I would take it in to the dealer and get it checked.
Ford batteries not holding charge.....being replaced.
- Thread starter nitehawk
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I also do this in the summer. You would be surprised how long the maintainer shows charging hours after driving it. It really helps extend life of the battery, heard a claim someone had the same battery 19 years.
My 24 Nissan battery crapped out in less than 6 months and it was a clarios. I never was able to see where it was made as it was in a battery blanket, same way with the warranty agm installed.
I drove a 24 rogue from Hertz for a few weeks with stop start (which I loathe) and noticed that after a few days the stop start wasn’t working. I also commented to my wife that the starts were getting slower and slower and I need to start carrying my jump pack on business trips, in addition to glass cleaning wipes, because hertz sends every car out with a windshield that looks like they clean it with shaving cream.
If your charging systems are like the ones on my Nissans, the problem lies there. I’ve watched our 2024 with an agm depleted over long trips and monitored the algorithm with my scanguage. The alternator starts out at 14.2 volts or so, then falls into the high 12s or low 13s and lives there for miles. Agms need a higher charge than what today’s alternators, or at least Nissans provide. Without periodic charging via a battery maintainer, you end up with a severely depleted battery. Exactly why my Nissan tech replaced his battery with a flooded and advised me to do the same, which I did on my 2021. That battery depletes but nowhere near as bad as the agm. My son in laws 23 f150 work truck is on its 3rd agm battery. One of them literally swelled up but didn’t burst. The other just died on a job site.
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I’ll have to check Monday for curiosity if the transit connect uses an AGM or EFB battery. I’m also going to check my wife’s 24 rogue I want to say I remember reading EFB off the battery label I’ll confirm that later.
I can confirm Nissan uses efb standard, even in the non stop starts. Why I have no clue. My wife’s 24 battery died an extremely early death and Nissan replaced it with an agm. I can’t recommend a cheap ancel battery tester enough. It’ll let you know where things stand and will probably shock you how run down your battery actually is. I’m not familiar with ford charging system, although I’d assume it’s like most. Trying to squeeze and extra tenth of fuel mileage.
I made a post about this strange behavior since I picked up a 24 Outlander (same as Nissan Rogue). I believe what is happening is all these modern vehicles (including Ford) are using variable voltage charging systems in an aggressive manner to save fuel.
They deliberately keep extra room in the battery for pseudo regen braking by capturing energy during deceleration/braking via the alternator. That's why the battery never gets fully charged. I've been monitoring my battery and it'll have an overnight resting voltage of 11.9 - 12.2V which is terrifying.
This is why EFBs and AGMs are being specified. Replacing with a flooded will likely result in a much shortened lifespan. EFBs are supposedly designed better to operate in partially charged environments (extra carbon in the plates). AGMs I don't think tolerate this low voltage very well since they weren't designed this way (same plate chemistry as flooded), which is why I believe many people are likely experiencing early battery failures. EFB may be the best choice in this application, but I still can't imagine this being good for lead acid batteries in general.
Would be interested to see what people's voltage readings are. Resting, idle, driving, and under braking/deceleration.
They deliberately keep extra room in the battery for pseudo regen braking by capturing energy during deceleration/braking via the alternator. That's why the battery never gets fully charged. I've been monitoring my battery and it'll have an overnight resting voltage of 11.9 - 12.2V which is terrifying.
This is why EFBs and AGMs are being specified. Replacing with a flooded will likely result in a much shortened lifespan. EFBs are supposedly designed better to operate in partially charged environments (extra carbon in the plates). AGMs I don't think tolerate this low voltage very well since they weren't designed this way (same plate chemistry as flooded), which is why I believe many people are likely experiencing early battery failures. EFB may be the best choice in this application, but I still can't imagine this being good for lead acid batteries in general.
Would be interested to see what people's voltage readings are. Resting, idle, driving, and under braking/deceleration.
Efb and agms don’t like being undercharged. No battery does for that matter. My 40 month old efb in my 21 Altima was dying rather quickly and a Nissan tech of 30 yrs recommended just using a flooded battery due to the constant undercharging. He actually had an oreilleys flooded battery in his Titan. My 18 rogue came with an efb and I replaced it as well with a standard battery and although it’s in a different car, that Everstart max is still going strong @5 yrs old. I replaced batteries every 3 1/2 to 4 yrs and seldom used maintainers. Now I hook all 3 up every night to either a Pulsetech or battery minder. Time will tell if this philosophy will work, but I get to buy extra stuff lol. After an efb died on a 6 month old car and left us sitting in the freezing cold at detroit airport, my wife doesn’t say a word.
