Replaced my battery with an H8. My observations:

[Eighthtry]

There is much discussion about the battery, but I think it is an AGM problem. I had a Diehard AGM in my 2002 F150. If it sat 2-3 weeks it might or might not start. If I ran it every day the 25 miles to work and back it stayed up with no problem. Same thing repeated in my 2014 F150 with an Odyssey AGM. It had everything to do with how long it sat. 2-3 weeks was it.

I start trickle charging all my cars every two weeks or so with my 1.5 amp Schumacher Float. It generally takes overnight to charge, but sometimes longer.

AC/Delco AGM in my 2018 Z06 needs to be charged. I have a Optima Yellow Top in my 61 Apache 10 that has been upgraded with power windows, locks, seats, alarm, 350 TPI and more. Not so much problem. I have had several Optima's in it and never had a problem, even when its a month between drives. Note that I have had that truck for48 years, the last 20 with yellow and red tops. I have a regular AC/Delco battery in my 74 Cutlass 455 and it has no problems.

I hooked my 23 F150 XLT to the float charger the day I got it. It only sat at he dealership for 3 days before I picked it up. Two days to catch up with the float. I have been driving it regularly, but if I have not been putting miles on it I get the low battery warning on the screen.

So the AGM is what is making me suspicious. Optima Yellow Top and AC/Delco regular batteries doing great.

I am interested to see if others have experienced this.

Sponsored

 

[gooby]

Identical situation here, I put in the walmart H8 last week, all low battery issues appear resolved.

I also bought a Noco genius 5 battery charger, the quick release X-connect battery addon, and will hook it up overnight if I ever go a long period without driving much.

 

[fordtruckman2003]

AGM batteries are great. Been used in motorsports for years. My bike can sit long time without being plugged in and battery won't self discharge much. One winter I forgot to plug in and it was still over 90% charged in spring.
Truck definitely never stops draining battery. It will wake up and update status with FordPass roughly every 24 hours on my WiFi. Always running cellular connection so it can be started/unlocked /etc with FordPass or upload tons of data for unknown reasons (covered in another thread). I can't find fault in AGM batteries, but there is always something draining in these trucks. Anyone not driving every couple weeks will likely need to plug in. Larger battery capacity can help significantly with holding out longer with the constant battery usage.

 

[texski]

Well there you go.
Ford has indeed joined the "You might need our battery charger/maintainer if you buy certain vehicles with The Blue Oval"

And it is no doubt a C-tek.

I know everyone is going to frown considering their F150 needing battery pampering like their Porsche, but I can't ignore my truck has MORE horsepower per liter (92 vs 122) and 3 times the torque!

Bruce,
I have to tell you, my wife's Cayenne S does not need to be charged between extended parkings. And it is not uncommon for owners to get 7+ years out of these batteries. BTW, C-Tecs were $600+ with the Porsche tax not too long ago.


PPK,
I have speculated that the alternator was undersized, as there were several options offered for this gen. I had my H6 replaced under warranty at 4-5 months. At 10 months I began to get the same battery saving mode in November of 22. It persist yet.

I concur though, it is probably a software limitation imposed by Admin. A while back, the Mach-e was found to have wires that were undersized, and the resistance produced excessive heat resulted in fires. Ford's fix was to depower the motors by 10-20% (?) instead of retrofitting the correct gauge wires. All too often Ford depends of software to resolve poorly engineered product.

A question for all, are you charging AFTER the BMS? It seems like I heard someone say that if you place the clamp between the bms and post, the ecu will not recognize the charge. I think it was FordMacoloco that demonstrated this with his 21 Platinum.

After similar results with a second battery, I do not believe the battery receives enough charge, and I do believe it is an attempt to meet CAFE requirements. Has anyone done a load study on the operational requirements while the vehicle is running? I would think 15+ amps is enough to cover charge + resources, but I could be wrong.

