[Updated with Ford statement 2/15/23] 🛑 Lightning Stop Production / Stop Shipment Issued (due to potential battery issue)

[BennyTheBeaver]

It's not an official recall.

Just a manufacturer's voluntary stop build /stop ship order.

Nothing to get alarmed about.

OTOH: My wiper motor recall is real - that affects a lot and have the letter from Ford.
But the part for the recall won't happen till summer!

Others here and on Facebook have already had their wiper motor replaced. Parts are available it seems...

Sponsored

 

[F150ROD]

Others here and on Facebook have already had their wiper motor replaced. Parts are available it seems...

Yup, just schedule an appointment with the dealer and they will order the part.

 

[xwing]

I've only been involved in testing EVs and batteries for 12 years, so maybe this is just wild speculation, but I'm willing to lay money on what I think is the reason for the one fire and the many letters going out to customers about MODULE replacements...Could it be mismatched voltages between modules and charging the entire battery to 100% SOC cause a module to be overcharged enough to go into a thermal runaway?

Personally, I'm not worried about this. After all these years of researching Li-ion batteries, I charge to 85% SOC on a daily basis. Based on my actual driving, I could even go to a lower SOC, but I know this is still a very safe level.

If you want, you can search for my previous posts on how to make your battery live for almost forever based on all the testing I have done.

For those that are wanting to switch to LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate), yes it is a much safer chemistry, but you will not have the same kick in the pants when punching the accelerator as you get with NMC (Nickle Manganese Colbolt)

Thanks for your posts. You have a bunch of them out there after doing a search. Could you give me a title or key words to search on for battery life. Thanks!!!

 

[Iddqd]

A different take on Ford’s action - this will choke the supply, no need to lower the prices like they had to do with Mach-E.

 

[Lightning64]

A update in which Ford says they are monitoring the two battery issues. 1.) Modules on some owned vehicles and 2.) the battery fire. Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/17/ford-f-150-lightning-ev-issues-battery-fire.html

• A defective battery causing a Ford F-150 Lightning to catch fire earlier this month isn’t the only problem the Detroit automaker has recently experienced with its all-electric pickup truck.
• A week before the fire, some F-150 Lightning owners were asked to have their vehicles serviced for a separate issue to replace parts to “prevent performance degradation” of the truck’s battery.
• The January problem is not believed to be connected to a battery fire that occurred Feb. 4, according to a Ford spokeswoman.

 

[cvalue13]

A update in which Ford says they are monitoring the two battery issues. 1.) Modules on some owned vehicles and 2.) the battery fire. Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/17/ford-f-150-lightning-ev-issues-battery-fire.html

• A defective battery causing a Ford F-150 Lightning to catch fire earlier this month isn’t the only problem the Detroit automaker has recently experienced with its all-electric pickup truck.
• A week before the fire, some F-150 Lightning owners were asked to have their vehicles serviced for a separate issue to replace parts to “prevent performance degradation” of the truck’s battery.
• The January problem is not believed to be connected to a battery fire that occurred Feb. 4, according to a Ford spokeswoman.

a member here may be the source in this article

 

[cvalue13]

I am surprised Mini and BMW are ahead of Lexus.

as I mentioned in a prior post and mentioned in the quoted post, these “reliability” rankings are built in significant part on customer surveys

accordingly, all kinds of sociology drive the ultimate “ranking” put forth. For just a few examples: manufacturers with cult followings will by inertia benefit from the customer’s Higher pain tolerance for forgiving issues, recalls, etc. Similarly, highly publicized recalls - even if fundamentally unrelated to experienced safety/reliability issues of a given customer - can cause the customer to report negative feelings regarding safety/reliability.

In short, those rankings are interesting but themselves - ironically - not factually reliable.

Here’s an example of such sociology playing out in this thread:

All I can say is that my (Japanese-built) 2007 Honda Accord Hybrid has NEVER had any recalls. It's 16 years old with something like 75,000 miles on it and has needed next to no service other than scheduled maintenance and NIMH hybrid battery replacement (they only last 7 to 8 years, and the car isn't driveable without it!). My Honda dealer says the vehicle is in excellent shape, and I will test his claim when I try to sell it back to him (Ford doesn't want it as a trade-in)! The wife has had some Takata airbag recalls with her Hondas. But starting in 1981, when we bought a Nissan Stanza hatchback (IMHO, the nicest vehicle we've ever owned), we've never owned an American vehicle since then. Being a rather right-wing American youth, I felt like a traitor to my country. In the '80s, I knew a number of other folks who had bought a foreign-made vehicle and said there was no way they were returning to American vehicles again. I just hope my Ford F-150 Lightning has half the reliability of the Japanese vehicles we've owned since the 1980s.

YET:

 

[Chado]

Data from 1985 - 2016 looks impressive.

Farley admitted Ford has to work on quality, if the CEO admits they have problems publicly...they have problems.

