New FRUNK WON'T CLOSE ISSUE

[Jim Lewis]

I've likely got a new variation of the FRUNK WON'T CLOSE issue.

The various manifestations of the issue have been discussed in two threads:

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/frunk-not-closing.15659/

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...w-frunk-malfunction-see-manual-message.11070/

As background for my problem, my truck has also been behaving a little flakey electronically recently. I think it started happening after the 10.1.0 and 10.1.1 OTA updates. Sometimes, my SYNC screen will just die and reboot.

Initially, while trickle charging my LVB and leaving it open over a few days, I had the classic FRUNK WON'T CLOSE problem where it would forget its position, had to be manually closed, would automatically latch as it approached the closed position, then get reset and behave normally.

To avoid the manual closure problem, I started unplugging all the wires, moving them entirely within the frunk, and closing the frunk with FordPass. I did this just last night.

Today, I opened the frunk with FordPass and put something in, but I couldn't close the frunk with FordPass, the frunk button, or the frunk button on the dash (I didn't try the fob). No beeps when I press the frunk button. When I manually lower the frunk hood to the point where it should automatically latch, it doesn't. I have to gently "slam" the frunk closed by hand. The frunk can then be reopened electronically, but it's back to the same FRUNK WON'T CLOSE problem again.

Several folks in the second thread that I linked to earlier in this post found that the failure of a strut sensor caused their closure problem. That may be my problem, too. But given that I allowed Ford to put monitoring tokens on my truck for the ECG, TCU, and APIM modules for testing HIS backup power transfer and given the flaky SYNC screen behavior I'm getting after the 10.1.0 and 10.1.1 OTA updates, I'm wondering if some truck module would benefit from being reset. Or maybe pulling the LVB negative cable for 10 minutes or so? If there is no software fix for the problem, I think I'll wait for some other reasons to visit my dealer and just keep manually closing the frunk for now. I'm not getting any frunk dash warnings.

Suggestions, anyone? Beyond "take the truck to your dealer!"

When I press the FordPass frunk button to close the frunk, I get the following screen confirmation indicating the truck thinks it's successfully closed the frunk (when it hasn't!). Stupid that Ford programs in confirmation and has no monitoring that the procedure completed successfully, @Ford Motor Company. When the frunk is manually pushed down to the auto-latch position (which doesn't happen), pressing the FordPass frunk button causes the frunk to open rather than latch, indicating the software loop thinks the frunk was closed when commanded to do so in the fully open position.

ABSOLUTELY FALSE CONFIRMATION IN FORDPASS THAT FRUNK IS CLOSING

Sponsored

 

[TaxmanHog]

Watching your thread for others to report.

I've been wondering why I haven't seen much traffic on the 10.1.0 / 10.1.1 threads lately, I'm waiting for it to arrive on my truck.

 

[Adventureboy]

If you have other goofy things happening, like your screen restarts, it can be because of a low or bad 12v battery. Low voltage causes a bunch of glitches. I'd check that first. Updates can leave your 12v battery pretty low which can take an hour of driving or actively charging HVB to top it up.

 

[Thunder1809]

I had my dealer’s mobile service come out for another issue on another thread with my backup camera. The technician said there was a frunk issue that got reported that he got and would look into it. He said it just needed to be reset because it didn’t know where it was. The other day the frunk wouldn’t close and none of the buttons would close it. I manually pushed it up and then all the way closed and it latched. Then the button inside opened it fine. He said that is what he does to get it to reset and know where it is at.

 

[Jim Lewis]

I manually pushed it up and then all the way closed and it latched.

It didn't do this repeatedly for me, as I described in my OP post.

But, incredibly, the frunk had closed via FP before I put the right frunk cover back on Sunday night on completing LVB trickle charging. Monday, with the cover clipped on, the frunk wouldn't close.

Today, to trickle charge, I removed the right frunk cover. Before wiring everything up, I tried opening and closing the frunk. The FP frunk button worked 2x in a row to close the frunk hood, where it hadn't just yesterday. So, either while sitting overnight or unclipping the frunk cover, something got reset.

Frunk opening and closing ought to be more reliable than this, @Ford Motor Company.

