Red Brick at home 2023 Ford Lighting

[olefish]

My problem begins with my distance from any dealer, and the lack of support as to transporting truck. No one suggested when purchased that it would be foolish to bring the truck to our location, it was the opposite, Ford Tough. 600 miles, and the only connection is by once-a-week ferry service, but it only allows for two EV's at a time, and they have to be drivable. You cannot tow it onboard, then tow it off. So that sets the tone with Roadside, and Ford Relationship service. No one appears authorized to discuss the issue via phone, or email. No technical advice allowed. My symptoms started at 6000 miles when I noted the heating system wouldn't heat the cab. After a few days of packing a 115volt heater around it resolved. No error codes seen. One day at 8000 miles, I couldn't start the truck. Read thru the forums and realized the message I was getting about not enough battery voltage to receive updates might be related to the 12v Battery. Used a jump start lion pak to get the truck going. My location only needs charge once every 10 days, but I use the Climate remote to warm the truck. My thought was that wore down the battery til it wouldn't start the truck, and the 80 amp high voltage charging system wasn't allowing enough for the 12volt. I ordered a spare 12 volt. I installed that battery just before Xmas when the truck wouldn't start again. There were powertrain malfunction codes. After some screwing around, code readers, clearing codes, and disconnection of the 12volt battery, and resetting same, it began working again. Several days into this the heating system again quit working. Back to the plugin heaters. By now we had suffered through 50 inches of Snow, and were in single digits temperatures. Then it began to rain, and flood. Streets a mess. I managed to find a stretch of dry road, and drove the truck hard. Heater started to work again. Then it quit, and has stay quit. Then the yellow wrench icon appeared, and the stop safely warning. I managed to get the truck home. Plugged it in to the charger, and found it would no longer charge. I have the red truck with exclamation point, yellow wrench, and nothing happening. 91% and 256 miles, the last time the truck moved or took a charge was 1/7/26. As it is it won't come out of park, and I am unsure of the sequence to get it into neutral, so I can move it into a garage, where it could warm and dry out. I know the flash lites 5 times and brake pedal three times to reset the 12v, I do have to wonder if there is a sequence to reset the high voltage side of things? And has anyone experienced the Ford Warranty program moving a truck 600 miles?

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[olefish]

Red Brick. We have attempted to communicate with dealers, and the Ford team. No one will offer advice on phone, even after there reading of codes. Been 10 days with relationship team. Very polite and see the issue, but can offer no help yet.

 

[RLXXI]

Where did you move to, the Arctic circle? Sounds like you're going to need to trailer it out instead.

 

[Henry Ford]

What is your coolant level?

See if this video tells you what you need to know to put the truck in neutral.

 

[TaxmanHog]

 

[PJnc284]

Where did you move to, the Arctic circle? Sounds like you're going to need to trailer it out instead.

lol. He's on an island. Probably isn't a trailering option with the ferry. Looks like quite the ferry ride to Juneau.

 

[olefish]

What is your coolant level?

See if this video tells you what you need to know to put the truck in neutral.

The video did for getting it into neutral, to get it up on a trailer, for sure. Thanks. Now for a video on how to reset the high voltage system. As to transport, the Ocean Barge service that we usually transport vehicles on, decided to refuse transit for EV's. Long after I bought it. The next service is the Ferry System, whom will take two EV's per week. But, they have to be mobile. Either up on a transport truck, or on a trailer hooked to a tow vehicle. Can't tow it on, then have Roadside meet, and tow off. And my coolant level was below the minimum, picked that up from another post, filling it didn't change anything. Ford customer relationships is just figuring out, that this may be difficult. I have a case number, and every call seems to be added to the case. So far they are tracking it.

 

[PJnc284]

Guessing you dont happen to have an obdii dongle to check the codes?

