In October 2022 I bought a 2021 MK4 (it has the new dash but the badge is on the bonnet vs the grille) Ford Focus from my local dealer. 1.0 Petrol MHEV Vignale Estate. It was used as a demonstrator by the dealership and came with every extra it was possible to add on. 12,000 miles on the clock.

I had battery saving behaviour from the start - notices on the Ford app, deep sleep dash messages. Never having a MK4 Focus before I didn't realise this was odd behaviour.

Got a 4K front and 1080p rear dashcam fitted.

Messages continued then I had to jump start it a couple of times.

Took it back to the dealer and they said there were no fault codes and all was well. (I think they just trickle charged it and gave it me back).

Same messages started again and I noticed that I lost global entry and air con. Took it to my usual trusted garage and they suggested that the battery might be fecked from being an ex-demonstrator and only ever doing super short runs so they put a new battery in it in February. It's an Exide EFB 65ah EL652. My trusted garage assures me it's the right choice for stop/start and they fit lots of them. I do not know if they reset the BMS when they fitted it.

Low battery problems continue so it goes back to the dealer again. They said no fault codes, they trickle charged it, reset the BMS and gave it me back. Didn't seem bothered that it now does not have it's original battery.

Problems continue. The weather is getting warmer and I am choosing to drive my other vehicles that have working air con instead. Not happy.

A solar trickle charger is suggested. I do have multiple vehicles and it didn't bother me to have a solar charger on my front dash so I bought a 4.5w AA branded one with 12v, battery clip and OSB2 connectors. No improvement.

Bought Battery Monitor 6 aka BM6 for all my vehicles.

Oldest Focus battery charges via the 12v using the solar panel. Gets 100% SoC according to BM6.

Turns out MK4 Focus isn't charging at all using the panel via 12v, clips or OSB2.

Took it to an auto electrician and described the solar trickle charger not working so he put me a direct connection to the battery terminals.

BM6 still doesn't show "charging" like it does on my older Focus. MK4 only shows as charging when I'm driving and (because I'm also a biker I have a mains trickle charger) when I put a mains trickle charger on it.

I start reading online forums. Someone somewhere suggested that the 4.5w solar charger was way too small and the car would ignore it. So I bought a 20w solar charger. Again it is not charging by any connection method.

Auto electrician tested both solar panels and they are throwing out their expected wattage. He also put his new Laser (iirc) vehicle computer on it and indeed it has no fault codes.

I read online about the battery being limited to 80% so asked him to check that as well but he said this was a brand new vehicle computer set up and he didn't know his way round it yet, we couldn't find the SoC information. He suggested that I mains trickle charge it up to 100% then follow manual method  to re-set the BMS. I have tried to do that this afternoon - both the lights x5 and brake x3 method and also the fog lights and hazard button method. Neither made the battery light flash three times but one of them made the engine light flash three times. Just trying them out (should my drivers door be closed? should I cancel the dash start up messages about seatbelts and pressing the clutch to start the car before doing the routine etc) dropped the SoC from 100% to 55%.

I am about to order ForScan online but wanted to check I am buying the correct/best one. Vgate vLinker FS OBD2 USB Adapter for FOR-Scan HS/MS-CAN Auto Switch

Local auto-electrician suggests a supposedly top rate master auto electrician in a different city. It is booked in there on 31st July.

Any suggestions? Particularly advice about ForScan. I think my next move is to get that delivered tomorrow and re-charge it on the mains to 100% and reset the BMS using that and up the battery charge limit to 95%.

I really think I do need a solar trickle charger as I do have multiple vehicles but why can't I use the 12v to feed into the battery?

TL;DR I have to mains trickle charge my 2021 mk4 Focus to get air con to work. Dealer is useless. Local auto electrician is baffled. Can't get a solar trickle charger to feed into the battery.

How is your dashcam wired? Could it be draining the battery when the engine is off?

3 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

How is your dashcam wired? Could it be draining the battery when the engine is off?

