28 minutes ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

It's dropped this morning (08:50 AM) to 12.30V, which is below 70% SOC. I'm guessing that's not supposed to happen on these batteries? A 10% reduction, when it hasn't moved or done anything, sounds quite high.

Depends how you do the maths I suppose. It's dropped from 80% SOC to 70% SOC, but 12.42v to 12.30v is less than 1% reduction in actual voltage.

As you've found, you can drive as far as you like and the car will never achieve more than 12.42v which is barely enough for things to operate anyway, leave it unused a couple of days and it drops.

Pretty much "normal" in my experience of a Mk 8 and now a Mk 8.5 over the last 6 years or so, I'm afraid.

I've raised the issue with both cars during normal service visits while still under warranty, to be told "no fault found" and given the usual "have a long drive" advice, though service did concede "off the record" that modern charging systems are rubbish and gave the battery a foc charge while it was in.😀

26 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Depends how you do the maths I suppose. It's dropped from 80% SOC to 70% SOC, but 12.42v to 12.30v is less than 1% reduction in actual voltage.

As you've found, you can drive as far as you like and the car will never achieve more than 12.42v which is barely enough for things to operate anyway, leave it unused a couple of days and it drops.

Pretty much "normal" in my experience of a Mk 8 and now a Mk 8.5 over the last 6 years or so, I'm afraid.

I've raised the issue with both cars during normal service visits while still under warranty, to be told "no fault found" and given the usual "have a long drive" advice, though service did concede "off the record" that modern charging systems are rubbish and gave the battery a foc charge while it was in.😀

I guess, but I haven't had any issues with the battery on the car for the first 6 months of ownership - everything just worked okay. I haven't changed my mileage, etc in that time - so for it to start decreasing that rapidly in the past couple of months is very strange - I can't see it's normal to have to trickle charge the car every 3-4 days...

It is also a Ford Direct car, and I did read that these could have been sat around for a while before I bought it - but have no idea if that would contribute to a poor battery.

Do we know what the SOC required for the 'Remote Features Disabled' message to appear in the app?

49 minutes ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

Do we know what the SOC required for the 'Remote Features Disabled' message to appear in the app?

I don't use Ford pass anyway, so can't comment. It would be interesting to see if anyone has done that exercise.

FWIW, I've kept a sort of "battery diary" with the current car. I took delivery 1/4/23 and first charged the battery 9/8/23 and pretty much every 5/6 weeks since.

My mileage is pretty low these days - only 4-5,000 a year - and irregular. Our other car is over 10 years old, only does about 1200 miles a year and is still on its original battery, only needed charging during Covid lockdowns. That's progress!😀

If raising the issue under warranty, check the position regarding diagnostic fees (see below) - some members have been hit with a bill if "no fault found" that was more than the cost of just buying a new battery!

"What is a Diagnostic fee?If a repair is not covered under an applicable program, the diagnostic becomes part of the repair cost which is paid for by the customer. These charges are not determined by Ford Motor Company and must be agreed between the dealer and customer. "

 

 

If you haven't already done so, have a look at this thread, which covers most points, if you need something to pass the time at Xmas!

https://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/115331-car-battery-mk8/#comments

 

18 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I don't use Ford pass anyway, so can't comment. It would be interesting to see if anyone has done that exercise.

FWIW, I've kept a sort of "battery diary" with the current car. I took delivery 1/4/23 and first charged the battery 9/8/23 and pretty much every 5/6 weeks since.

My mileage is pretty low these days - only 4-5,000 a year - and irregular. Our other car is over 10 years old, only does about 1200 miles a year and is still on its original battery, only needed charging during Covid lockdowns. That's progress!😀

If raising the issue under warranty, check the position regarding diagnostic fees (see below) - some members have been hit with a bill if "no fault found" that was more than the cost of just buying a new battery!

"What is a Diagnostic fee?If a repair is not covered under an applicable program, the diagnostic becomes part of the repair cost which is paid for by the customer. These charges are not determined by Ford Motor Company and must be agreed between the dealer and customer. "

 

 

If you haven't already done so, have a look at this thread, which covers most points, if you need something to pass the time at Xmas!

https://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/115331-car-battery-mk8/#comments

 

Yeah the diagnostic fee is my main concern - they've said it'll cost £180 if it's not found to be a fault under warranty, which is what's making me nervous.

 

I have booked the car in at KiwkFit this coming Friday for them to do a free battery health check, which I'm guessing is better than nothing. As you said, if the battery isn't healthy it's almost certainly cheaper to just get a new battery than bother with all the diagnostic charges (haha)

I'm keeping a spreadsheet (nerdy, I know!) with the Voltage, etc for the next few days - will be interesting to see the point at which the 'Remote features disabled' shows on the app.

