Rookie mistake on 12v battery change

[Builder]

Changed out my OEM 390 CCA battery for the Delco LN1 AGM. Took my time. Biggest PITA was getting the positive terminal cover off. But ….. idiot me dropped my tool across the terminals as I was loosening clamps on the OEM battery and a small spark jumped up. UGH !!! Did the BMS reset which went fine and locked the truck for the next 8+ hours. Anything to worry/concern about the terminal spark on the OEM battery removal? I know the electronics are sensitive so I hope I can sleep well tonight.

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[CurtisB]

I'm going to guess that all will be ok. Worse thing that would have happened is a fuse somewhere may be burned out. If you were able to do the BMS reset, I think you are good to go.

 

[bgn]

You're probably fine.

 

[TacoTanium]

Just curious why you want to change out your battery?

I want to do the same since my battery was replaced under warranty last week because I had to jump start every time I need to drive. It's either the battery was bad from mfr or software is sucking life out of it between drive (I hear motors running when it's off just sitting there doing nothing/not moving). If it does the same with a good battery, then ford's software sucks ass. It's only less than 5 months old.

 

[MakinDoForNow]

Just curious why you want to change out your battery?

I want to do the same since my battery was replaced under warranty last week because I had to jump start every time I need to drive. It's either the battery was bad from mfr or software is sucking life out of it between drive (I hear motors running when it's off just sitting there doing nothing/not moving). If it does the same with a good battery, then ford's software sucks ass. It's only less than 5 months old.

It's not just Ford. Vehicles today of all makes place more demands on batteries. Yes some are more aggressive on charging than others. Consider getting a multi stage maintainer. I use noco g5 on my 2022 maverick hybrid lariat 30,000 miles and my 2022 XLT LUX hybrid 2400 miles. Never jumped either. I put my noco g5 on them about every 3-4 months if possible for a solid week to allow the "optimization" routines to start and stop. The truck will pull down the battery a little every day and the maintainer replaces it every day. The Ford bms gets to see battery pretty much full for several days in a row. I believe this helps it to know at least a more appropriate fully charged target voltage. (With the optimization sulfate and electrolyte stratification will be pretty much taken care of. I hope to get 6 or more years out of my batteries,). I had a 2.0 Tremor for awhile with the larger battery and the g5 would take longer to cycle and I needed the 10 amp g10. I did not need 3 and it got the best offer. My brother in law has a gm full size SUV and he carries a jump box to start it... I do have one jump box and my fear is that it will be in the wrong truck if I need it.

 

[Builder]

Just curious why you want to change out your battery?

I want to do the same since my battery was replaced under warranty last week because I had to jump start every time I need to drive. It's either the battery was bad from mfr or software is sucking life out of it between drive (I hear motors running when it's off just sitting there doing nothing/not moving). If it does the same with a good battery, then ford's software sucks ass. It's only less than 5 months old.

I was unwilling to invest the time and trouble with the dealership to try and remedy the 390 CCA lead acid battery; they are now replacing with a 470 CCA, equally crappy Motorcraft battery. Some folks on this forum have surrendered their Mav for up to two weeks while the dealership goofs around with it and others have gone through 4 crappy Motorcraft batteries trying to fix the issue. Others have taken 5-8 trips back to the dealership to try and fix the issue. The Hybrid is already pre-programmed for the AMG charging algorithm which is inconsistent with a lead acid battery. It’s a personal choice but, $180 bucks to put the “correct” battery in was a simple choice for me. The AC Delco LN1 AGM has 520 CCA/80 minute reserve and solves my no dome/courtesy lights issue. It charges faster with less resistance and dissipates much slower. I also turned off all communication in the Mav including Ford Pass. Others have pulled fuse #11 to disable the telematics completely.

 

[colinl]

I was unwilling to invest the time and trouble with the dealership to try and remedy the 390 CCA lead acid battery; they are now replacing with a 470 CCA, equally crappy Motorcraft battery. Some folks on this forum have surrendered their Mav for up to two weeks while the dealership goofs around with it and others have gone through 4 crappy Motorcraft batteries trying to fix the issue. Others have taken 5-8 trips back to the dealership to try and fix the issue. The Hybrid is already pre-programmed for the AMG charging algorithm which is inconsistent with a lead acid battery. It’s a personal choice but, $180 bucks to put the “correct” battery in was a simple choice for me. The AC Delco LN1 AGM has 520 CCA/80 minute reserve and solves my no dome/courtesy lights issue. It charges faster with less resistance and dissipates much slower. I also turned off all communication in the Mav including Ford Pass. Others have pulled fuse #11 to disable the telematics completely.