It was fitted by a specialist company, I didn't question their fit method. I assumed because that is what they do for a living they knew what they were doing. It has the radar extra and parking recording available but I have both switched off so it only records when I'm driving. It's a Thinkware U1000. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinkware-U1000-2160p-Camera-Dashcam/dp/B07WRS6Z2X Is there a way I can tell by looking if it has been fitted wrong?

4 minutes ago, Kubrick said:

It was fitted by a specialist company, I didn't question their fit method. I assumed because that is what they do for a living they knew what they were doing. It has the radar extra and parking recording available but I have both switched off so it only records when I'm driving. It's a Thinkware U1000. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinkware-U1000-2160p-Camera-Dashcam/dp/B07WRS6Z2X Is there a way I can tell by looking if it has been fitted wrong?

Check your passenger fuse box. But if it has parking mode then it will be powered all the time unless it has a kit with different permanent and switched live to shut itself off when the battery is low. Sometimes they have configurable voltages. But even with parking mode turned off it will be contributing to battery drain when off. Just depends how good it is at sipping power in standby. If it has been fuse tapped I’d disconnect the permanent live while you are troubleshooting the issue. If it’s not obviously fuse tapped then you’ll have to follow the wires.

3 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Check your passenger fuse box. But if it has parking mode then it will be powered all the time unless it has a kit with different permanent and switched live to shut itself off when the battery is low. Sometimes they have configurable voltages. But even with parking mode turned off it will be contributing to battery drain when off. Just depends how good it is at sipping power in standby. If it has been fuse tapped I’d disconnect the permanent live while you are troubleshooting the issue. If it’s not obviously fuse tapped then you’ll have to follow the wires.

I seem to recall paying an additional £90 for a hardwire kit. I have checked the Thinkware App and although radar and parking mode are available they are both definitely off and the battery protection is enabled for 12m of the year. I am pretty certain that is is powered all the time. I will check the fuses tomorrow as I am losing the daylight here.

Any suggestions re getting the solar trickle charger to feed in?

It shouldn’t be necessary. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t charge the battery being directly connected to the terminals. It won’t work going via the 12v socket as that gets shut off shortly after the car is switched off. 
 

Perhaps the trickle solar charger is putting less in than your battery drain? The car won’t detect the charge straight away if you’ve connected the charger direct to the battery terminals though. The BMS can only detect the charge if an external charger is connected via the chassis ground point not the negative terminal as the bms sensor is connected inline to the negative terminal. So connecting directly to the terminals bypasses it. 

1 minute ago, alexp999 said:

It shouldn’t be necessary. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t charge the battery being directly connected to the terminals. It won’t work going via the 12v socket as that gets shut off shortly after the car is switched off. 
 

Perhaps the trickle solar charger is putting less in than your battery drain? The car won’t detect the charge straight away if you’ve connected the charger direct to the battery terminals though. The BMS can only detect the charge if an external charger is connected via the chassis groujd point not the negative terminal as the bms sensor is connected inline to the negative terminal. So connecting directly to the terminals bypasses it. 

 

I think because of my multiple vehicles a solar charger might not be such a bad idea.

I had noticed that the mains trickle charge wasn't detected immediately (using the chassis ground and positive battery terminal). Perhaps I should ask the auto electrician to connect the solar charging panel to those instead? The original solar panel wiring extension he did was to the positive and negative battery terminals. The Battery Monitor 6 was fitted by me and I also used the terminals. Should that be on the chassis ground as well?

8 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

It shouldn’t be necessary. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t charge the battery being directly connected to the terminals. It won’t work going via the 12v socket as that gets shut off shortly after the car is switched off. 
 

Perhaps the trickle solar charger is putting less in than your battery drain? The car won’t detect the charge straight away if you’ve connected the charger direct to the battery terminals though. The BMS can only detect the charge if an external charger is connected via the chassis groujd point not the negative terminal as the bms sensor is connected inline to the negative terminal. So connecting directly to the terminals bypasses it. 

