Bronco Down - "Charging System service soon" and other error messages

[DasQball]

So this error message has graced my start-up routine now. Forscan doesn’t see any error codes, so it’s some kind of ‘ghost message’ - there’s nothing wrong with my 2 week old Wildtrak. Battery is good & it’s charging in the 14-15 Volt range. I’m just going to ignore it and try not to let it annoy me. Once someone finds a fix, please add a list of B6G membernames to the post so that we are all notified with a potential fix. Thanks.

Mine took a few days to kill the battery.

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[Blaven]

Mine took a few days to kill the battery.

Tested my battery with a multi meter, fine. Put it on a battery tender, stayed pretty much at the same voltage. It continuously shows around 14.5-14.7 on my dash readout. This message has been on my screen for 2 months now. I'm not taking it in and letting them perform exploratory surgery on it until they have a definite fix for it. Sorry to hear about your battery though.

 

[DasQball]

Tested my battery with a multi meter, fine. Put it on a battery tender, stayed pretty much at the same voltage. It continuously shows around 14.5-14.7 on my dash readout. This message has been on my screen for 2 months now. I'm not taking it in and letting them perform exploratory surgery on it until they have a definite fix for it. Sorry to hear about your battery though.

That's awesome for you! I would do the same. Did you check for loose battery terminals?

 

[PAWBronco]

**Update - FINAL Hopefully**

So to recap, Pepe has been in the shop since March. During that time, I've had him for about 4 days as they thought they had it fixed twice only to have the alert come back and the battery to start to drain.

The engineer was flown out last week and after a few hours found that one of the harnesses (I think they said near the BCM) had some crimped connectors in the harness once he pulled all the stuff out of it. In other words, whoever Ford had contracted to make those harnesses made a bad one. I had mentioned to DasQball in private chat that I wondered if it was the only one or if there was a batch of bad harnesses. The Bronco engineer took a spare F150 harness that the dealership had lying around and played mad scientist pulling and adding connections until he had MacGyver'd a facsimile of a Bronco harness. Lo and behold, everything worked as it should. Just to be sure there were no other issues, he backtracked from the alternator all the way back to the battery to ensure it was the only problem. Turns out it was.

Fast forward approximately 5 days and they got the new harness in and installed it. I had a final day of my training conference about 70 miles away so I took the Bronco instead of my government vehicle to test it out. It worked like a charm. No issues. Here I am 2 days after picking it up and still no issues. Dare I say it appears that the harness was the issue. God bless that engineer that they flew out here.

If people have the same issue, you can have your dealership get in contact with mine for the wording of the exact fix. I have not gotten the full writeup on it. My dealership is Price Ford in Port Angeles, WA. They should be able to see the fix in the dealership repair system. (Pepe is wet because they had just washed it for me when I picked it up)

I hope my trials can help others get back on the road soon!!

 

[Blaven]

That's awesome for you! I would do the same. Did you check for loose battery terminals?

Yes. I pushed all wiring harnesses together that I could reach. Disconnected and reconnected all the battery terminals. Tightened the fuse box bolts and made sure all the fuses were seated correctly. I'm going to say it has to do with some type of bad harness like what was said above. But it's not affecting anything else so I'm letting it ride for the time being.

 

[hkbooner]

I did that already this AM, I sent all of the info to a direct message and a case was opened.

I swear, these are just automated messages. I had an issue and they asked me to send all my info to them so they could look into it. All I got back was " According to my resources, it is recommend that you stay in contact with the Sales Manager at Northside Ford for assistance. At this time, they are in the best position to assist with this inquiry and with any further questions you may have."

When I wrote them back saying that the dealership was the one that referred me to get more info on the subject, I got the exact same message back! So GD frustrating!

 

[helifino16]

**Update - FINAL Hopefully**

So to recap, Pepe has been in the shop since March. During that time, I've had him for about 4 days as they thought they had it fixed twice only to have the alert come back and the battery to start to drain.

The engineer was flown out last week and after a few hours found that one of the harnesses (I think they said near the BCM) had some crimped connectors in the harness once he pulled all the stuff out of it. In other words, whoever Ford had contracted to make those harnesses made a bad one. I had mentioned to DasQball in private chat that I wondered if it was the only one or if there was a batch of bad harnesses. The Bronco engineer took a spare F150 harness that the dealership had lying around and played mad scientist pulling and adding connections until he had MacGyver'd a facsimile of a Bronco harness. Lo and behold, everything worked as it should. Just to be sure there were no other issues, he backtracked from the alternator all the way back to the battery to ensure it was the only problem. Turns out it was.