I would have done the same. My time and peace of mind is worth something, plus the obvious value of a larger CCA battery.

 

[Builder]

It's not just Ford. Vehicles today of all makes place more demands on batteries. Yes some are more aggressive on charging than others. Consider getting a multi stage maintainer. I use noco g5 on my 2022 maverick hybrid lariat 30,000 miles and my 2022 XLT LUX hybrid 2400 miles. Never jumped either. I put my noco g5 on them about every 3-4 months if possible for a solid week to allow the "optimization" routines to start and stop. The truck will pull down the battery a little every day and the maintainer replaces it every day. The Ford bms gets to see battery pretty much full for several days in a row. I believe this helps it to know at least a more appropriate fully charged target voltage. (With the optimization sulfate and electrolyte stratification will be pretty much taken care of. I hope to get 6 or more years out of my batteries,). I had a 2.0 Tremor for awhile with the larger battery and the g5 would take longer to cycle and I needed the 10 amp g10. I did not need 3 and it got the best offer. My brother in law has a gm full size SUV and he carries a jump box to start it... I do have one jump box and my fear is that it will be in the wrong truck if I need it.

I practiced this option as well with my Noco Genius 5. It’s workable but I quickly got tired of “plugging in” a brand new truck particularly since it lived outside. It’s a good option if you don’t mind it. For me it was a personal choice to install a much better battery consistent with the truck programming. I still carry a Noco GB40 jump pack for additional security in all my vehicles.

 

[Builder]

I'm going to guess that all will be ok. Worse thing that would have happened is a fuse somewhere may be burned out. If you were able to do the BMS reset, I think you are good to go.

Everything was fine. No issues at all after the 8+ hours post BMS reset !!

 

[TacoTanium]

It's not just Ford. Vehicles today of all makes place more demands on batteries. Yes some are more aggressive on charging than others. Consider getting a multi stage maintainer. I use noco g5 on my 2022 maverick hybrid lariat 30,000 miles and my 2022 XLT LUX hybrid 2400 miles. Never jumped either. I put my noco g5 on them about every 3-4 months if possible for a solid week to allow the "optimization" routines to start and stop. The truck will pull down the battery a little every day and the maintainer replaces it every day. The Ford bms gets to see battery pretty much full for several days in a row. I believe this helps it to know at least a more appropriate fully charged target voltage. (With the optimization sulfate and electrolyte stratification will be pretty much taken care of. I hope to get 6 or more years out of my batteries,). I had a 2.0 Tremor for awhile with the larger battery and the g5 would take longer to cycle and I needed the 10 amp g10. I did not need 3 and it got the best offer. My brother in law has a gm full size SUV and he carries a jump box to start it... I do have one jump box and my fear is that it will be in the wrong truck if I need it.

I'm don't feel like spending 35k on a car and need to spend more on batteries and mods to keep it going. If my battery keeps dying every 4.5 months and needs replacing this frequent, I can't keep it. I didn't even use the bed 120v plug or anything to drain the battery. I like your mods but if the software keeps draining the battery making it useless every 6 months, not worth it for me.

 

[MakinDoForNow]

I practiced this option as well with my Noco Genius 5. It’s workable but I quickly got tired of “plugging in” a brand new truck particularly since it lived outside. It’s a good option if you don’t mind it. For me it was a personal choice to install a much better battery consistent with the truck programming. I still carry a Noco GB40 jump pack for additional security in all my vehicles.

Love the noco genius 5. I had a dead flat (0v) AGM for my Polaris Ranger smaller than mavericks (about half?). Had to force start two times and then took over a week to get enough charge at 6 volts to get 12v charge to accept battery. About six weeks later noco had it charged and optimized. Was almost 2 years ago, still going strong. Sees noco about every six months for a week. Mr noco has only six batteries to visit now as I have lowered number of batteries. I have a noco gb50 that I have only used once on neighbors F-250.

 

[colinl]

I'm don't feel like spending 35k on a car and need to spend more on batteries and mods to keep it going. If my battery keeps dying every 4.5 months and needs replacing this frequent, I can't keep it. I didn't even use the bed 120v plug or anything to drain the battery. I like your mods but if the software keeps draining the battery making it useless every 6 months, not worth it for me.

yep, refusing a $180 battery out of pocket is definitely the cheaper choice compared to selling your Maverick at a loss and buying a new vehicle.