M

 

[PB2021]

Texski I suspect Snakebitten can offer much more on this but anecdotal observations on powerboost leaves me to believe there is no issue with the “capacity” to charge the battery while underway. Monitoring charging amps underway I see 100amps or so being used to power options while still sending 30 to 40 amps to the battery. It seems to me the issue is the system default settings that stop pushing power to the battery once we hit 80% SOC. At this point or just after I see both amps and voltage drop. Voltage goes from north of 14VDC to 12.7VDC and the amps pushed to AGM drop to 0. If I start up after a full charge I see the high SOC and the truck sits at 12.7VDC and sends all the amps needed to run options but 0 to the AGM. I really think the 80% SOC setting (which I’m now convinced is arbitrary to achieve fuel savings) is our biggest issue rather than any capacity to charge.

 

[PaulGrun]

Texski I suspect Snakebitten can offer much more on this but anecdotal observations on powerboost leaves me to believe there is no issue with the “capacity” to charge the battery while underway. Monitoring charging amps underway I see 100amps or so being used to power options while still sending 30 to 40 amps to the battery. It seems to me the issue is the system default settings that stop pushing power to the battery once we hit 80% SOC. At this point or just after I see both amps and voltage drop. Voltage goes from north of 14VDC to 12.7VDC and the amps pushed to AGM drop to 0. If I start up after a full charge I see the high SOC and the truck sits at 12.7VDC and sends all the amps needed to run options but 0 to the AGM. I really think the 80% SOC setting (which I’m now convinced is arbitrary to achieve fuel savings) is our biggest issue rather than any capacity to charge.

And yet as far as I can tell, nobody on this forum has yet been able to show that changing the Forescan parameter actually impacts the battery’s long term average state of charge.
Although there are quite a few people who changed that parameter while simultaneously making other changes…

 

[PB2021]

Need to hear from some who made the change and have MX+ or similar reader who can post their readings

 

[fordtruckman2003]

Need to hear from some who made the change and have MX+ or similar reader who can post their readings

I haven't looked into it since battery change to H8 on my 2.7.
Reset SOC via flashing lights and that also reset the days in use confirmed with OBDLink app PIDs. Also set Forscan from 80 to 85. SOC couple days later was still 87 or more.

I'll try to remember to look into it now that I'm around 40 days on this battery.

Old battery truck was constantly pushing 15+ volts trying to force it to charge with SOC in 50s. New battery and voltage was barely over 12V when truck running.

 

[Snakebitten]

Bruce,
I have to tell you, my wife's Cayenne S does not need to be charged between extended parkings. And it is not uncommon for owners to get 7+ years out of these batteries. BTW, C-Tecs were $600+ with the Porsche tax not too long ago.

M

Ummm
I need you to promise to grin when I say this.......

Your wife's Cayenne is NOT the flavor of Porsche I was stereotyping. At all. I'm not even sure it's electronically a Porsche, as much as an Audi/VW?

(I am NOT saying it isn't a Porsche)

I work in the private aviation industry.
There's a fair percentage of customers that board private jets to get to their meetings that also drive cars that get parked in hangars, if you know what I mean.
It's not unusual for fellas that are gone for a few days to need a jump when they return back to the airport. Porches, the 2-seat variety, are not rare.
We have electrical outlets at multiple VIP parking spots specifically for long term parking battery support.

My Porsche is a 2005 987. Nothing fancy really.
If I lock the door, it'll be OK for several days without worry. Locking the door seems to really put it to sleep.
Not locking the doors is risky, especially if it's on sunny weekend only duty.
And if you leave the key in the ignition, even if in the off position, the next morning it will be dead as a door knob and you can't remove the key.

Anyways, in my world my Powerboost IS the first truck that I've had to monitor the 12V battery. But I have several vehicles that I have to maintain batteries because they don't get driven enough.