 

[Ricks Lightning]

Why is it that neither my 23 pro or 24 flash give me the option on Ford pass to open or close the frunk or tailgate. Just the doors lock and unlock.
Rick

 

[TaxmanHog]

Why is it that neither my 23 pro or 24 flash give me the option on Ford pass to open or close the frunk or tailgate. Just the doors lock and unlock.
Rick

IIRC, those are features that come alive when you configure PAAK, if that's available on your truck.

 

[Jim Lewis]

If you have other goofy things happening, like your screen restarts, it can be because of a low or bad 12v battery.

Thanks for the suggestion. My LVB was not low. I got the BMS replacement and trickle-charge the LVB daily to ~80%. The LVB never dips below 70% SOC, and, IIRC, was about 74% when I had the frunk closure problem described in the OP. The truck had its right frunk cover clipped on again, went for a short 10-mile drive, then sat overnight, and the HVB was charged with ~3 kWh. The next day, I removed the right frunk cover, after which the frunk, for whatever reason, appeared to recover normal closure behavior, as described in my second post just above (11/5/24, 8:59 PM).

 

[chl]

Thanks for the suggestion. My LVB was not low. I got the BMS replacement and trickle-charge the LVB daily to ~80%. The LVB never dips below 70% SOC, and, IIRC, was about 74% when I had the frunk closure problem described in the OP. The truck had its right frunk cover clipped on again, went for a short 10-mile drive, then sat overnight, and the HVB was charged with ~3 kWh. The next day, I removed the right frunk cover, after which the frunk, for whatever reason, appeared to recover normal closure behavior, as described in my second post just above (11/5/24, 8:59 PM).

Definitely sounds to me like a LV battery issue.

The SOC number may look good on paper, but when you go to USE some of that charge, if the battery health is poor, you won't be able to get much 'juice' out of the battery.

The SOC number is only as good as the BMS that calculates it and the method it uses.

The SOC of a battery, that is, its remaining capacity, can be best determined using a bench charge/discharge test under controlled conditions.

On the other hand, the terminal voltage method converts a reading of the battery voltage to the equivalent SOC value using the known discharge curve (voltage vs. SOC) of the battery. At best it is a rough estimate of the capacity of a relatively new battery in good health.

Obviously in the Lightning the LV battery is not being bench tested.

It is likely the SOC is being determined by the BMS using the terminal voltage and a predicted discharge curve.

The terminal voltage estimate of SOC by the BMS does not reflect factors such as capacity fade, internal resistance, and the ability to deliver power to a load.

It is the difference between the State of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH). A battery can pass the SOC test just fine but fail the SOH test. That means it has high internal resistance and has failed a simulated load test.

So when an aged battery, with a seemingly "good" SOC that is based on terminal voltage, is put under a load test, it may discharge quickly due to poor health.

It is a classic indication of the end of the life of a battery - terminal voltage measures fine but can't deliver current to a load.

These Lightning AGM batteries have a bad record of failures probably because of the charging/discharging set points used by the Lightning.

The bottom line is the SOC number could be misleading, being based on the LV terminal voltage.

As a result, when current is demanded from the battery, to raise or lower the Frunk for example, it discharges quickly because the internal health of the battery has become poor, that is, the battery has lost significant ability to deliver power to the load.

You could remove the battery connections and bench test it to be sure, but what a hassle that would be.

The Ford dealership would be better equipped (should be) to check the LV battery health.

So, sorry but I think that is your best option.

PS: covered by the 3 year B-to-B warranty.

 

[Jim Lewis]

Definitely sounds to me like a LV battery issue.

I think you need to get more familiar with Occam's razor (or, as my postdoc supervisor used to joke, "Occam's broom"). Language Log » Ockham's broom

In post #18 of the first linked thread in my OP post: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/frunk-not-closing.15659/post-319808, Maquis mentions that the frunk not closing after being left open for a prolonged period, such as I was doing, is a well-known truck issue. Mine was just a more complicated version of that in that manually closing it didn't quickly reset the closing mechanism.