4 minutes ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

have booked the car in at KiwkFit this coming Friday for them to do a free battery health check, which I'm guessing is better than nothing.

That's where you're wrong. A KwikFit battery check is worse than nothing. 😂

I would expect they will try and sell you one of their "quality" batteries! 

15 minutes ago, unofix said:

That's where you're wrong. A KwikFit battery check is worse than nothing. 😂

I would expect they will try and sell you one of their "quality" batteries! 

Hopefully not if the battery is still fairly healthy! At a loss as to what else to do at this point, except maybe invest in a cable for using Forscan

29 minutes ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

, except maybe invest in a cable for using Forscan

Good move. Maybe put a late request in to Santa 😉

4 minutes ago, unofix said:

Good move. Maybe put a late request in to Santa 😉

Of course, that opens you up to being checked on the good boy/bad boy database 😂

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Of course, that opens you up to being checked on the good boy/bad boy database 😂

Jokes aside, is doing something like this with Forscan likely to cause warranty issues?

1 hour ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

with Forscan likely to cause warranty issues?

No. The Ford dealership never check software or modules unless they are told to do a software update. They have no way of knowing what the setting are on your car as it may have been to other Ford dealers previously who have changed settings. For example if you had a Ford towbar fitted then the dealer would update the settings for that. There is no record kept of who has done what and why.

44 minutes ago, unofix said:

They have no way of knowing what the setting are on your car as it may have been to other Ford dealers previously who have changed settings.

But would a Ford dealer have a "legitimate" reason to alter SOC? I've asked about this one and been told they won't alter original factory settings unless instructed by Ford. So if you altered with e.g. Forscan and then pursued a charging/battery related warranty claim might they check then? They seem to seize any excuse to reject a claim as we often see.

 

48 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

But would a Ford dealer have a "legitimate" reason to alter SOC? I've asked about this one and been told they won't alter original factory settings unless instructed by Ford. So if you altered with e.g. Forscan and then pursued a charging/battery related warranty claim might they check then? They seem to seize any excuse to reject a claim as we often see.

 

I'm sure you are correct, Ford would not authorise a Dealer to do Warranty work relating to the Charging System if the SOC had been changed, but if the owner changed it back to original before presenting the car then I'm not sure whether Ford would know.

I'm sure that 99% of Technicians in Dealerships would not care.

31 minutes ago, Tizer said:

I'm sure that 99% of Technicians in Dealerships would not care.

As few as that?😀

Happy Christmas all, just another quick question (and apologies if you're all bored of hearing from me now!) - but was just wondering if anyone has an idea as to what a 'normal' voltage drop when the car is not running is? Noticed the car dropped ~0.1V overnight last night (in ~12 hours), but have no idea if a 0.2V drop in 24 hours would be considered 'usual'?

3 hours ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

Happy Christmas all, just another quick question (and apologies if you're all bored of hearing from me now!) - but was just wondering if anyone has an idea as to what a 'normal' voltage drop when the car is not running is? Noticed the car dropped ~0.1V overnight last night (in ~12 hours), but have no idea if a 0.2V drop in 24 hours would be considered 'usual'?

To get an exact Voltage measurement you would need to switch off the car, close the doors, open the Bonnet and leave it like that for about an hour without opening anything to wake the car up before measuring the Voltage.

You would then need to do the same in the morning but even so it would not be completely accurate because the evening ambient and under Bonnet temperature would probably be higher than the morning one, so may show a higher Voltage even if the Battery had not lost any.

5 hours ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

apologies if you're all bored of hearing from me now!

Lol, it's more interesting than talking to the in-laws at Xmas.🎅

Can't add to what John has said, but just going back through the thread. I might have missed something (often happens!) but, other than the Pass app messages, is anything not actually working in the car?

6 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Lol, it's more interesting than talking to the in-laws at Xmas.🎅

Can't add to what John has said, but just going back through the thread. I might have missed something (often happens!) but, other than the Pass app messages, is anything not actually working in the car?

I was seeing the message in the app, along with the interior/courtesy lights not coming on when the doors are opened.

So I tried the tip by @Tizer and left the bonnet up and took a reading across the battery after an hour, and it was showing 12.64V, which according to the (now famous) SOC chart is at 100%? I've repeated it twice this evening and it the reading is consistent, but I'll double check it in the morning to confirm.

Had a read on the Puma forums as well, and there's (as you'd expect) as many comments about this issue on there as well. The current theory over there is that there's something going on with the FordPass app - so for now I've uninstalled and disabled it on Sync3 to see what happens with the battery drain.

4 hours ago, AmbitiousCubone said:

The current theory over there is that there's something going on with the FordPass app - so for now I've uninstalled and disabled it on Sync3 to see what happens with the battery drain.

