LiteNing
Member
- Thread starter
- #1
Longtime reader, first time poster... maintaining that old tradition of creating an internet account just to get something off my chest (but also seek advice).
Ok internet friends, I'll cut right to the chase: My CPO '23 ER Lightning Lariat with 41k miles has been (mostly) wonderful for the past 5 months, but I ran into the first major problem last Wednesday. After a 4 hour L2 charging session (the limit at my office), I got in the truck to move it. Instead of powering up normally, it started in accessory mode ("Full Accessory Power Active" on the IPC) with blinking green power button. The IPC then showed a message "Stop Safely Now", along with a red icon of a truck with an exclamation point (see attached). The shifter was also locked in park.
I tried the usual stuff of turning it off and on again, searching this forum (seems like this error goes away for some people after one or two power cycles) and letting it sit turned off and locked for 30 minutes. When that didn't work, I called roadside assistance to tow it (on a flatbed) to the nearest Ford dealership. First thing the tow truck driver did was hook up a jumper pack, which made no difference.
Some coworkers helped me push it to the entrance of our (low clearance) parking garage so the flatbed could load it. I used the "two pedal trick" to get it into neutral, and I left the truck in accessory mode on the way to the dealership because it kept shifting itself back to park during the push. As luck would have it, the 12V lasted just long enough for the driver to gravity roll my truck off, when the parking brake engaged and the dashboard lit up with every warning you can imagine (parking brake, ABS, front camera, steering, parking sensors, etc). The porter used a jumper pack, a mechanic and an electric pusher to get the truck in a parking space.
The dealer initially wanted $310 just to look at it and $250 for a new 12V before they would touch it. Now, the symptoms I described seem like a pretty obvious HV battery warranty problem (either sticky contactors, or I see some people had problems with the HV battery modules). Why would the 12V just decide to die one day? Doesn't make sense.
On Thursday the service writer (I'll call him Bob, not his real name) called me to say that the new 12V didn't fix it (duh) and this will be a warranty item (so no $310 diagnosis charge, cool, but also duh), but I still need to pay for the 12V battery. Bob also said they would start by swapping the HV junction box (I thought that was only a thing on Mach-e's, but ok...), and if that didn't work I should expect at least a week for them to look at HV battery modules.
So here's my first question for you folks: I know the 12mo/12k CPO warranty doesn't cover batteries... but shouldn't the 12V be covered under the 8yr/100k EV warranty because its failure was caused by the warrantable HV problem? After all, if not for the HV failure (still TBD), I would still have my original working 12V. Anyone else ever run into something like this? Maybe I'm just being cheap, but it's the principle that gets me.
Second, the HVJB is not "a thing" for the Lightning, right? All the forum posts I found through the search feature suggest that only the Mach-e has HVJB problems.
Ok, so I got a text message from Bob this morning, and things go from bad to worse. Whatever they did on Friday didn't fix it and they need to get Ford engineering involved because "the HVB is still energized" (That sounds like sticky contactors to me? But don't most EV batteries have a manual cutout plug you can pull to split the pack? Does the lightning not have that?). Oh, but that's not the best part...
The truck fell off the dolly while they were moving it around the service bay, and there's substantial puncture through the sheet metal on the bed and some deep scratches. I'm afraid this also means they killed another 12V because why else would you put it on dollies unless the parking brake locked again?
Between the as-yet-undiagnosed HV battery issue and the sheet metal, I'm afraid it's going to be weeks before I see my truck again.
That brings me to my next set of questions for you folks:
30 days is the magic number for warranty repairs under California's lemon law (including used cars that still have the original new vehicle warranty left)... so it's still a hypothetical right now but... if you were in my shoes, would you or wouldn't you? I'm not really a truck guy, but I love the space, the gut-punching acceleration, the visibility, the floaty ride, ProPower, giant frunk, etc.. That Avalanche paint is just gorgeous. I don't think there's anything else on the market like it right now (and the '25s have smaller batteries and a bunch of feature deletes, right?).
OTOH, this isn't my first (hardware) issue with the truck and the software situation is also driving me nuts (I still don't have WAL). However, the biggest challenge is that my SO is now worried about something like this happening in the middle of nowhere if we take the truck camping, as we had planned to do on Memorial Day weekend.