 

[Oilberta]

Anecdotally I’ve also owned 4 BMW’s in the last 15 years, 3 of which had modules that would stay on for days such as “motion sensors” for theft and active key radius to start such items like the ECM, BCM and fuel pump modules to “prep” the vehicle before being driven. All of which had AGM batteries from the factory and a smart alternator charging system, with irregular use I can say confidently that every battery lasted 8 years, with the current twin turbo v8 5 series now on its 8th year and having ZERO charging/draining issues even when not on a maintainer. I believe it is a bad batch of batteries as similar technology exists in other brands without issue.

 

[Blue22]

Sorry to sort of derail this thread, but this morning at 4:29am I received the "Remote features disabled to preserve battery" message after having my truck unplugged since Friday night at 9pm. I checked the SOC with the Bluetooth battery monitor and it showed 12.33V and 55% SOC at around 8am. When I checked the voltage chart, I can clearly see a dip in voltage at the time I received the message from Ford Pass and then another dip 20 minutes later, but what's strange, at least to me, is that the voltage actually increased after each dip. It went from 12.24V before the first dip to 12.33V after the second dip. Can anyone explain how or where the increased voltage came from?

 

[Old Hat]

I believe it is a bad batch of batteries as similar technology exists in other brands without issue.

Question for the group: Do those who install a new battery generally cease to have issues?

 

[Spidergears]

Sorry to sort of derail this thread, but this morning at 4:29am I received the "Remote features disabled to preserve battery" message after having my truck unplugged since Friday night at 9pm. I checked the SOC with the Bluetooth battery monitor and it showed 12.33V and 55% SOC at around 8am. When I checked the voltage chart, I can clearly see a dip in voltage at the time I received the message from Ford Pass and then another dip 20 minutes later, but what's strange, at least to me, is that the voltage actually increased after each dip. It went from 12.24V before the first dip to 12.33V after the second dip. Can anyone explain how or where the increased voltage came from?

Now that is interesting.

Do you see other voltage drops in your history? Is this the first one that went this low?

 

[FirstFord]

Question for the group: Do those who install a new battery generally cease to have issues?

Yes, but....

I do not doubt for a second anyone's report that an H8 (or sometimes, just a non-Motorcraft) battery "solved" their issues. But I take this as anecdotal evidence. Now that I have installed my H8, I may be doing the same in 2 or 3 months. But I still regard it as anecdotal.

It kind of reminds me of another scenario.... Have you ever noticed when your friends take a trip to Vegas, they come back telling stories of how good they did, how much they won? You never (okay, rarely) hear of them coming back and telling stories how they got their clock cleaned. I'm sort of viewing this the same way - all of the feedback that I have read about switching batteries has been positive - I haven't read of anyone reporting that it failed. Again, it doesn't mean that it hasn't happened, it just does not make up the dominant response. Clearly, I was persuaded enough by the argument to give it a try.

 

[Snakebitten]

Sorry to sort of derail this thread, but this morning at 4:29am I received the "Remote features disabled to preserve battery" message after having my truck unplugged since Friday night at 9pm. I checked the SOC with the Bluetooth battery monitor and it showed 12.33V and 55% SOC at around 8am. When I checked the voltage chart, I can clearly see a dip in voltage at the time I received the message from Ford Pass and then another dip 20 minutes later, but what's strange, at least to me, is that the voltage actually increased after each dip. It went from 12.24V before the first dip to 12.33V after the second dip. Can anyone explain how or where the increased voltage came from?

I think it's just the nature of a 12V lead acid/AGM battery.

If it is momentarily taxed, and the voltage drops as a result, as soon as the taxing ceases, it can/will recover some percentage of the momentary voltage drop.

No differently than if you launched your Bluetooth app from a distance, then approached the truck with your FOB (especially at night), the truck will respond with multiple features like deployed running boards and zone lighting.
You will witness the tax on the battery with your app and see a significant drop in voltage.

Now go back in the house and watch the voltage slowly recover. (although with deployable running boards, it will take one additional hit on voltage as they eventually tuck back up)

Sponsored