Ford Focus ST '22 Battery Drain!

[unofix]

I confirm Alex is correct about the standing battery voltage.

A 12volt car battery is made up of 6 cells, each one when made measures 2.1V This is always the case for batteries that are based on lead, acid technology. When the cells are assembled in to a battery pack the resulting voltage is 6 x 2.1 = 12.6V

In order to charge a 12.6V battery the charging voltage has to be high enough to overcome the internal resistance of the battery and allow a current to flow. This typically happens at 13.0V and a small current will be drawn by the battery from the charging supply. If the charging voltage is increased, for example to 14.5V the potential difference between the battery and charging supply will cause the battery to draw more current as it tries to match the charging voltage.

Once the charging voltage is removed from the battery the initial terminal voltage will for a few minutes remain at around 14.0 V This is not a true voltage and even just the slightest of loads will cause the battery to very quickly to drop to around 12.6V where it will stabilise. If the battery is left disconnected from any kind of load the terminal voltage will slowly over a few days decay to 12.4V and eventually 12.2V. This is caused by the internal current leakage of the battery and is true for all batteries (different voltages apply).

To test the state of a 12V car battery the terminal voltage should be measured 1 hour after charging has stopped. Depending on whether the battery is under any kind of load or not will affect the standing voltage but it should be between 12.20 and 12.65V

Apologies for the long explanation, but I hope it helps.

[Coley666]

On 1/16/2023 at 11:16 PM, LukeJQuinn said:

(p.s I've had those awful Pirelli's removed and gone back to M Pilot Sport 4S. My other ST's had these and cannot figure out why Ford decided to swap. The bloke in Kwik Fit said a few other drivers have been swapping in the same way as they take too long to warm up and whilst cold they offer zero grip. I can confirm that as I was wheel spinning in 3rd and there was plenty of tread. Does anyone know why Ford swapped them? there is only like £20 difference between them too)

Hi mate. I've been following your thread for several months now and keeping track, just incase this happened to me! I picked up my ST in December, and like you, I'm completely in love! I've got every finger and toe crossed in the hope it was all just a battery fault! Could so many other cars/vans have had issues because they've been sat at the factories waiting parts for months? 🤔

But what made me actually reply was your decision to change the tyres! I was wondering the same myself about them, and I don't think they're too bad. So far I'm just over 1k miles in, and on my normal commute I've started pushing (carefully in the current temperatures, and only on dryer/warmer days) and I think they're alright! It's always hard to tell when coming into a new car though. I had a MK3.5 ST before for 4 years, and only ever had Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 fitted to it, and loved them! I'm pretty hard on my tyres, and would get through a front set within a year. I've never had PS4s, although know others in other cars have said how good they feel, but only as good as the Eagles. Apparently Ford still have GY make the Asso 2, and this is what they fitted as standard once upon a time (cracking tyre in my opinion, and THE BEST rim protector I've ever found!) 

I'll give it another 1k miles, especially let the weather warm up, and see how the tyres behave. Even over the last few days we've had ice/frozen roads and it's been fine. The Asso 2s we're lethal in the snow though 😅 

I'll keep my eye on this forum and see how you get on. I genuinely thought you was onto it when everything pointed to the door handle, but just a battery after everything? Fingers crossed man! 🤞

[LukeJQuinn]

22 minutes ago, Coley666 said:

Hi mate. I've been following your thread for several months now and keeping track, just incase this happened to me! I picked up my ST in December, and like you, I'm completely in love! I've got every finger and toe crossed in the hope it was all just a battery fault! Could so many other cars/vans have had issues because they've been sat at the factories waiting parts for months? 🤔

But what made me actually reply was your decision to change the tyres! I was wondering the same myself about them, and I don't think they're too bad. So far I'm just over 1k miles in, and on my normal commute I've started pushing (carefully in the current temperatures, and only on dryer/warmer days) and I think they're alright! It's always hard to tell when coming into a new car though. I had a MK3.5 ST before for 4 years, and only ever had Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 fitted to it, and loved them! I'm pretty hard on my tyres, and would get through a front set within a year. I've never had PS4s, although know others in other cars have said how good they feel, but only as good as the Eagles. Apparently Ford still have GY make the Asso 2, and this is what they fitted as standard once upon a time (cracking tyre in my opinion, and THE BEST rim protector I've ever found!) 