Weather permitting tomorrow I am going to connect the 4.5w panel to the positive and chassis. See if it is taking a charge after a wait.

If no joy will try the 20w panel and do the same.

Monitor the rate of charge and maybe even try the parking and radar sensor. See if I can out charge the drain.

Definitely going to the supposedly better auto electrician on July 31st to see if I have a vampire somewhere draining the battery.

Thanks for the info re the chassis and BMS. I only ever knew to use the chassis for jump starting and mains trickle charging.

1 hour ago, Kubrick said:

I am going to connect the 4.5w panel to the positive and chassis. See if it is taking a charge after a wait.

If no joy will try the 20w panel and do the same.

I don't expect that you will get the battery to charge from such small solar panels. The rating that the panels are given are based in living in a country with very strong sunlight, not something we see much of in the North East.

The 4.5W panel could in theory provide a maximum current of around 370mA but in reality probably only manages about 200mA. Then of course there is the output voltage from the solar panel, unless it is at least 12.6V or more then it will never charge the battery on your Focus Mk4

That’s a good point. And if there is no reverse current flow in the solar panel circuitry you could actually be taking power from the battery. 
 

Photovoltaic solar panels are just like LEDs in reverse. 

31 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

And if there is no reverse current flow in the solar panel circuitry you could actually be taking power from the battery. 

Some of the more powerful units (200W up) do include a diode to prevent it draining the battery (like at night) but of course that drops the output voltage by 0.6V and hence the little panels usually don't have the diode fitted as they need every bit of voltage they can produce 🤣

1 hour ago, unofix said:

I don't expect that you will get the battery to charge from such small solar panels. The rating that the panels are given are based in living in a country with very strong sunlight, not something we see much of in the North East.

The 4.5W panel could in theory provide a maximum current of around 370mA but in reality probably only manages about 200mA. Then of course there is the output voltage from the solar panel, unless it is at least 12.6V or more then it will never charge the battery on your Focus Mk4

Thanks for the info. I also picked up a 20w from Halfords off the shelf. Auto electrician tested it and said it was throwing out 20w and it was quite overcast today but I don't know if that was inside the car or out on the opened bonnet while he was working on it. I have both to try and 28 days to return the Halfords one if not required. Everything bigger than 20w on Amazon seemed to need a controller and I was wary of blowing the whole thing up.

9 minutes ago, Kubrick said:

Auto electrician tested it and said it was throwing out 20w

I'd love to know how he tested it and came to that conclusion. It's very easy to use a multimeter and measure the voltage output, lets say it was for example 12.0V Now in order to find out the amount of power it can supply (measured in watts) you would need a load, something to draw current.

Power (Watts) = Volts x Amps    Therefore 20 Watts = 12.0V x 1.67A

So to draw exactly 1.67A from the solar panel it would need to be connected to a load such as a resistor measuring 7.19 Ohms and the resistor would need to be rated at 20W minimum otherwise it would overheat.

In short, what I'm saying is that it is unlikely that the 20W solar panel was able to supply 1.67 Amps at 12.0 Volts.

The sun is up now and I have connected the AA 4.5w panel to the battery + and chassis using it's crocodile clips. Waiting to see if the BM6 reports it charging. If it hasn't registered in say 30 minutes I will do the same with the 20w panel. Kind of prefer the 4.5w panel as it has smoother edges for sitting on my leather seats when not on the dash but I would consider going for one of the bigger panels, Amazon have a 600w panel with a controller but I think I will wait to talk to the "better" auto electrician about it. Let's see if I can get either of my current panels to charge first...

Well BM6 reported 55% SoC last night which had dropped to 54% this morning. Setting up the solar charge experiment ie opening up the driver door, passenger door to reach the bonnet release and locking it up again dropped it to 31%.

4.5w panel didn't register anything. On to the 20w panel now.

