Interesting problem that resolved itself (Got Lucky?)

[jasonator]

Bought wife a new Mach E over the weekend and decided to see if the SGS Subwoofer/adapter would work in hers as well. I pulled my little JL Audio Micro sub and then put it back in.

This morning at start up, I get sound from the one speaker calls come through on. None of the doors speakers work. I pull over reset the system, undo and redo all my wires on both the sub and BO amp, maybe I tugged something loose? Nope.

Upon reset another weird symptom: The Bluetooth screen came up and was "making a call to myself The call was to MN = My Number)" but the phone wasn't actually dialing or calling.

In the settings where you can control Bass/Mid/Treble if I slid the slider, it went right back the previous setting. Reset did not work either.

Quick search says an update might have done something weird>? Nope, my updates are M-T and I drove if all weekend without issue.

Maybe low voltage in the 12V? Well its about 2 months old, but lets check. Nope... AutoZone says 100% SOC.

I disconnected the battery for 5 minutes, removed the wires to the little amp/sub (For context its been in there for 56k miles with 0 issue so far) Nope.

Maybe I blew the BO little amp? thinking Ill have to buy one and continue on to work.

Heres the "Interesting" part....Wife finally calls me back and as soon as I picked up everything went back to normal.

I dont know!

The last update for context was a Syrius XM one and the setttings on the screen dont tell me when it updated. My phone says last update was Feb 11 PT25.8.5 and the one in the truck is SYNC-25.2.1.6.5.2

The only thing I might can think of is the battery was low (I dint think to ask for the voltage after he said it was at 100%) and when I disconnected the subwoofer wires it drew less power and had a chance to get back up to "voltage"? (Its just a little JL Audio microsub and tiny little amp.....not a huge "system" by any means.)

Anyway, YEAH!

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[chl]

Bought wife a new Mach E over the weekend and decided to see if the SGS Subwoofer/adapter would work in hers as well. I pulled my little JL Audio Micro sub and then put it back in.

This morning at start up, I get sound from the one speaker calls come through on. None of the doors speakers work. I pull over reset the system, undo and redo all my wires on both the sub and BO amp, maybe I tugged something loose? Nope.

Upon reset another weird symptom: The Bluetooth screen came up and was "making a call to myself The call was to MN = My Number)" but the phone wasn't actually dialing or calling.

In the settings where you can control Bass/Mid/Treble if I slid the slider, it went right back the previous setting. Reset did not work either.

Quick search says an update might have done something weird>? Nope, my updates are M-T and I drove if all weekend without issue.

Maybe low voltage in the 12V? Well its about 2 months old, but lets check. Nope... AutoZone says 100% SOC.

I disconnected the battery for 5 minutes, removed the wires to the little amp/sub (For context its been in there for 56k miles with 0 issue so far) Nope.

Maybe I blew the BO little amp? thinking Ill have to buy one and continue on to work.

Heres the "Interesting" part....Wife finally calls me back and as soon as I picked up everything went back to normal.

I dont know!

The last update for context was a Syrius XM one and the setttings on the screen dont tell me when it updated. My phone says last update was Feb 11 PT25.8.5 and the one in the truck is SYNC-25.2.1.6.5.2

The only thing I might can think of is the battery was low (I dint think to ask for the voltage after he said it was at 100%) and when I disconnected the subwoofer wires it drew less power and had a chance to get back up to "voltage"? (Its just a little JL Audio microsub and tiny little amp.....not a huge "system" by any means.)

Anyway, YEAH!

Most of these things DO turn out to be a 12v battery issue.

The SOC can be misleading.
The questions is really about remaining energy capacity, NOT the state of charge.

A Lightning truck with 56k miles on it probably has some battery degradation and has lost some capacity unless you've been using a maintainer consistently.

"...An SOC indicator only shows the percentage of the current maximum capacity, not the original capacity. An older, degraded, or sulfated lead-acid battery might charge up perfectly and display a 100% SOC. However, because its overall health has degraded, its total amp-hour capacity is diminished, and the voltage will crash instantly as soon as a load is applied..." (AI generated but correct information)

You need to put it under a cranking amps test to know how it will act under load conditions.

 

[jasonator]

This is good insight. TY. Battery is new (2-3 months old) but your explanation does make sense.

I did weirdly find a connector on the BO amp was not fully seated, but after reseating it, it did not fix until wife’s phone call.

When I got home last night I ran ForScan and pulled the dtc’s and the (ACM) had 4. I cleared them out (twice, the first didn’t clear them?) and now they are clear and not pulling any errors.

Fingers crossed this is not the beginning of the end.

 

[chl]

When the 12v battery gets 'weak' all kinds of strange things seem to happen, and those dtcs etc. could be related.

The truck doesn't do a great job of fully charging the 12v battery based on what others have posted which is why many of us have added a maintainer - a $40 insurance policy we can keep on truckin.

There is a reason Ford put in a 30 minute "Power Down Timer" to protect the 12v battery from deep discharge - the reason is the battery is undersized for the job and the truck does not do a good job of maintaining battery health, IMHO.

The 12v battery is critical to operating all of our trucks' systems.

I'll spare you the technical details, suffice it to say that you can extend the lifespan of a lead-acid 12v AGM battery by using a maintainer as often as possible and avoid the issues associated with a 'dying' battery.

 

[jasonator]

The saga is not done with me yet. Again this morning I had the same issue. Audio out of the one speaker on the dash. Spent about 25 minutes on the road accepting my fate and then called the wife to chat and "magically" everything was restored.

I have seen/read some weird 12v symptoms as well and thought I had dodged a bullet. 2 Lightnings and 100k miles later without issue until now. I think I will be getting a battery maintainer as mentioned.

When I last replaced the battery I was going to go the Ohmmu route until I read a few horror stories and the fact that I am only powering a tiny little JL amp that comes with the powered sub and a FitCamX dash cam, but I guess thats enough....Never ends....sigh.

TY

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