are lower limits of both voltage and SOC of the 12V battery that prevent OTAs from installing

 

[Wesley]

What OBD scanner do you recommend?

 

[Ford Motor Company]

Situation:
I just returned from the airport. The truck sat for 10 days NOT plugged in.
About an hour drive home.
Plugged in and scheduled to start at midnight.
About an hour later I got 2 messages that were the same:
"plug in to maintain 12v battery"
then a bit later:
"electrical system drain..."
I have nothing plugged into the truck...other than the charger.
I went to look and make sure I hadn't left a light on or something, nope.
Though the charger was showing in charge mode well before midnight.

Today all is normal.

Good morning- I can look into this for you. Feel free to send over a private message with your VIN and dealership information at your earliest convenience.

 

[chl]

Situation:
I just returned from the airport. The truck sat for 10 days NOT plugged in.
About an hour drive home.
Plugged in and scheduled to start at midnight.
About an hour later I got 2 messages that were the same:
"plug in to maintain 12v battery"
then a bit later:
"electrical system drain..."
I have nothing plugged into the truck...other than the charger.
I went to look and make sure I hadn't left a light on or something, nope.
Though the charger was showing in charge mode well before midnight.

Today all is normal.

I had a similar problem after I first got my 2012 Leaf and went out of town for about a month in January. I left the Leaf plugged in to the L2 EVSE - as the sales person recommended, but the 12 volt battery went dead anyway - the Leaf only charged the 12v when the car was on, and the charge timer and other vampire electronics drained the 12v battery.

As a result, when ever I travel I keep the 12v on a battery tender trickle charger.

This is an example of bad engineering. The Li battery has plenty of juice that COULD be used to keep the 12v charged/trickle charge the 12v battery when the car is idle and off, but they didn't think of that, or had some reason not to do it that escapes me.

This happened to other Leaf owners, so they put out the word to turn off the charge timer when the Leaf will be idle for more than 3 weeks to save 12v battery charge.

They make solar battery tenders that you can put on your dashboard which is what I use on my 2001 Ranger when it is parked - I got 18 years out of the 12v battery by keeping it near fully charged this way - lead-acid batteries want to be stored fully charged, but not Li batteries as you probably know which are happiest at between 40% and 60% charge when stored/idle.

So bottom line, get a solar trickle charger to put on your dash and plug into the cigarette lighter plug (if the lightning has one?) - they are inexpensive, around $20-$30.

 

[4Reeley]

I have this exact problem from time to time. It's a minor annoyance and I've learned to brush it off. I haven't touched the 12V battery. Seems to work itself back to normal.

 

[ddbrooke]

What OBD scanner do you recommend?

I bought this one on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073XKQQQW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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