Expedition Going into Deep Sleep - Battery Low

[thompsdw2]

I have a new to me 22 timberline I just purchased. Admittedly we have been in a detail and equip mode. But I recently noticed the interior lights weren't coming on with an open door. I have fully charged it one time since purchase a month ago. But today I put a voltmeter on it and it read 11.6V. Smart charger on it now at 50%. So I know the obvious of testing the battery and making sure it is ok. I do have a load tester. I will do that tomorrow. But here is my question - is the Expedition much more of a battery hog than others? I have left my Bronco sitting for way longer than the Expedition and my F150 as well. The F150 is a 21. Just trying to get a feel for what I am chasing here. I will respond tomorrow after fully charged and the load test.

 

[JamaicaJoe]

I have a new to me 22 timberline I just purchased. Admittedly we have been in a detail and equip mode. But I recently noticed the interior lights weren't coming on with an open door. I have fully charged it one time since purchase a month ago. But today I put a voltmeter on it and it read 11.6V. Smart charger on it now at 50%. So I know the obvious of testing the battery and making sure it is ok. I do have a load tester. I will do that tomorrow. But here is my question - is the Expedition much more of a battery hog than others? I have left my Bronco sitting for way longer than the Expedition and my F150 as well. The F150 is a 21. Just trying to get a feel for what I am chasing here. I will respond tomorrow after fully charged and the load test.

It is possible when buying a used vehicle that the battery was a bit abused in storage or when being detailed, run to depleted. It should, after sitting overnight with a full charge, have 12.7 or 12.8 volts without any lighting or other load.

 

[thompsdw2]

Ok, it's coming up to charge quickly. That is a good sign. This all started when I didn't have interior dome lights. Is there a way to permanently disable those? Or does the key have to be in your possession to turn them on? Both my truck and bronco do not behave that way. The funny thing is they have come on before, so it almost seems intermittent. Any ideas?

 

[GlennSullivan]

Does your Expy have power running boards and when sitting around are you opening and closing the doors (activating the running boards) and / or the rear hatch. I have found that when loading / unloading or cleaning my Expy over a period of time, the running boards and rear hatch activation will drain the battery and the system will go into battery protect mode and start turning off non essential components.

 

[2020-MAX-Limited]

Very simple solution, assuming you have the patience: keep the Expy on a battery maintainer when parked. Assuming you have the facilities, when parking the car, pop the hood and connect up a maintainer. I connected a pigtail to my battery terminals so all I do is plug in the charger and forget about it until next drive.

The other thing I did was connect up a TopDon BT100 battery tester that showed the low state of my battery. Now it is back in business and no weird electrical issues.

 

[JamaicaJoe]

Ok, it's coming up to charge quickly. That is a good sign. This all started when I didn't have interior dome lights. Is there a way to permanently disable those? Or does the key have to be in your possession to turn them on? Both my truck and bronco do not behave that way. The funny thing is they have come on before, so it almost seems intermittent. Any ideas?

Coming up to full charge too quickly can indicate a battery with sulfation or plate damage. I had difficulty getting warranty on a battery at Walmart that was good for about two starts of the engine. The woman at the service counter put their charger on it and it was fully charged in 15 minutes and passed the load test. I took it to a Walmart auto center and had a mechanic confirm it was toast.

 

[GlennSullivan]

Very simple solution, assuming you have the patience: keep the Expy on a battery maintainer when parked. Assuming you have the facilities, when parking the car, pop the hood and connect up a maintainer. I connected a pigtail to my battery terminals so all I do is plug in the charger and forget about it until next drive.

The other thing I did was connect up a TopDon BT100 battery tester that showed the low state of my battery. Now it is back in business and no weird electrical issues.

Excellent Advice. I have a battery maintainer with a quick connect pigtail on every vehicle we own. If any of them won't be used for a week - or we will be loading for a trip over a period of days with opening and closing of doors and hatches, they are on the battery maintainer.

 

[Tiger Bob]

Happened to me once when I let it sit for around 10 days. Charged it up, battery is fine, and have never had any issues since. Now, I will not let it sit for a long period of inaction. I make it a point to drive it periodically or, at least, start it up and let it idle if I can't get her out on the road.

 

[NevadaGeo]

Happened to me once when I let it sit for around 10 days. Charged it up, battery is fine, and have never had any issues since. Now, I will not let it sit for a long period of inaction. I make it a point to drive it periodically or, at least, start it up and let it idle if I can't get her out on the road.

Has anyone left their expy at an airport for two/three weeks? With all the electronics onboard, what is the long-term life of a static vehicle battery? I notice with mine, every time I walk past it with or without the fob, I hear small motors, servos or solenoids going off, indicating draw from the battery while static. Anyone have an idea?

 

[Hellwig]

Has anyone left their expy at an airport for two/three weeks? With all the electronics onboard, what is the long-term life of a static vehicle battery? I notice with mine, every time I walk past it with or without the fob, I hear small motors, servos or solenoids going off, indicating draw from the battery while static. Anyone have an idea?

Once I parked my vehicle in airport parking for 9 days. I didn't notice any difference when I was back.

 

[Danm355]

I have a new to me 22 timberline I just purchased. Admittedly we have been in a detail and equip mode. But I recently noticed the interior lights weren't coming on with an open door. I have fully charged it one time since purchase a month ago. But today I put a voltmeter on it and it read 11.6V. Smart charger on it now at 50%. So I know the obvious of testing the battery and making sure it is ok. I do have a load tester. I will do that tomorrow. But here is my question - is the Expedition much more of a battery hog than others? I have left my Bronco sitting for way longer than the Expedition and my F150 as well. The F150 is a 21. Just trying to get a feel for what I am chasing here. I will respond tomorrow after fully charged and the load test.

It's possible you have a bad battery. I had the same problem with my 2022 Expedition. I took it to the dealer and they replaced the battery under the warranty.

 

[Ugh_J]

I went an additional step on my 2020: I used forscan to set the battery target state of charge to 95% (up from the default 80%). For my normal driving habits which are 10-20 minute around-town drives every day, it keeps the battery up around 88-90%. With the default of 80%, mine would regularly drop down into the 60-65% range, which would result in all sorts of things "acting weird," like running board delays, certain audible alerts changing the playback output (piezo speaker instead of the stereo, etc.), and on-dash warnings. They really need to add in another value into the on-board computers named e.g. "AverageRunTime" and factor that into their charge strategy. When the battery is below 70% and you're putting the battery into heavy-drain + auto-start/stop, it's no wonder it dips so low.

 

[llhoneymoons]

Maybe this applies?

 

[2020-MAX-Limited]

Has anyone left their expy at an airport for two/three weeks? With all the electronics onboard, what is the long-term life of a static vehicle battery? I notice with mine, every time I walk past it with or without the fob, I hear small motors, servos or solenoids going off, indicating draw from the battery while static. Anyone have an idea?

I would not worry about leaving the car at the airport. The point of the battery management system is to sacrifice some convenience features to save the battery for the important job of starting the car. Besides, I'm sure the parking facility has a jump start pack in case of emergency anyway. Or you could buy your own jump pack for $100 on Amazon and keep it in the car for peace of mind (not piece of mind!) Just make sure you know how to use the mechanical key to unlock the car and where to put the fob to enable starting if the fob is not recognized.