 

[ychuck46]

Just curious why you want to change out your battery?

I want to do the same since my battery was replaced under warranty last week because I had to jump start every time I need to drive. It's either the battery was bad from mfr or software is sucking life out of it between drive (I hear motors running when it's off just sitting there doing nothing/not moving). If it does the same with a good battery, then ford's software sucks ass. It's only less than 5 months old.

After dealing with four straight crappy replacement Motorcraft batteries I bit the bullet and replaced the battery last October with a Diehard on my own nickel. Everything was working fine until a couple of weeks ago when we also had to jumpstart the truck every time (in fact, the jump points under the hood immediately went to 9v when the truck was turned off, which did nothing but screw everything up each time). Took it to Ford and after their tests they said this battery was shot as well, and they had it replaced by Autozone under warranty. So we literally got only about 10 months out of a brand new non-Ford battery before that was also shot in the Maverick.

What I did when we got the truck back was pull the fuse for the TCU or Telematics Control Unit. This is the unit that allows Ford to collect data on you, etc. It was recommended to me to do so since that is a constant draw on the battery. TBH I don't hear all the clicking sounds we got in the past, even hours after turning the truck off, since apparently it is not allowing Ford to spy on us constantly. You might want to think about the same if you do not use the wi-fi feature on your truck. We don't and it doesn't affect the Bluetooth side either.

 

[TacoTanium]

After dealing with four straight crappy replacement Motorcraft batteries I bit the bullet and replaced the battery last October with a Diehard on my own nickel. Everything was working fine until a couple of weeks ago when we also had to jumpstart the truck every time (in fact, the jump points under the hood immediately went to 9v when the truck was turned off, which did nothing but screw everything up each time). Took it to Ford and after their tests they said this battery was shot as well, and they had it replaced by Autozone under warranty. So we literally got only about 10 months out of a brand new non-Ford battery before that was also shot in the Maverick.

What I did when we got the truck back was pull the fuse for the TCU or Telematics Control Unit. This is the unit that allows Ford to collect data on you, etc. It was recommended to me to do so since that is a constant draw on the battery. TBH I don't hear all the clicking sounds we got in the past, even hours after turning the truck off, since apparently it is not allowing Ford to spy on us constantly. You might want to think about the same if you do not use the wi-fi feature on your truck. We don't and it doesn't affect the Bluetooth side either.

Thanks for the info that helps a lot. I don't plan on keep replacing the battery under warranty until warranty is out.

I do believe the software is draining the battery because I hear motors running when I walk pass it sometimes (both locked and unlock while key is not inserted).

I haven't used the wifi yet. What fuse number is the TCU or ...... whats the quick reference to look for to locate that fuse when looking at the fuse label?

Do you know all the functions related to this fuse?
Did a dealer recommended you to pull that fuse?

Thanks again. Starting to make sense now. NO battery will last with a constant draw like this.

I noticed my 120V plug at the bed doesn't work (when key is not inserted) anymore like it did after the dealer replaced my battery under warranty. I have a feeling this was intentional by them.

 

[ychuck46]

I haven't used the wifi yet. What fuse number is the TCU or ...... whats the quick reference to look for to locate that fuse when looking at the fuse label?

Do you know all the functions related to this fuse?
Did a dealer recommended you to pull that fuse?

The Maverick has two fuse box locations, one under the hood and the other under the glove box flush against the back wall near the passenger's feet. Fortunately you are dealing with the inside the cab one which is the easier of the two. Just pop the plastic cover off (it pops back on easily when done) and the TCU fuse is in position 11. It is a 5A Micro3 fuse, the newer style, and comes out easily like any fuse.

The dealer did not recommend this; I doubt any would since it is used by Ford more than anyone to collect data on your driving habits, etc. It was a person here in the Mav truck club and it made a lot of sense. We have not noticed anything odd since we did it since we can still receive calls through the truck's screen and so forth. We had all the FordPass apps, wi-fi, and anything else turned off prior to this, but it didn't seem to help since Ford was still using it, and was likely the source of much of the clicking sounds that took place hours after turning the truck off. Only time will tell if it helps the battery situation, and we have a '25 on order to replace this one. May not know before that one comes in. Good luck, guy.

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