Ok internet friends, I'll cut right to the chase: My CPO '23 ER Lightning Lariat with 41k miles has been (mostly) wonderful for the past 5 months, but I ran into the first major problem last Wednesday. After a 4 hour L2 charging session (the limit at my office), I got in the truck to move it. Instead of powering up normally, it started in accessory mode ("Full Accessory Power Active" on the IPC) with blinking green power button. The IPC then showed a message "Stop Safely Now", along with a red icon of a truck with an exclamation point (see attached). The shifter was also locked in park.
I tried the usual stuff of turning it off and on again, searching this forum (seems like this error goes away for some people after one or two power cycles) and letting it sit turned off and locked for 30 minutes. When that didn't work, I called roadside assistance to tow it (on a flatbed) to the nearest Ford dealership. First thing the tow truck driver did was hook up a jumper pack, which made no difference.
Some coworkers helped me push it to the entrance of our (low clearance) parking garage so the flatbed could load it. I used the "two pedal trick" to get it into neutral, and I left the truck in accessory mode on the way to the dealership because it kept shifting itself back to park during the push. As luck would have it, the 12V lasted just long enough for the driver to gravity roll my truck off, when the parking brake engaged and the dashboard lit up with every warning you can imagine (parking brake, ABS, front camera, steering, parking sensors, etc). The porter used a jumper pack, a mechanic and an electric pusher to get the truck in a parking space.
The dealer initially wanted $310 just to look at it and $250 for a new 12V before they would touch it. Now, the symptoms I described seem like a pretty obvious HV battery warranty problem (either sticky contactors, or I see some people had problems with the HV battery modules). Why would the 12V just decide to die one day? Doesn't make sense.
On Thursday the service writer (I'll call him Bob, not his real name) called me to say that the new 12V didn't fix it (duh) and this will be a warranty item (so no $310 diagnosis charge, cool, but also duh), but I still need to pay for the 12V battery. Bob also said they would start by swapping the HV junction box (I thought that was only a thing on Mach-e's, but ok...), and if that didn't work I should expect at least a week for them to look at HV battery modules.
So here's my first question for you folks: I know the 12mo/12k CPO warranty doesn't cover batteries... but shouldn't the 12V be covered under the 8yr/100k EV warranty because its failure was caused by the warrantable HV problem? After all, if not for the HV failure (still TBD), I would still have my original working 12V. Anyone else ever run into something like this? Maybe I'm just being cheap, but it's the principle that gets me.
Second, the HVJB is not "a thing" for the Lightning, right? All the forum posts I found through the search feature suggest that only the Mach-e has HVJB problems.
Ok, so I got a text message from Bob this morning, and things go from bad to worse. Whatever they did on Friday didn't fix it and they need to get Ford engineering involved because "the HVB is still energized" (That sounds like sticky contactors to me? But don't most EV batteries have a manual cutout plug you can pull to split the pack? Does the lightning not have that?). Oh, but that's not the best part...
The truck fell off the dolly while they were moving it around the service bay, and there's substantial puncture through the sheet metal on the bed and some deep scratches. I'm afraid this also means they killed another 12V because why else would you put it on dollies unless the parking brake locked again?
Between the as-yet-undiagnosed HV battery issue and the sheet metal, I'm afraid it's going to be weeks before I see my truck again.
That brings me to my next set of questions for you folks:
30 days is the magic number for warranty repairs under California's lemon law (including used cars that still have the original new vehicle warranty left)... so it's still a hypothetical right now but... if you were in my shoes, would you or wouldn't you? I'm not really a truck guy, but I love the space, the gut-punching acceleration, the visibility, the floaty ride, ProPower, giant frunk, etc.. That Avalanche paint is just gorgeous. I don't think there's anything else on the market like it right now (and the '25s have smaller batteries and a bunch of feature deletes, right?).
OTOH, this isn't my first (hardware) issue with the truck and the software situation is also driving me nuts (I still don't have WAL). However, the biggest challenge is that my SO is now worried about something like this happening in the middle of nowhere if we take the truck camping, as we had planned to do on Memorial Day weekend.
Sponsored