Secondly, the inability to reset by closing has only happened to me once. If I were having an LVB battery issue, I should have kept having that issue repeatedly. Even when I had the issue briefly, I could repeatedly unlatch and raise my frunk electronically even when closing it electronically didn't work. Theoretically, raising the frunk requires more battery energy/voltage than lowering it. Also, I didn't get any dash warnings of a low battery charge (which I had gotten in the first month or two of ownership before I started running my truck in AC mode or trickle-charging my battery daily). The warnings only came early on when I let the truck sit around for days undriven, and the truck would initiate LVB charging automatically). The locks, the mirrors, the headlights, and the truck stereo all functioned like gangbusters, too, when I had the electronic closing problem.

You also have to suppose that the new BMS was no good. My truck has mostly sat around with the battery maintained by either running the truck in full-accessory mode for an hour or two a day or trickle charging until my Noco Genius2 charger signals full green. The truck only has ~3,600 miles on it, and it's 1.5 years old, so there's little likelihood there's a bad battery.

There is a frunk update out, too, to address frunk problems (I don't know that my truck qualifies). But it seems to me that the frunk closure thing is just another variation on a general Ford theme: Ford electronic software/firmware things just don't reliably always work the way they should. I can vouch for that in spades as a Home Integration System owner. Look at the vagaries of FordPass. You can't even rely on setting the Max Charge Current you want. I think my frunk closing problem was just more of the same.

All ranting aside, despite the above, I love my truck and am very glad I got it. Just hope Ford lives up to the promise of OTA updates to fix loose ends, of which there seem to be many...

 

[mattskr]

I got the BMS replacement and trickle-charge the LVB daily to ~80%.

Why do you feel the need to trickle charge the 12v daily?

I will say I had a frunk problem once and it was AFTER I did some FDRS updates and had removed the frunk cover to get to the jump points for the power supply. Once I was done, I put the frunk cover back on and secured all the clips. I could not lower the frunk with any button inside or out, the fob, or FordPass. It would only shut manually with a push down as you described. I could only open it with the button on the frunk.

I was about to take it to the dealer but as a last resort I took the frunk cover off again, simply put it back, and everything started working again and has been fine for months. So I dunno if pinched a wire, blocked some kind of sensor or what.

Glad it worked because my truck still hasn't been to a dealer since I got it.

 

[Jim Lewis]

Why do you feel the need to trickle charge the 12v daily?

I got into the habit because Inhibit Mode updates require a >80% LVB SOC. Also, for some reason, with my Noco or a Deltran trickle chargers, I can't go above ~80% SOC before the trickle charging stops. Running the truck plugged into my FCSP in full-accessory mode, I can slowly charge into the 90th percentiles of LVB SOC. In the trickle charging, I wondered if the BMS somehow tricks the trickle chargers into making them think the charging rate has plateaued.

There is the following thread in the ICE Ford F-150 sister forum about the 80% charging limit in FORScan. I've wondered if that has anything to do with my apparent trickle-charging barrier to achieving 100% LVB SOC. Also, whether Ford has deemed 80% SOC a better resting limit for long-term LVB lifespan rather than always running to 100% and risk off-gassing of water components, etc. https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/thr...hanging-battery-charge-rate-in-forscan.21552/

It's funny that our frunk cover reclipping experience and associated suspicions were the same. The rant in my just prior thread post about Ford problems left out my [expletives-deleted] opinions on the design of the frunk covers and clips and the accessibility of battery terminals.

 

[The Weatherman]

Here’s a couple pics of how I setup a trickle charger connection for my 22MY Lariat to attach a trickle charger without having to remove and reinstall that silly side panel.

Drilled a hole big enough for the connector end to pass through. Then inserted a rubber grommet. Easy peasy and Bob’s your uncle.

I close the Frunk during charging. The cord is small and doesn’t harm the seal.

 

[chl]

I think you need to get more familiar with Occam's razor (or, as my postdoc supervisor used to joke, "Occam's broom"). Language Log » Ockham's broom

In post #18 of the first linked thread in my OP post: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/frunk-not-closing.15659/post-319808, Maquis mentions that the frunk not closing after being left open for a prolonged period, such as I was doing, is a well-known truck issue. Mine was just a more complicated version of that in that manually closing it didn't quickly reset the closing mechanism.