 

[digitaldad]

The video did for getting it into neutral, to get it up on a trailer, for sure. Thanks. Now for a video on how to reset the high voltage system. As to transport, the Ocean Barge service that we usually transport vehicles on, decided to refuse transit for EV's. Long after I bought it. The next service is the Ferry System, whom will take two EV's per week. But, they have to be mobile. Either up on a transport truck, or on a trailer hooked to a tow vehicle. Can't tow it on, then have Roadside meet, and tow off. And my coolant level was below the minimum, picked that up from another post, filling it didn't change anything. Ford customer relationships is just figuring out, that this may be difficult. I have a case number, and every call seems to be added to the case. So far they are tracking it.

You have some very unique degrees of challenges there. To an extent, some with just a normal vehicle breakdown and the geography....but to add those EV layers on top of it, dang!

While you're going through all of this, do you already know (or have awareness) if the dealer's EV support is there to support you, when it finally gets there?

I wish you good luck and a speedy turnaround!

 

[flux capacitor]

It sounds to me you don't drive this truck on a regular basis and it sits for long periods of time. An ICE you can let sit for weeks and even if the battery goes dead you can replace it and with a little work get it running again. With EV it is just like anything else that has a battery. If you did not use your cell phone for weeks of a time it would eventually go dead and you might find that it reduced the battery capacity. You do that often enough you will have a brick. You need to keep this truck plugged in all the time regardless whether you are driving it and keep it at 80% no matter how little you drive it. Charging like that do not count as a full charge so you have quite a number of small charges before you actually equal one full charge. Just like your cell phone once you unpackage it you need to keep using it to make it last its maximum lifecycle. You would never think of leaving your phone sitting around unused for weeks and expect it to be there when you needed it.

 

[olefish]

A daily driver, but not many miles of road on the island. The trucks 11550 miles is a fair bit for time of ownership. My 2015 Ford F150 had 21,000 miles when I sold it last year. Currently the Vehicle mode on the screen for towing the truck is not available. Will run thru the other options today. Would like to get inside a heated space to see if drying it out changes dynamics. There must be no known method of a whole truck reset? Like tune to 100.9 FM while rolling driver side window down while rolling passenger side up.
Something?

 

[olefish]

As to towing the truck, I had thought the fore mentioned video had answers. Not in my case. While the truck is in Brick Mode, the selector is in Park. And one cannot move it. The Vehicle emergency tow selection is "unavailable", or otherwise dimmed out. Pressing the brake pedal and the go pedal simultaneously, allows one to move the shifter, but the instant released, goes into park. Pressing the neutral button twice at any point in the process does nothing. I had thought I had seen yet another method describe in one of these threads. I would like to move the vehicle inside and dry it out.

 

[olefish]

lol. He's on an island. Probably isn't a trailering option with the ferry. Looks like quite the ferry ride to Juneau.

The nearest dealer is in Bellingham, Washington. Check that trip out on a map.

 

[PJnc284]

The nearest dealer is in Bellingham, Washington. Check that trip out on a map.

ouch..

 

[chl]

It all sounds very typical of a 12v battery or heater element failure causing the 12v system failure.

Once you get things squared away, keep you 12v on a maintainer with an AGM mode all the time the truck is not in use.

The only time the 12v gets charged is when the truck is on, when the HVB is being charged, or when the 12v gets extremely low for 48 hours or even lower then it gets some charge immediately.

Even folks who live in milder climate have 12v battery issues like this.

There was a case on the forum of someone with a failed heating element and it caused havoc with the 12v system, so that could be your problem. If it is, until the heater element is replaced, you will have this issue.

And the tech might go through the diagnostics and think it is the HV harness.

See this thread about that:

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...test-procedure-info-needed.33788/#post-625042

Your Ford dealership should get hold of a flatbed transport truck or send their tow truck and get your truck if you can't drive it assuming the ferry allows that.

If they can't do that they should send a tech out to decode your problem with FORscan at the minimum.

I'd hate to be in your shoes, good luck!

These links explain a bit about the battery issues fyi:

The different ways to charge up the 12v battery (enough to get OTAs):

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/how-to-get-failed-otas-to-install.29749/

This goes into depth about these 12v AGM batteries:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/how-to-recondition-service-your-12v-battery.11069/

This is one of several threads about putting trickle charger maintainers on the battery and how to make it easier by adding a charger wire:

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/charging-12v-battery.16979/

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