I'll give it another 1k miles, especially let the weather warm up, and see how the tyres behave. Even over the last few days we've had ice/frozen roads and it's been fine. The Asso 2s we're lethal in the snow though 😅 

I'll keep my eye on this forum and see how you get on. I genuinely thought you was onto it when everything pointed to the door handle, but just a battery after everything? Fingers crossed man! 🤞

Same as me mate sort of. My first ST was the Mk4 Focus. I still have a sweet spot for the Mk2 Focus ST though (I blame Top Gear and Clarkson for that) 

Not entirely sure why it's taken two replacement batteries but so far so good. The car is perfect again. The garage I got the tyres swapped at said the Pirellis are fine when warm but when cold they can't compete, they are also a softer rubber so wear out quicker than others. The guy has had 2 RS owners in who have done the same swap as me due to the same complaints. It could be my heavy foot I suppose but just found my Focus Mk4 and Puma ST which had M Pilot Sport 4S on never suffered with the wheel spin all the way up to 3rd (4th in wet)

My Focus did 8K on the first set but I'm replacing these Pirellis at 5K and they've been spinning for a while. Even tried it in the Slippery mode (which doesn't do much really) and they still spun, and I've only used Launch Control twice, I did try the 3rd time and it was laughable as it just stuck in one place. (works brilliantly now though ha)

They reckon the door fault was a red herring (not 100% yet) Plus M53 Ford didn't test the replacement battery in the first place so I don't really count the 2nd battery as a solution more of a hindrance. T.C Harrison have been brilliant though! Would highly recommend to anyone buying a Ford to go there. 

Let me know how you get on, and cheers for fingers crossed - I've since put all my stuff back in the car and added the bits I bought months back in the hope it's fixed. 

[ipIV]

Hey! I'm from Poland,
Car: Focus ST 09.2022

I had the same problem. Turn off FordSecure.

------------------------

Sorry for my English, but it's google translate, I don't want to think too much about how to write something in English but I want to help.

I am an electrical engineer and as soon as I saw the EFB 60Ah battery I thought there would be a problem. It's a battery for a Fiat Punto from around 2010, which has start&stop, much less electronics and turns everything off after 15 minutes.
There should be an AGM 80-90Ah battery here.

But ok, maybe here everything is turned off after 15 minutes and there will be no problem.

For 2-3 weeks it was ok, then I activated the hot-spot and Ford Secure....

I have a camera in the garage and she started sending me motion detection notifications on my phone every hour - the car's electronics wake up... and the car's headlights flash (like refreshing the car information in the FordPass app). The backlight of the screens turns on, the relays click, the fuel pump turns on (or something that makes a similar noise), etc. All this happens every hour and I believe it draws at least a dozen amps.

After 4-5 days of parking my car, the FordPass app notified me that the car has gone into battery saver mode and remote functions are not available.
I plugged in the charger and it charged 50Ah! The battery was almost dead.

I started to disable what I had recently started (hot-spot, ford secure) and it turned out that the problem is FordSecure.

A very difficult problem to diagnose (temporary, high power consumption every hour) ... a camera in the garage with motion detection helped me 😉

You can read about the problem here: https://forum.fordclubpolska.org/showthread.php?t=323671&highlight=focus+oczekiwania&page=82

and here:

https://forum.fordclubpolska.org/showthread.php?t=331732 (registration required)

Regards, Michał

 

[Tizer]

9 hours ago, ipIV said:

Hey! I'm from Poland,
Car: Focus ST 09.2022

I had the same problem. Turn off FordSecure.

------------------------

Sorry for my English, but it's google translate, I don't want to think too much about how to write something in English but I want to help.

I am an electrical engineer and as soon as I saw the EFB 60Ah battery I thought there would be a problem. It's a battery for a Fiat Punto from around 2010, which has start&stop, much less electronics and turns everything off after 15 minutes.
There should be an AGM 80-90Ah battery here.