Secondly, the inability to reset by closing has only happened to me once. If I were having an LVB battery issue, I should have kept having that issue repeatedly. Even when I had the issue briefly, I could repeatedly unlatch and raise my frunk electronically even when closing it electronically didn't work. Theoretically, raising the frunk requires more battery energy/voltage than lowering it. Also, I didn't get any dash warnings of a low battery charge (which I had gotten in the first month or two of ownership before I started running my truck in AC mode or trickle-charging my battery daily). The warnings only came early on when I let the truck sit around for days undriven, and the truck would initiate LVB charging automatically). The locks, the mirrors, the headlights, and the truck stereo all functioned like gangbusters, too, when I had the electronic closing problem.

You also have to suppose that the new BMS was no good. My truck has mostly sat around with the battery maintained by either running the truck in full-accessory mode for an hour or two a day or trickle charging until my Noco Genius2 charger signals full green. The truck only has ~3,600 miles on it, and it's 1.5 years old, so there's little likelihood there's a bad battery.

There is a frunk update out, too, to address frunk problems (I don't know that my truck qualifies). But it seems to me that the frunk closure thing is just another variation on a general Ford theme: Ford electronic software/firmware things just don't reliably always work the way they should. I can vouch for that in spades as a Home Integration System owner. Look at the vagaries of FordPass. You can't even rely on setting the Max Charge Current you want. I think my frunk closing problem was just more of the same.

All ranting aside, despite the above, I love my truck and am very glad I got it. Just hope Ford lives up to the promise of OTA updates to fix loose ends, of which there seem to be many...

Ha, to me the LV battery is the simplest probable cause.

But maybe it is one of those other problems. Hope you figure it out and it gets fixed.

As to your "rant" didn't seem like a rant to me, just a detailed explanation/rationalization of why you don't think it is the LV battery, which I don't mind.

But I might point out that...

Some have had the LV battery replaced well within the 3 year from purchase period.
You have only had it a year and a half, but who knows how long it sat at a dealership unsold and unused, the LV battery could easily have gotten below 40% SOC for 48hrs many times - the threshold for the DC-DC converter to kick in?
And you admit, early on you had LV battery warnings, so the damage was done by then perhaps?

I never had the low LV battery warnings, but my 2023 Pro did have trouble with updates due to the LV battery being below 80% (I assume that threshold) and using your methods, thank you for that btw, I got it up to the level needed to install the updates.

Since it is a controlled, slow close, not just letting the frunk lid fall under the force of gravity, it is possible/likely the same amount of power is needed to close as open, maybe more because it has to press down and lock itself.

I agree Ford has reliability issue with things like this, electric servos and controls. My neighbor has an Explorer and had to replace a module in the hatch when it stopped working. So that is definitely another item for Occam to shave, if it's not the LV battery.

I'd be curious to know the reason leaving it open for long periods of time causes issues, has anyone figured that out?

Guess what a search says:

Leaving the Frunk (front trunk) on a Ford Lightning open for a long time can cause issues because it can drain the vehicle's battery significantly, potentially impacting its ability to start or function properly, as the electronics within the car remain active even when the vehicle is off, drawing power from the battery to maintain features like security systems and internal modules. ...

Key reasons why leaving the Frunk open can be problematic:

• Power consumption:
  Even when the vehicle is off, certain systems like the car alarm, door locks, and internal computer modules still require power, and leaving the Frunk open can activate additional sensors or features that draw more power than usual.

So, maybe you SHOULD consider having your battery replaced under warranty, and find a better way to trickle charge the battery than leaving the Frunk open for long periods of time.

BTW, I'd like to figure that out myself - I used to keep my 2001 Ranger battery tended by using a solar panel plugged into the cigarette lighter outlet, but not sure that would work with the Lightning - I vaguely remember the manual saying not to do anything like that? The Ranger hood didn't use any power when open but made stealing the battery a possible down-side.

Routing a wire from somewhere into the frunk to the proper terminals for charging the LV battery I guess would be the key.

So, I rest my case.

PS: I am an electrical engineer with an MS in Computers and Electrical Engineering, and I also have a JD and have worked in the patent field since 1985.

Sponsored