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Dead battery issues on all Ford Transit

54K views 38 replies 25 participants last post by  Scalf77 
#1 ·
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What's killing the battery is the LED lights in the cargo area...The system is still running even after the lights goes out...The best and fastest way to make sure your battery isn't dead over night is to pull the fuse that's in Location #F32...its a #10 fuse..which is located under the steering just to the right..you can located this locations by using the owers Manuel..this will sure that your van battry will not die again..I would still my own lighting system in the cargo area and avoid using these lights due to a defect in the computer system that allow the drain on the battery even after the lights goes out...I hope this helps everyone solve their dead battery issues...So Pull that fuse and leave it out. 05/05/2020
 
#2 ·
It might be worth your time to buy a small (sub 10 watt) solar panel and put it in the wind shield. A lot of vehicles have parasitic drain in the electrical system.

My grand kids have a habit of opening the doors of my daughter's SUV in the garage and turning on lights. Several incidents of discharged starter battery.

I found a trickle charge panel from powerfilm solar that works even in the lighting in her garage.

 
#3 ·
Not many of us are having the battery go dead over night, In my case it takes 10 days of not using the van.
The computer stays On to power the Keyless entry Receiver and probably other things.

Ford ships the Transit in what is called Transport Mode to keep this from happening between the Factory and the Dealer, And while it is parked on the Dealers lot. Transport Mode does not turn Off until here is 50 miles on the odometer. (You can not turn it back on)
 
#8 ·
My Transit sits for three months in Wisconsin Winter and battery does not die. What DOES kill is (four times now) is leaving the doors open. I did that to work on it. Seems like 10-12 hou8rs will do it. Understand: no lights are on.... just the onboard computer at work (I think).
 
#5 ·
I have noticed that the 2020 seems to constantly maintain fuel pressure. (I assume that is the noise I hear)
It will cycle the pump on for a few seconds a few times a day.
This isn't good for parasitic loss either.

I have a Renogy DC/MPPT charger on the van now with panels. When the house bank is full there is a trickle charge to the starter battery. Keeps the starter topped off effortlessly.
 
#6 ·
I'm still trying to figure out the title. I didn't know all Transits had dead battery issues. I've had the doors open and closed all weekend long with all the LED's on for hours on end and the stereo going, and have never had a low battery issue let alone a dead battery.

I agree with Boboxx. There is something else going on here.
 
#9 ·
I can concur with the logic of all of this. The few times when I'd parked at home without starting the van for 2-5 days and the battery was very weak or required jumpstart, I had been going in and out of the van several times a day, triggering the lights. I have since installed a cargo light control switch, and also pulled wire on the slider sensor so the timer doesn't get started at all. For family trips, I plug it back in, but for work and everyday use it stays unplugged.
 
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#11 ·
I had the same problem on my van . The Headlights come on at night when temperatures outside are colder than 47 degrees . Had caught it on our security cameras 30 days at Sam Galloway Ford and they can’t fix it cause they only know how to guess to fix things so now it’s off to another Ford dealership hopefully they have real service techs that can use a meter and fix it .
 
#13 ·
I love the idea of a battery disconnect switch. Nothing would beat that peace of mind!

I know you mentioned this is a last ditch solution, but I'll mention this just in case anybody doesn't know already. Unfortunately on my other modern vehicle, disconnecting the battery results in the clock and user settings being reset to default. I don't know anything about memory/storage to know why these settings can't be stored in a non-power-dependent way. Maybe different vehicles would behave in other ways.

Now on my dumb-as-a-brick F150, that would be a great solution. But then again, the fact that it's dumb as a brick means almost no parasitic drain. 🙃
 
#15 ·
A friend of mine bought a new 2018 transit that would act like it had a dead battery after repeatedly opening and closing the doors throughout the day.
This required daily jump starts.
We came to the conclusion that the computers must be running each time the doors opened.
The dealer replaced the batteries multiple times saying they were defective. They tested fine though.
He ended up selling the van because the problem was never correctly diagnosed/fixed by Ford and it was not dependable enough for his business.
 