But ok, maybe here everything is turned off after 15 minutes and there will be no problem.

For 2-3 weeks it was ok, then I activated the hot-spot and Ford Secure....

I have a camera in the garage and she started sending me motion detection notifications on my phone every hour - the car's electronics wake up... and the car's headlights flash (like refreshing the car information in the FordPass app). The backlight of the screens turns on, the relays click, the fuel pump turns on (or something that makes a similar noise), etc. All this happens every hour and I believe it draws at least a dozen amps.

After 4-5 days of parking my car, the FordPass app notified me that the car has gone into battery saver mode and remote functions are not available.
I plugged in the charger and it charged 50Ah! The battery was almost dead.

I started to disable what I had recently started (hot-spot, ford secure) and it turned out that the problem is FordSecure.

A very difficult problem to diagnose (temporary, high power consumption every hour) ... a camera in the garage with motion detection helped me 😉

You can read about the problem here: https://forum.fordclubpolska.org/showthread.php?t=323671&highlight=focus+oczekiwania&page=82

and here:

https://forum.fordclubpolska.org/showthread.php?t=331732 (registration required)

Regards, Michał

 

Thanks for posting that, very Interesting and I would be Interested to hear if disabling FordSecure will help anyone else.

Was your car locked in the garage when you were having the problems?.

The reason I asked is because although the battery on my 2019 model has never become low enough for me to get an Alert, It usually sits at around 50 or 60% unless I have done a very long journey. I normally do not use my car enough to keep the battery full.

I have checked the Parasitic Current draw with a Clamp Meter and the only time I have seen it below 50mA is when it is not locked but left for one hour without opening anything.

I have done the same thing with the car locked and the Bonnet Lock triggered and the Current draw has been a lot more.

The tests I did were were not done in a scientific way because I do not have a serious problem and done more out of curiosity.

I have never enabled FordSecure.

Edit, I did try to register on that Forum but they want my Credit Card number so I didn't.

[ipIV]

13 hours ago, Tizer said:

Thanks for posting that, very Interesting and I would be Interested to hear if disabling FordSecure will help anyone else.

Was your car locked in the garage when you were having the problems?.

The reason I asked is because although the Battery on my 2019 model has never become low enough for me to get an Alert, It usually sits at around 50 or 60% unless I have done a very long journey. I normally do not use my car enough to keep the Battery full.

I have checked the Parasitic Current draw with a Clamp Meter and the only time I have seen it below 50mA is when it is not locked but left for one hour without opening anything.

I have done the same thing with the car locked and the Bonnet Lock triggered and the Current draw has been a lot more.

The tests I did were were not done in a scientific way because I do not have a serious problem and done more out of curiosity.

I have never enabled FordSecure.

Edit, I did try to register on that Forum but they want my Credit Card number so I didn't.

Yes, the car was locked and the alarm was armed.

The last time I connected my Focus to the charger was 3 weeks ago, the car had been standing for 4 days recently and ... it only charged 4Ah. I have set the charge level to 90% with Forscan (default was 80%), in my opinion everything is ok. With this power consumption, the car will go into battery saving mode after more than a month.
I do a small mileage with Focus ST, I don't want to drive it on a wet, dirty road.

In Focus, I will definitely want to replace the battery with a larger one when the factory battery breaks down. Maybe a battery box will fit, e.g. from Focus ST EcoBlue (probably has a larger battery). Will I install an AGM battery? - I will think about it, because the AGM battery does not like the high temperature that prevails in the engine compartment ... but some car manufacturers install AGM batteries there.

-----

It's probably best to turn off FordSecure, restart SYNC4 to factory settings, set everything according to your preferences and the problem of fast battery discharge should disappear. Of course, dismantle and connect to a good battery charger, e.g. Victron 7A and set the final charging voltage to 16V, because only this is able to charge the battery in a relatively short time (24hrs) so that the density of the electrolyte increases to 1.26-1.28. At a voltage of about 14.5V, it takes about a week to rebuild the density of the electrolyte.