I for one don't feel like Ford has been making quality products for many years, and judging by the claim of 75% lightning owners that have never owned a Ford product, I'm not the only one.

I do believe Farley can make Ford great again (need a MFGA hat ) I believe it so much I have more than a 2022 lightning PROs worth of Ford stock (was a 2023 but dumped some/assigned calls before recent earnings, and stock dropped).

 

[cvalue13]

Farley admitted Ford has to work on quality, if the CEO admits they have problems publicly...they have problems.

I for one don't feel like Ford has been making quality products for many years, and judging by the claim of 75% lightning owners that have never owned a Ford product, I'm not the only one.

i tend to agree

at which point I follow-up wondering which companies have been making any better products for many years

because when it comes to choices, it’s driven by relative metrics not absolute metrics

 

[Grumpy2]

A update in which Ford says they are monitoring the two battery issues. 1.) Modules on some owned vehicles and 2.) the battery fire. Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/17/ford-f-150-lightning-ev-issues-battery-fire.html

I thought this was a good summary of our current status based on my current understanding. I have no idea how true it will turn out to be.

There so many different interests involved here: the folks who like to "short" stocks; the folks who hate Ford in general; the folks who think Ford is the best ever; and the folks who just wish Ford would get busy and deliver what they have ordered (this is my camp).

 

[Blainestang]

as I mentioned in a prior post and mentioned in the quoted post, these “reliability” rankings are built in significant part on customer surveys

accordingly, all kinds of sociology drive the ultimate “ranking” put forth. For just a few examples: manufacturers with cult followings will by inertia benefit from the customer’s Higher pain tolerance for forgiving issues, recalls, etc. Similarly, highly publicized recalls - even if fundamentally unrelated to experienced safety/reliability issues of a given customer - can cause the customer to report negative feelings regarding safety/reliability.

In short, those rankings are interesting but themselves - ironically - not factually reliable.

Also, some of these surveys ask questions that are clearly irrelevant to the supposed metric.

JD Power once said that unintuitive wiper controls was a major contributor to MINI doing poorly in their *dependability* study. Intuitive wipers have EXACTLY ZERO to do with dependability, yet their VP was quoted as saying it was a major mark against MINI. I can provide the actual quote. I saved it because it was just so dumbfounding to be how just obviously ridiculous it was.

As far as "cult followings", Lexus definitely has a very dedicated base, so that would seem to improve their results here.

That being said, regarding MINI and BMW, the current crop of engines is anecdotally (over the course of many years, now) FAR more reliable than the previous generations of engines. They all use the same 4-cylinder engines, now (B48), and it's night and day different for reliability.

So, I think there is certainly *some* reality to the fact that MINI has improved their position, but still, I take these types of rankings with a huge grain of salt considering the complete nonsense methodology that some of them use.

 

[Jim Lewis]

but still, I take these types of rankings with a huge grain of salt considering the complete nonsense methodology that some of them use.

It's been a long time since I looked at a Consumer Reports annual customer survey, but, as I remember the auto part of the detail, they used to ask users for specific details of repair problems and costs, including the car's age and mileage, etc. One problem with "volunteer" surveys is, usually, the people responding are very happy owners or very disgruntled owners, not so much the folks in the middle.

 

[Jim Lewis]

Detroit Free Press Update today (2/17/23) on battery fire and battery module issues: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/02/17/ford-f-150-lightning-power/69915555007/

 

[Jim Lewis]

Thanks for your posts. You have a bunch of them out there after doing a search. Could you give me a title or key words to search on for battery life. Thanks!!!

I did an Advanced Search for MickeyAO posts and the term battery. MickeyAO has been asked more than once for more specific links to the posts in which he says he discusses battery longevity factors.

The best post that I could find in a relatively brief hunt is a quote by someone else of a summary post of MickeyAO's, but if one tries to follow the link in the quote, an "Oops! We ran into some problems!" 404-type Page Not Found error results. MickeyAO's quoted post doesn't give any real specifics at what level temperature becomes a problem, which he says is one of the more important factors affecting battery longevity. He discounts elapsed battery age as a major factor in another post, IIRC.

I'd love to hear his guesstimate on how much heat in the American Southwest affects EV longevity! But maybe that's commercially valuable proprietary information that Southwest Research Institute charges big bucks to tell you! @MickeyAO

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...t-drain-new-battery-to-zero.10780/post-219745

 

[cvalue13]

Detroit Free Press Update today (2/17/23) on battery fire and battery module issues: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/02/17/ford-f-150-lightning-power/69915555007/

Interesting bit here “but Ford cannot definitively say how many more may have a faulty battery because these issues are detected through vehicle data monitoring, Gunsberg said.”

interesting to also find (from the CNBC article) that my Lightning is one of only “about” 100 that are being brought in

mines going into the dealership Monday

Sponsored