FordPass, Deep Sleep, and Batteries

Joined
Jun 12, 2004
Messages
4,144
Location
Athens, GA
Since it has been getting cold at night here (ok, not REALLY cold, but cold for GA) I've been noticing that FordPass has been reporting the truck is going into 'Deep Sleep' which disables remote start and unlock features. The truck is only supposed to do that when it sits longer than 14 days or with low bettery voltage.

Sure enough, after a 12 hour sit, battery voltage was showing 11.8 volts, which is pretty low for an AGM battery that shouldn't be much more than a year old, on a truck that has Auto Stop/Start disabled.

Took it to the dealer, waited 2 hours and left with a new battery. No muss, no fuss, although they did say that after putting it on their 'battery machine' it tested fine, but they replaced it anyways. Not sure about that, but the truck doesn't go to sleep anymore overnight.

Just a tidbit for you if you have a Ford product that supports FordPass and you notice the vehicle going to sleep after sitting for a while. Have your battery checked, you might have one on the way out.
 
The battery may have TESTED fine but, may have failed a LOAD TESTED.
This can happen sometimes. There is so much going on in vehicles today that they're always searching for a signal.

In my area, Advance Auto Parts(AAP) will test/check your battery and give you a printout.
Across the street at AutoZone(AZ), they actually LOAD TEST batteries.

I've taken my batteries to AAP and it tested well. Then went directly across to AZ and the battery would fail a LOAD TEST.
I kept the battery another year before it failed completely.
 
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I'm a semi mechanic. I also work on spotter trucks that move trailers around the hub. The spotter trucks have a computer in them that tells the driver where to move trailers like what trailer to what dock door or what zone.

As the battery gets to a certain point in the aging process, it will still test okay and start the truck, but the computer will reboot itself when a driver comes back from lunch/break and restarts the truck. The voltage dips just low enough to cause the reboot. So that is when I replace the two batteries on such a truck.
 
I'm a semi mechanic. I also work on spotter trucks that move trailers around the hub. The spotter trucks have a computer in them that tells the driver where to move trailers like what trailer to what dock door or what zone.

As the battery gets to a certain point in the aging process, it will still test okay and start the truck, but the computer will reboot itself when a driver comes back from lunch/break and restarts the truck. The voltage dips just low enough to cause the reboot. So that is when I replace the two batteries on such a truck.
That similar to what happens with my Accord. From the outside, all will appear fine, but things will slowly start to go 'wierd'. Little things, like the odometer cluster switching on its own from displaying outside temp (which is where I leave it) to car milage. That or the automatic climate control will lose its last setting. Car will crank and run fine but you would swear there are gremlins in the machine, which is what I thought the first time it happened. Now I just know its time to replace the battery.

The Fordscan 'deep sleep' thing seems to be my trucks way of telling me.
 
The battery may have TESTED fine but, may have failed a LOAD TESTED.
This can happen sometimes. There is so much going on in vehicles today that they're always searching for a signal.

In my area, Advance Auto Parts(AAP) will test/check your battery and give you a printout.
Across the street at AutoZone(AZ), they actually LOAD TEST batteries.

I've taken my batteries to AAP and it tested well. Then went directly across to AZ and the battery would fail a LOAD TEST.
I kept the battery another year before it failed completely.

If I would have had more free time this weekend I might have played around with it more to find out, but it being under warranty made the choice simple. The 11.8 volts after sitting 12 hours was enough to convince me that something was up with the battery. I didn't expect it to be 12.8, but I would have expected it to some bit over 12.
 
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