-----

Here is the link to register, from what I can see you do not need to provide such data as card number. You must have clicked in the wrong place.

https://forum.fordclubpolska.org/register.php

The topic from the first link is enough, there is not much else in the second one, only without registration the ads are a nuisance.

Regards, Michal

[ipIV]

To diagnose this problem on the service, you would need to connect a power analyzer. I doubt that any service would do it. Here you would have to hit a company that analyzes the quality of electricity .... but they do not repair cars.
If I didn't have a camera in the garage, I would probably still go to the service center with this problem, it would take a long time and I would have to be very lucky for them to diagnose it.

On 1/17/2023 at 2:50 PM, unofix said:

I confirm Alex is correct about the standing battery voltage.

A 12volt car battery is made up of 6 cells, each one when made measures 2.1V This is always the case for batteries that are based on lead, acid technology. When the cells are assembled in to a battery pack the resulting voltage is 6 x 2.1 = 12.6V

In order to charge a 12.6V battery the charging voltage has to be high enough to overcome the internal resistance of the battery and allow a current to flow. This typically happens at 13.0V and a small current will be drawn by the battery from the charging supply. If the charging voltage is increased, for example to 14.5V the potential difference between the battery and charging supply will cause the battery to draw more current as it tries to match the charging voltage.

Once the charging voltage is removed from the battery the initial terminal voltage will for a few minutes remain at around 14.0 V This is not a true voltage and even just the slightest of loads will cause the battery to very quickly to drop to around 12.6V where it will stabilise. If the battery is left disconnected from any kind of load the terminal voltage will slowly over a few days decay to 12.4V and eventually 12.2V. This is caused by the internal current leakage of the battery and is true for all batteries (different voltages apply).

To test the state of a 12V car battery the terminal voltage should be measured 1 hour after charging has stopped. Depending on whether the battery is under any kind of load or not will affect the standing voltage but it should be between 12.20 and 12.65V

Apologies for the long explanation, but I hope it helps.

Here is a better table for a battery without access to electrolyte. It would be best to check it with a hydrometer, but not in every battery it is possible. This is not possible in Varta:



Electrolyte density, temp, SOC and voltage of the battery removed from the car or disconnected from the charger after 24 hours (battery stby voltage).

(sorry for 2 posts one after the other, I don't see an option to delete a post)

[LukeJQuinn]

On 1/21/2023 at 1:26 AM, ipIV said:

Hey! I'm from Poland,
Car: Focus ST 09.2022

I had the same problem. Turn off FordSecure.

------------------------

Sorry for my English, but it's google translate, I don't want to think too much about how to write something in English but I want to help.

I am an electrical engineer and as soon as I saw the EFB 60Ah battery I thought there would be a problem. It's a battery for a Fiat Punto from around 2010, which has start&stop, much less electronics and turns everything off after 15 minutes.
There should be an AGM 80-90Ah battery here.

But ok, maybe here everything is turned off after 15 minutes and there will be no problem.

For 2-3 weeks it was ok, then I activated the hot-spot and Ford Secure....

I have a camera in the garage and she started sending me motion detection notifications on my phone every hour - the car's electronics wake up... and the car's headlights flash (like refreshing the car information in the FordPass app). The backlight of the screens turns on, the relays click, the fuel pump turns on (or something that makes a similar noise), etc. All this happens every hour and I believe it draws at least a dozen amps.

After 4-5 days of parking my car, the FordPass app notified me that the car has gone into battery saver mode and remote functions are not available.
I plugged in the charger and it charged 50Ah! The battery was almost dead.

I started to disable what I had recently started (hot-spot, ford secure) and it turned out that the problem is FordSecure.

A very difficult problem to diagnose (temporary, high power consumption every hour) ... a camera in the garage with motion detection helped me 😉

You can read about the problem here: https://forum.fordclubpolska.org/showthread.php?t=323671&highlight=focus+oczekiwania&page=82

and here:

https://forum.fordclubpolska.org/showthread.php?t=331732 (registration required)

Regards, Michał

 

Cheers mate, will give it the usual 2/3 weeks and if it drops I'll turn that off. 

