Battery issue

[dougyounger]

I have a 2023 Outer Banks 2-door I purchased new in April of 2023. I've put about 45k miles on it so far and have had no problems with the vehicle until recently. It gets driven almost everyday, probably very few days that it isn't driven at least a short distance.

Last week on Monday, after been out-of-town for three days and not driving the Bronco, I went out to drive the Bronco to work and had no power to the vehicle. Neither key fob would unlock the Bronco so I used the manual key to get in the Bronco. I had no power on the dash. I didn't have cables to jump the vehicle and was concerned about why it had no power so I called for a tow. The tow truck driver put a jump pack on it and indicated he thought the battery was definitely low. It jumped right away and he drove it onto his truck. We towed it to the Ford dealer about 5 miles away and needed to jump it again to get it off the truck.

After a week at the dealership (not happy about that), the dealership said it started for them every time they tried to start it. I'm not sure what or if they tried anything else. So, I picked it up this morning but am still a bit concerned about why it was dead for me last week. When I drove it home, the battery voltage reading on the dash was 14.6.

To me, it is a little early for a battery to go bad at three years, but I guess that is possible with a factory battery. With my schedule, I doubt I'll have another extended period of several days of not driving the vehicle.

Thoughts?

 

[Scoop]

I don't think 3 years is too early to have battery issues nowadays. Batteries aren't what they used to be and all the tech on new vehicles can be hard on batteries. We live in a community that has a lot of second homes where people leave vehicles (mainly Jeeps and Broncos) here year round which have many periods of non-use for weeks at a time. Several have had battery issues. That said, my '22, which I just traded in for a '26, never had any battery issues.

 

[ep67bro]

I agree, with all the tech it can be hard on Batteries. But I also have never had a battery issue on any of mine. My wife has 103,000 miles on her 2022 and the battery is fine.

My 2019 Super duty started doing strange things after about 4 years, I changed the batteries and it was like new again. If it happens again put a new battery in it.

 

[ransil]

Do you have the ford app? when my battery gets low I get an app alert.

the 21 I had used to do it quite often, the app had lots of low batt entries, I took it to Ford once for the issue, like your they found nothing, there was a bunch of over air updates, it got better and the app alerts that were logged disappeared , I had screen shots to compare so they knew they had an issue.

my 24 Bronco get a low batt when I flat tow around the 12-15 hour mark, i just make sure I run it at most stops.

 

[dougyounger]

Apparently, it just needed a visit to the Ford dealer. They never could get it to not start. I let it sit yesterday and it started fine today. The volts on the dash have not read lower than 14.3.

I have the Ford app but never use it. I'll have to see if I can reset my password as I doubt I remember it.

I guess as long as I drive it everyday, it will stay happy with me! Now if only I could do that with my '77.