#18 ·
A friend of mine bought a new 2018 transit that would act like it had a dead battery after repeatedly opening and closing the doors throughout the day. This required daily jump starts .We came to the conclusion that the computers must be running each time the doors opened. The dealer replaced the batteries multiple times saying they were defective. They tested fine though. He ended up selling the van because the problem was never correctly diagnosed/fixed by Ford and it was not dependable enough for his business.
Too bad. The transit electrical system is designed for convenience with the average use in mind, allowing certain circuits to stay on when you open the doors, etc for a set time which is 30 minutes. Someone like your friend used his van different than most and probably only had the single battery, the van could have been set to have the power time out differently to suit his specific use. Fortunately, like many others we have no such issues with both our vans that have dual batteries.
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#22 · (Edited)
Maybe a little late but I would like to add to this thread. First I agree the thread title is wrong, I don't believe all Transits have dead battery issues. I do believe mine does. My 2020 AWD EcoBoost was delivered last May. I was finishing up some work on my 2004 Sportsmobile and didn't devote a lot of time to it. In the fall I started installation roof vents, air conditioner, and windows. I never noticed a battery problem, I might have driven it a couple of times a week. The first time it went dead, I had been working on the Awning install, obviously the doors were open a lot, and I did tap into the always on CCP to test the power awning. As I had some issues with that I assumed that was the cause of the dead battery.

A couple of weeks later walking my dog in the morning (still dark) upon return I found the passenger head light on. I cycled the remote lock button and it went off. Later that weekend my neighbor told me my lights were on, this time both. again I cycled the locks and it went of. Later that day or I should say evening, it started again, again cycling the locks would make it go off, but they would come back on in what appeared a regular cadence. I pulled the battery ground to stop the cycle.

A couple of weeks later I took back to Ford, they had it four days but could not find anything, but replaced the batteries. I got it home and over 4 days the battery was dead. I finally started to look into the issue, and really thought the battery voltage was very low in a day or so.

Well I couldn't figure out how the Ford Guys couldn't have seen this. Being a retired validation test engineer, I have a built in propensity to collect data and help people find problems. I happened to have a Phidgets SBC laying around, a voltage sensor, and a current sensor. So I thought I would hook them up and see what the data looked like. The Phidget is a lot like Arduino, Essentially it allowed me to attach to the sensors via WIFI, I was able to write a program to read and log the data from the comfort of my office computer.
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I had added the max current because I had been hearing the cycling noises being reported in this thread

This was the first data that I had collected. As you can see the cycles are very repetitive, 1 hour 34 mins apart. The one that is out of sequence was me making sure doors were locked.
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And here is a close up of the spike, my log data is every 500 milliseconds, and while the spike was of interest the actual current draw looked very high. I spent some time verifying the accuracy of the setup, and found this was actually a tad low.
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I added a amp-hour counter to my program, so I could somewhat match the amp-hour loss with the voltage.

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At this time I was pretty pissed that the Ford techs did not find this. By now I also had a small 15 amp charger that I installed from Victron. Not a permanent solution, but I didn't want to kill the new batteries. I am about ready to take it back in, but I needed to move something for someone, so I took used the van. Got back and left it on it's own for a day, then I hooked up my instrumentation.

146932


Low and behold the cycles were gone, and the data was more in line with what I would suspect with accuracy of my equipment. It kept up like this for about a week. I will note it actually had warmed up a bit that week. Anyhow, if it behaved like that at the Ford Shop, I take back the bad things I said about them. As we moved back to some colder climate I found the headlights on again. I added a temp probe and a relay to turn on and off the charger to my program. I was tired of running out and plugging it in. .

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This is what I caught the next time.
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Obviously sometime in the night it started, I woke up and so the head light on, checked my program and saw the high current draw. I cycled the key fob, they went off. Of course they came back on again and I cycled and turned the charger back on.

The next day I noticed about a six amp draw, I went out side and found on light on. I will say it went off by itself. There was another event that I didn't see. The temperature probe was collected for this data. It was a very cold morning, I suspect higher readings are because it being in the sun at the time of the event. I do suspect that temperature comes in to play, so this data was a little bit of a outlier.
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Right now I am trying to figure out how to get it back into that first death condition I saw. It seams like that would be the easiest to work on. To be honest I think all of this pretty much is controlled by the BCM module. I specifically have not hooked up Forscan yet, I might poke around but in the long run this isn't a settings issue.

If anyone cares to look at the spreadsheet data, I can provide. It sounds like at least one user is seeing pretty much the exact thing.

-greg
 
#24 ·
@Scalf77 thanks for sharing. I'm wondering if the same thing is happening here. All the interior lights are disconnected and the van hasn't been moved in a couple weeks, but each time I drive it I need to give it a jump. Going to take the battery in for a check, but it sure seems like something is draining the battery. Guess I need to put a camera on it to see if it's the lights.

Another weird thing is when I tried to start it tonight it used the last bit of juice, I removed the keys and then there was a constant clicking from under the hood. It wouldn't stop until I turned the key back on and put it on the charger.

It's a 2019 I bought used and it appears to be the original battery.
 