Thanks though as that is something that hasn't been mentioned before

[LukeJQuinn]

@Coley666 - Someone else has picked up on the tyres. Wasn't just me being fussy 😄 (haven't watched the entire video, my mate sent me it over about the tyres) 

 

 

[alexp999]

The Pirelli's are normally tested against the regular PS4 tyre, they are considered a slightly lower class of tyre than the PS4S.

It will no doubt be another cost cutting measure.

[LukeJQuinn]

1 minute ago, alexp999 said:

The Pirelli's are normally tested against the regular PS4 tyre, they are considered a slightly lower class of tyre than the PS4S.

It will no doubt be another cost cutting measure.

It has to be yeah, I mean when I swapped them there was only £20 difference between the two (per tyre) - Ford should have said and I would have chucked them the £80 to give me PS4S instead 🤣

[Coley666]

Well the p zero was perfect on the "spirited" drive home from work this morning 😅 

I'll probably look to have them changed before winter this year, but I'll keep them on for now, unless I see some significant drop off

Thanks for the video though I'll take a look when I'm a little more awake 😴

15 minutes ago, LukeJQuinn said:

@Coley666 - Someone else has picked up on the tyres. Wasn't just me being fussy 😄 (haven't watched the entire video, my mate sent me it over about the tyres) 

 

 

 

[alexp999]

The P Zero's are still a good UHP (Ultra high performance) tyre.

It's just that the PS4S is a UUHP (ultra-ultra high performance - urgh) tyre.

The PS4 is Michelin's competing UHP tyre to the P Zero. It's a bit of a diminshing gains thing, when I say it's a lower class tyre.

The PS4S DT1 is also the variant developed with Michelin for the Focus ST MK4, it can be easy to miss and only get the regular PS4S. I don't know how much difference it makes though.

Ford no doubt went with the P Zero because it was good enough and Pirelli did them a good price on buying hundreds of the things.

[LukeJQuinn]

Not having much luck am I?! Hire Van pulled over to park and got a little too close. Logged it with Enterprise, and now the fun begins. 

[Gus T]

37 minutes ago, LukeJQuinn said:

Not having much luck am I?! Hire Van pulled over to park and got a little too close. Logged it with Enterprise, and now the fun begins. 

What a ***** take! Happens to the best of us 🙃

[unofix]

I can see how it would be easy not to see your car, it's not like it stands out 🤔

Seriously, I'm sorry to see your car so damaged when you have only just got it back. I hope that it can be repaired and made as good as new. I wish you luck 👍

[LukeJQuinn]

On 1/23/2023 at 10:20 PM, unofix said:

I can see how it would be easy not to see your car, it's not like it stands out 🤔

Seriously, I'm sorry to see your car so damaged when you have only just got it back. I hope that it can be repaired and made as good as new. I wish you luck 👍

Cheers mate appreciate it. Enterprise Insurance have been in touch today, saying its been accepted as their fault (I'd be staggered if it wasn't) and they are now looking at the quote I sent over to get it repaired. I went to a garage that has bodyshop contracts for the Police in Merseyside along with a contract for Enterprise so thought it was good enough. Not to mention its Fords body shop so makes total sense to use them.

The cost of the repair is an eye watering £3,455! New bumper, rear wing repair/re-spray and new alloy. Labour alone is £950, so very costly mistake but glad my insurance won't be affected. 

Whilst I'm here, quick update on the car. 3rd week into the car being returned from T.C.H and car is working perfectly. They said the replacement battery failed every test they ran on it and did the same behaviour in the test car (same year/model Focus). So they are baffled as to why M53 would install a battery so faulty and kinda had no words on it. 

So yes all good and all done to seriously faulty battery (FordPass still unchanged and still active). Hopefully should be booked in for repair by the end of week too 😄 Thanks for everyone's advice and suggestions on this issue. Its been a tough road and my takeaway from it is, find a garage you trust and drive the extra miles to get the car you want from a garage you trust. T.C.H have gained a customer for life. Cheers ya'll. (P.S The new tyres are miles better than the originals ha) 

[Gus T]

10 minutes ago, LukeJQuinn said:

Cheers mate appreciate it. Enterprise Insurance have been in touch today, saying its been accepted as their fault (I'd be staggered if it wasn't) and they are now looking at the quote I sent over to get it repaired. I went to a garage that has bodyshop contracts for the Police in Merseyside along with a contract for Enterprise so thought it was good enough. Not to mention its Fords body shop so makes total sense to use them.