Those are respectable numbers and I wish mine were like that. Sadly mine are 12.7 to 13.2, with the occasional 14.5, but not often.
I'm curious why the tech would recommend using a flooded, wouldn't that just die faster? I'd think an EFB would last longer in this application, but then again here in Canada EFB's are hard to source and even AGMs can be over 50% more expensive than flooded.
I got my '24 Outlander used at 1 year old and the OE EFB battery was only testing ~450 CCA out of 700 CCA. Likely from the previous owner using the vehicle like normal and the vehicle undercharging it. Put it on pulse repair for a day and it's right back to 750 CCA now, so seemingly like new again. It's really frustrating to see manufacturers design vehicles this way, I think even with an EFB I don't expect more than a few years out of it whereas my other cars have always gotten 10 years easy out of a cheap flooded. They clearly only care about it lasting enough to past the warranty.
Re: voltages...I know this is a Ford discussion but on the Outlander (Nissan) I'm getting:
14.9V braking/deceleration
14.2-14.5V under a normal start/idle
Can go as low as 12.0 to 12.5 after the battery is topped up and will stay in this range
Resting overnight can get as low as 11.85V
Here’s the quote from a very seasoned Nissan tech when I was nearing a battery replacement on my 21 and I asked his advice. Quite honestly this applies to any smart charging system that behaves in a similar fashion.
“You're actually touching on one of the great Nissan mysteries that leaves me scratching my head over their engineering department. One of the "never do this" rules about AGM batteries is to never apply a charge voltage below 13.5V, it causes internal corrosion and plate-shedding. Yet the "smart charging" systems are all demonstrably stupid about it, routinely dropping below 13V when the load is minimal. This is engineering 101 stuff, and as ticky as Nissan is about us warrantying batteries, I don't get the cavalier approach to charging. Color me baffled.
My advice? Replace it with a flooded battery and carry on”
“You're actually touching on one of the great Nissan mysteries that leaves me scratching my head over their engineering department. One of the "never do this" rules about AGM batteries is to never apply a charge voltage below 13.5V, it causes internal corrosion and plate-shedding. Yet the "smart charging" systems are all demonstrably stupid about it, routinely dropping below 13V when the load is minimal. This is engineering 101 stuff, and as ticky as Nissan is about us warrantying batteries, I don't get the cavalier approach to charging. Color me baffled.
My advice? Replace it with a flooded battery and carry on”
I get it, but IMO we don't really have any substantial data in terms of battery selection flooded/AGM/EFB and longevity. eg. if a flooded only lasts 2 years in the system but you can get 4 years from an EFB which only costs 50% more...then there could be a case that economically you may as well just stick with the OE recommendation. AGM I'm going to guess may be somewhere in between flooded and EFB.
EFBs do have extra carbon on the plates and those separator pouches which in principle help with plate shedding. Here in Canada, the Costco AGM is 50% more expensive than the flooded but has a 5yr vs 3yr full replacement warranty so potentially that could be a justification to just go with AGM.
It would be interesting to do the math on how much money actually is saved with these systems...but I'm not entirely sure how much energy would realistically get captured on each braking cycle.
My 18 rogue came with an efb and it was testing “replace” at around 2.5 yrs. Of course it was never charged anymore than what the alternator provided. I replaced that battery with an Everstart max flooded that’s still going strong. Efbs are crazy expensive and hard to find. When the battery goes in my 24 it’ll get an odyssey. If my flooded battery experiment lasts on my 21 then I’ll replace it with another. If not I’ll get an agm. I think the most important thing anyone can do is test and charge it regularly. I just ran up town and now my cars setting on the charger and my other two cars have been charging since yesterday. I also carry a jump box in each car now.
My son in laws 23 f150 is on battery #3 as well. One swelled but never burst, one died on a job site. It’s his work truck so ford just keeps replacing them.
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We noticed a huge nosedive this month, but are expecting it to pick up again with the 25S02 recall.
FWIW I mostly remember selling these because of how heavy they are.
FWIW I mostly remember selling these because of how heavy they are.
My 2024 F150 5.0 w/AGM is similar. 12.0V in cruise, 14.4V during decel, 13 at idle.
What's interesting is that the headlights don't change brightness during voltage changes. But the blower fan changes speed. Every time I lift throttle, I get a blast of air from the AC.
I was just in my local Ford dealership today and heard a fellow who had a no start on his new Ford Edge and after testing they didn't find a problem with battery or charging. He was not very happy, says it will happen again. Why is this suddenly a problem ???