Fast forward approximately 5 days and they got the new harness in and installed it. I had a final day of my training conference about 70 miles away so I took the Bronco instead of my government vehicle to test it out. It worked like a charm. No issues. Here I am 2 days after picking it up and still no issues. Dare I say it appears that the harness was the issue. God bless that engineer that they flew out here.

If people have the same issue, you can have your dealership get in contact with mine for the wording of the exact fix. I have not gotten the full writeup on it. My dealership is Price Ford in Port Angeles, WA. They should be able to see the fix in the dealership repair system. (Pepe is wet because they had just washed it for me when I picked it up)

I hope my trials can help others get back on the road soon!!

If that was the fix - and I hope you found it - please update your original post with at least a link to this entry. Having to read through 5 pages to find this was more than frightening. I would like to go to the Service Department with a definitive "This guy said a replacement Wiring Harness corrected the problem on his". Thanks for blazing the trail, so to speak.

 

[mike8675309]

Interesting story for people who have vehicles lost in production to be aware of. It sounds like what happened is that whatever part was left out of the production vehicle when parked on ice or dirt or mud mountain required them to install some harness and a BCM module.

It is pretty weird how they got the wrong vehicle BCM in their pile of stuff and messed up creating that same harness. But it can happen. But this highlights the challenges that most techs these days have with basic 101 electrical troubleshooting. Being a battery problem all along, and a weird one at that, they should have been digging more.

For instance here is a well-known youtube repair shop often asked to troubleshoot electrical problems from other shops around because like your dealer, they don't really know how to troubleshoot things.
Here working on a Nissan where the dealer said they had to replace the entire harness of the car.

 

[helifino16]

Folks, @BudgetBronco posted this fix that he said corrected the issue:

Recommended taking this to your service department to address as it appears that it requires disassembling the fuse box. No one is sure what fuse "C1100B" translates to in the Fuse Box Diagram.

Link to posting

 

[BudgetBronco]

Folks, @BudgetBronco posted this fix that he said corrected the issue:

Recommended taking this to your service department to address as it appears that it requires disassembling the fuse box.

Link to posting

And confirming that I have not had any problems since, and that was probably 3000 miles ago. Another user here (I can't remember who) had the same error message, took this printout in and gave it to the dealer, and the dealer confirmed it was the same problem and had them fixed in a day.

 

[NC_Overland]

And confirming that I have not had any problems since, and that was probably 3000 miles ago. Another user here (I can't remember who) had the same error message, took this printout in and gave it to the dealer, and the dealer confirmed it was the same problem and had them fixed in a day.

Mine went in last week for just the “charging system service soon” message and I brought that picture to them, wasn’t the problem for mine. They are now talking to head Ford engineers because they’ve done the works on everything up to the BCM and no luck. Reading through this, I don’t know if they checked whatever harness was mentioned earlier as they just said the next part they are attempting is a new BCM. I am going to text my service tech now and ask if they checked the harness’ on the BCM. Sucks because I need it back by next Wednesday as I have to drive up to track day/car show with the bronco for a veteran’s charity fundraiser.

 

[Bronchitis66]

Hey I’m experiencing the same issue. Started with the charging system service soon. Dealership replaced a battery sensor which lasted 4 days then my Wildtrak was dead in My garage and had to be towed back to the dealership. They tell me they are waiting for the “BCM” and They have no idea when the part will be in.
This all started May 17th. It is now June 21st and I only have 600 km on my rig. So frustrating.
I placed my reservation on July 16 th 2020 , took delivery dec 24th 2021.

Any updates on ur situation ? Also sent them above info.
thanks kindly, new to forums.

 

[DasQball]

Hey I’m experiencing the same issue. Started with the charging system service soon. Dealership replaced a battery sensor which lasted 4 days then my Wildtrak was dead in My garage and had to be towed back to the dealership. They tell me they are waiting for the “BCM” and They have no idea when the part will be in.
This all started May 17th. It is now June 21st and I only have 600 km on my rig. So frustrating.
I placed my reservation on July 16 th 2020 , took delivery dec 24th 2021.

Any updates on ur situation ? Also sent them above info.
thanks kindly, new to forums.

Does Canada have a "Lemon Law?" If so, contact an attorney for some guidance while you're waiting for the dealership to figure out the wiring issue.

 

[Bronco Don]

My bronco keeps saying “vehicle not in park “ but I’m already driving down the road , I gotta hit the okay button a little bit later it goes on again “vehicle not in park“ drives me crazy and I just don’t have time to take it in , The dealers in my area are so behind they tell me it’s gonna be about a week before they can get to it , that’s ridiculous.

 

[Bronchitis66]

Does Canada have a "Lemon Law?" If so, contact an attorney for some guidance while you're waiting for the dealership to figure out the wiring issue.

Yes we have a system here that uses an arbitration process call CAMVAP to settle these issues. Hopefully they can get it fixed soon.

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