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I've never bothered with it on either of my Mk 8s and get the same thing with courtesy lights so I wouldn't hold out much hope!😀

On 12/12/2024 at 5:32 PM, StephenFord said:

I love 'old' cars LOL I often read the struggles folk have on here with 2 or 3 yer old cars having battery issues. During lockdown, the Toyota was totally neglected for almost 5 months. When I eventually got into it, it started perfectly on 1st twist of the key 😂 There's an old adage, they don't build them like they use to - they certainly don't, oh, and it passed it's annual MOT on Tuesday, all I did for preparation was wash it...

Having just bought a 2021 Fiesta MHEV (as good as it is in some ways) i'm very envious of you and your Toyota . 😉

Just to add some more details about my battery issues:

Took the car in for a better health check today, and was told the battery health was at 80%, which is good and means it doesn't need replacing - so on that front the car battery should be okay.

I am noticing something weird now that I'm doing the battery voltage check as @Tizer suggested - I've driven the car back from the garage today and left the car with the bonnet up and locked for an hour, and the voltage is showing 12.64V - which seems to be at 100% SOC (?).

I'm slightly confused, as I thought they were only supposed to charge to a maximum of 80%, but I've noticed that over the last two days it's been hovering around 90% - 100% SOC. Not that I'm complaining, but seems strange to me, as if a previous owner had already changed the SOC threshold using Forscan...

Hi Chris

Encroaching across from the Puma forum and reading about the 12.64 volts you are achieving. After a decent run I also get to 12.64 volts which it seems to hold for sometime. Something else you and others maybe interested in reference battery usage.

I have fitted to my car a GPS tracker. This tracker also gives me the car battery voltage on my mobile phone. This morning on my phone I had a reading of 12.23 volts which it has had for the last three days. Later in the morning I had to go to my garage to get some tools for a job in the house. I never touched the car just walked past it. When I got back to the house, out of intrest I rechecked the battery, 12.19 volts.

It appears just walking past the car with keys in your pocket is enough to wake the car modules up. Checking later in the day battery settled back at 12.22 volts. Use of 0.01 volt just to walk past your car.

 

9 minutes ago, jsk said:

Hi Chris

Encroaching across from the Puma forum and reading about the 12.64 volts you are achieving. After a decent run I also get to 12.64 volts which it seems to hold for sometime. Something else you and others maybe interested in reference battery usage.

I have fitted to my car a GPS tracker. This tracker also gives me the car battery voltage on my mobile phone. This morning on my phone I had a reading of 12.23 volts which it has had for the last three days. Later in the morning I had to go to my garage to get some tools for a job in the house. I never touched the car just walked past it. When I got back to the house, out of intrest I rechecked the battery, 12.19 volts.

It appears just walking past the car with keys in your pocket is enough to wake the car modules up. Checking later in the day battery settled back at 12.22 volts. Use of 0.01 volt just to walk past your car.

 

That's consistent with what I've been seeing over the past few days. Now that I have a mulitmeter I've been trying out some 'experiments' (I probably need to get a life...) and have seen that whenever the car 'wakes' up, it does use around 0.01-0.02V.

Yesterday morning (~09:00), I checked the voltage on my car (unlocked, left bonnet open, locked and came back an hour later) - voltage read 12.56V.

Repeated the same process again at around 15:00, and the voltage read 12.52V. So it had dropped by 0.04V over a 6 hour period.

This time, I decided rather than locking/unlocking the car, I would leave the bonnet open for a few hours and check the voltage to see how quickly it dropped. To my surprise, it never dropped below 12.52V in a 6-hour period until 21:00.

So it seems that when the car modules 'wake', they use a not-so-insignificant amount of voltage to (presumably) run some checks on the vehicle. I have recently disabled the FordPass functionality on the car - as I did suspect that this was causing the vehicle to 'wake' up every so often to check the status of things, using a little bit of extra voltage every so often.

It's only been a few days, but I honestly haven't noticed any 'dramatic' voltage drops since I disabled the FordPass app, so I'm hioinestly thinking that, although not the primary cause, it's definitely leading to an increased amount of voltage to be used.p

Do I need to get out more, probably yes! Especially if it's going to help charging the battery on these damn cars!

Don't seem to have any problems with Ford Pass and that is with the latest version. Might give it a try deleteing it for a few days and see if it has any affect on my battery usage. Especially as I don't even have to go out to the car to check voltage.

1 minute ago, jsk said:

Don't seem to have any problems with Ford Pass and that is with the latest version. Might give it a try deleteing it for a few days and see if it has any affect on my battery usage. Especially as I don't even have to go out to the car to check voltage.

It's possible that I don't/didn't have the latest version installed. I found the info on the Puma forums here (another 140+ page thread on battery issues...)