#25 ·
Anyone see the F-150 recall for dead batteries. Ford has a software update they're installing. Hmmmmm....

 
#26 · (Edited)
I live in Austin, Texas and we have had some unprecedented drops in temperature over the past week.


I opened a different thread with my experiences, but the summary is the same, the headlights were coming on by themselves in a 2020 transit.

I was desperate to keep the battery ready in case I needed to leave the house, so I pulled some fuses to try and turn off the headlights entirely.

I pulled fuse 17 and 26 under the hood which say they are "Left-Hand ( and right-hand ) high intensity discharge headlamps" and nothing changed. Lights still came on and killed the battery.

Yesterday, I trickle charged it, and got it started, and drove it for 20 minutes. I also pulled the fuse for the adaptive light system inside on the driver side.

And the headlights stayed off over night. Might be coincidence. Not planning on putting the fuse back to see if the battery dies tonight. :)

Edit: Specific fuses that are pulled right now:
Engine Component Fuse Box 17, and 26 ( Didn't seem to change behavior )
Driver Compartment fuse box 73 ( Listed as Adaptive front lighting module, and headlamp levelling)
 
#27 ·
I do believe this is temperature related. The headlight issue seems to be a narrow band, the colder it gets the high draw with cycling is more prevalent. I wouldn't be surprised with more people seeing colder temperatures this week, that more will see this.
 
#29 ·
Well after a dry hot spring and summer, my problem has returned with the fall rains. While temperature is part of the issue, it is not the only driving factor, I had colder temps before the rain returned. The fact that I back in and the driveway is slightly slanted means all the water runs down the roof to the dubious water collection system of the ford transit. I have disconnected and cleaned the ECU connector and installed a mini Turd, So far no changes

On a more technical approach I have hooked up Forscan and run some module diagnostics, after getting the problem. This is somewhat a pain in the ass, since it means waking up in the middle of the night to perform this work. .

I have a dedicated charger hooked to the starters, to keep this from killing my batteries

The BCM update had no change on this issue.

-greg .
 
#30 ·
Probably related; I replaced one of the 12v power sockets on the center console with a lit double usb power socket. It works fine, and the power turns off after 10 mins or so after locking up. But I've noticed a few times after the van has been sitting for several hours that the light on the socket was on. It's fairly rare, but it seems that whatever circuit that power socket is on is randomly going on.

And my van battery will drain after about 10 days of sitting. I'm speculating these things are related.
 
#31 ·
I've got all of the communication to the Ford mothership turned off in my 2020 and it has sat many times for a month with no ill affects on the ability to start. Interestingly, last week when driving the auto-stop was never invoked. Makes me wonder if the twin batteries are no longer charging to a high enough voltage when driving to allow that to trigger. Have not gotten concerned enough to try and hookup a meter while driving to see what is happening.

I suppose it might be a good excuse to start trying to figure out Forscan a bit or maybe mess around to see if I can service mode display instructions on my 2020. I wonder if those 12V plug to USB adaptors with voltage display. are accurate. One of those might be handy to leave have with house battery charging on SRC/Autostop vehicle.

BTW, to go off topic. What was Ford thinking of when they put that outlet behind the passenger side cup holder. BIG problem ... my navigator is not happy with that. Can anyone point me to a how to thread where someone added 12v or USB outlets in convenient places on the dash.
 
#32 ·
So more progress has been made today, after limited luck running diagnostics after failure, and more importantly not getting a failure when I had the Forscan module hooked up to the van and the computer. I started looking at the communication module, this is the module that has the DLC. Anyhow I took some quick measurements of the Can Bus. Each can bus should have a 120 ohm termination resister between can high and can low at each end of the bus. Thus , I should read 60 ohm when measuring the between Can high and low for each bus. I removed the communication module for easier probing, and validated that all those buses had 120 ohm resister values for each bus. Much to my surprise HS1-CAN was reading 60 ohm, of course when connecting the communication module HS1-CAN now reads 40 ohm.

Now I need to find out what module other than the PCM is terminated. It could be that this is a configurable option for the specific module. At least I now feel like I have a possible fix for this issue in the near future.

-greg
 
#35 ·
Well with the changing seasons, the random headlight issue and excessive parasitic current draw has come back. There was some hope that an unrelated update for the BCM would take care of the issue. That, pretty much as expected was found to be untrue

Luckily during the summer, I included two ways to charge my starting battery, a shore power charger

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and solar charger option.
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So at least I can keep the battery from being destroyed. (Wrong)

So back to the hunt. I pretty much realized that taking this back to Ford to track down would be fruitless, so I decided to dig in. In a previous life I worked on some complex issues, and the first rule of debug was to try and make the problem repeatable. Luckily for me with return of wet colder weather that has pretty much turned to every night.