Feel like I will be trickle charging it from the mains later on this morning.

I have ordered the ForScan compatible lead from Amazon which is due to arrive today so I can look at the battery settings in that ie the 80% cap.

This car is a puzzle!

First I would be tempted to disconnect the cameras for a few weeks, use the car as normal and see if the problem disappears. If it does then check how the cameras were wired (ignition or constant feed) and rewire to ignition only.

If there is no difference, try a larger capacity battery (80ah)

I'm not sure about BMS changes in Forscan, I've never done it, but have a read of this

https://forscan.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=22744&hilit=battery+monitoring+system 

From what I can see, you need to ensure that the BCMii, PCM and TCM(If automatic and fitted) and TCU modules are updated

Well it's been 40 minutes and no joy on the 20w panel either so I am mains trickle charging it up from 31% now.

Next step is battery setting via ForScan.

 

39 minutes ago, DaveT70 said:

From what I can see, you need to ensure that the BCMii, PCM and TCM(If automatic and fitted) and TCU modules are updated

Are those things I can do with ForScan?

Just now, Kubrick said:

Well it's been 40 minutes and no joy on the 20w panel either so I am trickle charging it up form 31% now.

Next step is battery setting via ForScan.

 

Are those things I can do with ForScan?

Have you checked the voltage output by the panels? As unofix said, if they're not over 12.5V it won't do anything. You have to raise the voltage of the battery over its resting voltage for it to take a charge.

Changing the battery setting really isn't going to achieve much. You need to get to the bottom of the drain.

Regardless of the battery settings on Forscan, a charged battery should last weeks without being topped up. Something is draining your battery.

18 minutes ago, Kubrick said:

Are those things I can do with ForScan?

You can risk doing it your self, you have the right lead, BUT, you will need to charge the battery, off the vehicle, to 100% and use a battery charger connected to the vehicle whilst updating.

Make sure you follow the guides on Forscan forums to the letter.

Or, you could pay the dealer to update them for you.

According to the link I posted the BCM update is a warranty job

42 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Changing the battery setting really isn't going to achieve much. You need to get to the bottom of the drain.

Regardless of the battery settings on Forscan, a charged battery should last weeks without being topped up. Something is draining your battery.

The weird thing it it only dropped 1% SoC overnight. It dropped much more just opening the doors! Appointment on 31st July is intended on finding the vampire inside it.

Car still under warranty but the dealership are just charging it and sending it me back.

Last time it was in was only about 3w ago. Terrible service. Won't be buying another from that dealership chain that's for sure. Will warn others as well.

100% charged battery (SoC) isn't lasting more than 3 days. ☹️

3 minutes ago, Kubrick said:

The weird thing it it only dropped 1% SoC overnight. It dropped much more just opening the doors! Appointment on 31st July is intended on finding the vampire inside it.

Car still under warranty but the dealership are just charging it and sending it me back.

Last time it was in was only about 3w ago. Terrible service. Won't be buying another from that dealership chain that's for sure. Will warn others as well.

100% charged battery (SoC) isn't lasting more than 3 days. ☹️

Have you tried taking it to a different dealer?

If it is doing it with the dashcam unplugged and setup how it left the factory, it should be able to be investigated under warranty.

52 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Have you checked the voltage output by the panels? As unofix said, if they're not over 12.5V it won't do anything. You have to raise the voltage of the battery over its resting voltage for it to take a charge.

Auto electrician supposedly did this yday for me. I am charging from the mains atm...

4 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Have you tried taking it to a different dealer?

If it is doing it with the dashcam unplugged and setup how it left the factory, it should be able to be investigated under warranty.

I'm in NE33. The Lookers chain are everywhere. It's quite a trek to another dealership then I'd have to leave it, make my own way home and go back for it. I will give them a ring though, see if they can do it with a curtesy car.

Anyone got a recommended Ford dealership in Tyne & Wear? Lookers are donkeys.