The cost of the repair is an eye watering £3,455! New bumper, rear wing repair/re-spray and new alloy. Labour alone is £950, so very costly mistake but glad my insurance won't be affected. 

Whilst I'm here, quick update on the car. 3rd week into the car being returned from T.C.H and car is working perfectly. They said the replacement battery failed every test they ran on it and did the same behaviour in the test car (same year/model Focus). So they are baffled as to why M53 would install a battery so faulty and kinda had no words on it. 

So yes all good and all done to seriously faulty battery (FordPass still unchanged and still active). Hopefully should be booked in for repair by the end of week too 😄 Thanks for everyone's advice and suggestions on this issue. Its been a tough road and my takeaway from it is, find a garage you trust and drive the extra miles to get the car you want from a garage you trust. T.C.H have gained a customer for life. Cheers ya'll. (P.S The new tyres are miles better than the originals ha) 

Christ glad you getting repairs sorted! Just to add, my replacement battery was 7 weeks ago now and all is still running smoothly! So potentially a load of faulty batteries out there lol who knows.

[LukeJQuinn]

37 minutes ago, Gus T said:

Christ glad you getting repairs sorted! Just to add, my replacement battery was 7 weeks ago now and all is still running smoothly! So potentially a load of faulty batteries out there lol who knows.

Brill news! A side note on that - T.C.H said they had loads of Kuga's 71/72 plates needing new batteries so I am guessing its been a bad batch of batteries. Wouldn't be surprised if an internal memo has gone round Ford UK offices, and its not be been fed to the dealerships.

Either way I am relieved that our cars haven't suffered any faulty hardware, and its just the battery which is out of the control of any car manufacturer to be fair.  I just spend my life now defending the car & Ford to family and work colleagues 😁 

[alexp999]

57 minutes ago, LukeJQuinn said:

Labour alone is £950, so very costly mistake but glad my insurance won't be affected. 

Hate to say it, but it's probably going to have some effect on your insurance for the next 5 years. Hopefully not much though.

[LukeJQuinn]

2 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Hate to say it, but it's probably going to have some effect on your insurance for the next 5 years. Hopefully not much though.

My insurance are not involved in the slightest. As the car was parked, I don't need to inform them. The entire cost and blame is on Enterprise. 

[alexp999]

2 minutes ago, LukeJQuinn said:

My insurance are not involved in the slightest. As the car was parked, I don't need to inform them. The entire cost and blame is on Enterprise. 

You still have to report it to them unfortunately. It will no doubt end up on the database all the insurers share anyway.

I'd be having a very careful read of your policy documents before thinking you don't need to tell them.

[LukeJQuinn]

6 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

You still have to report it to them unfortunately. It will no doubt end up on the database all the insurers share anyway.

I'd be having a very careful read of your policy documents before thinking you don't need to tell them.

I'll give them a ring once the work is being done. Not having anything get in the way of it being fixed 😄

[alexp999]

1 minute ago, LukeJQuinn said:

I'll give them a ring once the work is being done. Not having anything get in the way of it being fixed 😄

Shouldn't hold up being fixed, it's more about them not covering future claims if they find out you hadn't reported it.

Or if all of a sudden there is a claim against you and you hadn't told them there'd been an incident.

It seems wholly unfair that it should affect your insurance or you should have to declare it, but insurers will use any excuse to get out of a claim.

[LukeJQuinn]

13 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Shouldn't hold up being fixed, it's more about them not covering future claims if they find out you hadn't reported it.

Or if all of a sudden there is a claim against you and you hadn't told them there'd been an incident.

It seems wholly unfair that it should affect your insurance or you should have to declare it, but insurers will use any excuse to get out of a claim.

That’s a fair point can’t argue with that. I’ll give them a call tomorrow and hope for the best 😂