One thing I looked at was the fact that rain returned. I know most people think it rains all the time here in Oregon. If you spent any time on the Transit Forum you heard of the water in the air filter issues. So, I did spend some time looking into this, mainly because the return of cold hit before the rain. I didn’t relay see the issue until I had both. That issue was I believed fixed in 2019, but it does get wet inside the engine compartment. I did clean out the weep hole and added additional hole for the windshield cowl draining system. I added a cover for a suspected connector, to keep it from getting wet. That appeared to be a red herring, as the problem was still prevalent.

I also completely disconnected the power steps, as they must sniff the CANBUS to determine if the door is open or closed. The power steps were added after first seeing this issue, so I was confident they had no issue with the problem. If I do have to back to Ford, I want to rule out any 2nd party culprits and keep the focus on the real problem. So, this may give you some insight to as where I am going the CANBUS. Unfortunately, or fortunately modern vehicles are dependent on CANBUS communication.
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As you can see, there are five major Buses in this vehicle, a couple of high-speed busses and other medium speed buses. This doesn’t even include some of the private busses between modules. The gateway module is where all these buses come together, as it can also transfer information from one bus to the other. The gateway also has the DLC connection (OBDII) port connection.
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The bus that I focused my concern at was HS1 CAN. It has the modules that are most likely involved in this issue, mainly the BCM, but it would be possible for an issue to transfer from one bus to the other. My first thought was to put a can bus sniffer on, to see if I could find out who was sending the BCM a bad message to turn the light on. That would be prudent, but you would have to catch the failure and have the documentation to understand the messages being passed. While I have a basic understanding of the protocol, it is not easy to get the information needed from Ford. Reverse engineering could take a sometime.

I was also using the data I had from capturing current data last year. That data led me to believe the problem was a possible bus problem as it would happen when there was known bus activity or at least I perceived there was activity based on the time cycle seen. The fact that temperature & humidity had a large effect on the issue. I spent many years running equipment in temperature chambers, so no convincing needed. My next thought was through a scope on the bus to see if anything looked out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, I don’t own a scope, and while I’m always looking for a reason to get one, I’m not sure this rises to threshold to purchase one. At least not yet.

I still have a few things I can do with a basic DVM, one would be to measure the voltages of the HS1 CAN +, and HS1 CAN – lines, that would be relatively easy, but determining that data depends a lot on the knowledge what is going on bus. So that leaves us with basic measurement on the termination of the bus.

CAN stands for Controller Area Network and it runs on a 2-wire high speed bus. To prevent reflections on the bus, it needs to be terminated on each end of the bus. Going back to one the previous diagrams you can see where the termination for the HS1 Can bus reside, the PCM module and the Gateway module.

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When you go to measure these, you are going to need “needle probes” to easily get to these connectors, these will allow you to back probe the connectors. I couldn’t find my older needle probes, so I had to order some. While I was waiting, I took the Communication module off, and measured all the bus connection to verify that they have a 120-ohm resistance between the HS1CAN - and HS1CAN +, I check all the can busses going to the module.

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I got my needle probes and was able to measure the connector going to the Gateway Communication module. The bus that I am looking at are pin 19 & 20, when I measured this, I got 60-ohm.

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This was surprising in that I was expecting 120-ohm. 60-ohm would be what it should measure if the Gateway module was connected. Two 120-ohm resisters in parallel would equal 60-ohms, this leads one to believe there is an extra termination on the bus. Of course, to be sure, I connect the gateway module and measure between high & low and get 42-ohms.

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I must say that I was kinds of surprised, as it seemed to simple. When checking the bus, you are really looking for something between 55 & 65 ohms. 42-ohm seems pretty far out, and for the most part this major bus has not shown any errors.
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From the diagram above you can see that this bus goes all over the van. It seems like a simple divide and conquer attempt should be the best way to move forward. Seeing that the PCM is supposed to have the other bus termination I decide to go to a connector that I already know is easy to access C139. This is the same connector I thought might have moisture issues
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Now when I remove this, I am really expecting to see 60-ohms on the bus, thinking that issue is on the other side of the connector. Instead, the issue travelled with the PCM side. I then moved to remove the AWD Module, no change in issue. So that kind of leaves me with the PCM. I made another appointment with Ford (different dealer) to again look at the issue, also pointing out the issue the termination of HS1-CAN.

My appointment didn’t go well, it was pretty much a replay of the first time I took it in. Yes, we believe there is a larger parasitic draw. You have stuff hooked up to it (Chargers). One out of your dual batteries is bad. The BCM might turn the lights on if the battery is low. I never received an answer about the Can-Bus termination. They recommended another dealer in the area that works mostly on Trucks and Campers.

A couple of weeks go by, the failure was replicated again in 36 hours, I again had to disconnect the batteries to keep this from happening. On a good note, I can attach get to the ground lead, from the driver side door, with the seat tilted. This is with some of the cover things removed.

The van is back from Northside Ford (NE Portland), after a couple of days the problem has not shown up. They did not address the HS1-Can termination value, but they did replace the body control module. The service manager did say they assumed because the bad module was on the bus, it was probably causing it. I did verify that the termination value is still wrong. But changing the BCM appears to have fixed the issue, which completely makes sense, it is the module that turns on the lights. It also looks like my path down HS1-CAN termination not being the issue. Leave it to an engineer to dream up a more complex failure mode than just a bad module. In my defense this was aided by the lack of two technicians not finding a bad module.

In some ways I might have got lucky, I dropped the van off on a Friday morning at 9:00. The service manager informed me that I shouldn’t have used the online appointment form, as it was primarily for routine service. This would mean that my van wouldn’t get, looked at until the following week. Other than working on the interior, I have no big plans for the van. I am a little concerned about leaving it do to location, but their hours and fencing lead me to do so.

On Saturday I receive a message on my FordPass™Connect App that the vehicle has entered deep sleep mode to conserve battery energy. This is only 28 hours from dropping off with two new AGM fully charged batteries. I had the battery disconnected while waiting for the appointment. A sure sign that the lights have come on and are draining the battery. I don’t receive any information from Northside all week and call them on Friday, a week after dropping off. The message I receive is that they have started to look at it but no information, should be more information next week.

Monday afternoon, I get a call, that the BCM Body Control Module is bad, they are replacing so I need to bring in the secondary Keys for programing. I drop the keys off on Tuesday morning and I am informed by Wednesday it ready for pick up. Now it is Saturday morning, and I haven’t had the lights come on. Looks like they have fixed the issue.

From technician’s report:

Vehicle battery found to be discharged and will not jump start. Removed driver seat to access batteries. Found vehicle equipped with dual AGM replacement batteries. Removed batteries and tested with Midtronics Rotunda Battery Tester. Both batteries failed with DTC codes 304QF1940Q0C and 304QBLD46S0C. Replaced Batteries. Ran Oasis and found Batteries and Concern have been ongoing issue that two other dealers attempted to repair. Verified Headlights Randomly came on with keys out when running OASIS report. KOEO Self-Test Found multiple DTC’s. Due to batteries being drained performed battery draw test. Draw found to fluctuate between 1.011 amps and 0.064 amps randomly. When headlights come on draw exceeds 10 amps. Wiring Schematics show headlights controlled by BCM. Draw found to drop to .017 when C2280A is wiggled. Disconnected C2280A and inspected for corrosion or moisture, none present. Performed Pin Drag test, no fitment problems found. Fully seated connector and performed draw test again. Concern still present. Recommend replacing the BCM then testing for proper operation. Removed and replaced BCM using PMI procedure through FDRS. Programmed Keys and TPMS Sensors. Performed draw test. Draw found to be 0.006 Amps at rest, well within specifications. Wiggled C2280A and Verified Draw does not change. Headlight no longer randomly coming on. Installed seat and cleared DTC’s. Customer’s concern caused by faulty Body Control Module.

A couple of things to note, I was somewhat lucky that they waited a few days, and the van failed and drained the batteries. Obviously, the fact that the batteries were less than a month old probably helped. I was also considerably luck for the failure to occur at the shop. The fact that he saw the lights come on with the new batteries, while he was checking OASIS report, pretty much eliminated the train of thought from the last two dealers. The lights were not coming on because the voltage of the BCM was too low, instead it was now obvious that the lights coming on were drawing down the voltage.

Obviously, this tech was more persistent, and didn’t throw up his hands claiming it was a problem coming from the back of the van. No aftermarket things were connected to the Ford product. I will still need to go down the path of getting the HS1-CAN termination corrected. I assume this will be hard because I won’t have a failure to connect it to. You can’t start down the diagnostic flow chart if you don’t have a failure. And some crazy old customer saying so doesn’t count, at least not for warranty work.

So for the few people that have reported this issue, the headlights is the most visual problem, I have seen excessive draw even with out the lights coming on. My failure was a bad Body Control Module

-greg
 
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