The voltage readings had nothing to do with your battery dying. I think there's a huge draw on these Broncos (even while parked in your driveway). My battery will be dead after 10 days of not driving it regardless of the condition.
One thing that held true with my mustang and now the Bronco is you can’t keep the key near it. The key keeps it alive. I used to keep the key in my mustang when it was always in the garage. And that would drain the battery. Started bringing it in and putting it well away from the car and that stopped completely.
Probably DI fuel system pumping up pressure to start.
Yup, it sure would, I do agree. Given that it's garaged and it only takes her 5 minutes to run there and back though, she isn't gonna do that. And of course, she has to have the heated seats and steering wheel running and so forth. So ... trickle charger once a month or so seems to take care of it without her going off the deep end.
Ok I'll try to keep this short, kinda hard on this subject. I pay attention to mine as well. My Bronc has set for extended periods of time as well, up to 3 weeks at one time. One note I will make here is do NOT leave the fob in the Bronc while it is not being used, it thinks you are getting ready to start it. It will stay in "ready" mode. if you take the key fob away it will go to sleep. After one of those stints it would be around the 14.7 to 15.2. I started to drive the Bronc everyday for a couple of weeks. It took about a week to get the voltage back down to the 13.2 to 13.6 range. When I say drove it for a week my routine is......
Start the Bronc 10 to 15 mins before I need to leave, helps put a charge in the battery. While I'm in the store, leave the Bronc run. If I go to my cabin, I let it run while there. Sometimes this could be as long as 30 to 45 mins, maybe even an hour. For those that don't know this, about 20 to 30 mins of idle time the Bronc will shut off if you are not paying attention. A prompt will come across the screen. "do you wish to continue to run?". If you do not answer it, it shuts the Bronc off. When idling, it is best to turn off the radio and the heat/ac, unplug your phone, etc, helps put the charge back into the battery instead of running all the accessories.
This is NOT just a problem in the Bronc it is the way ALL new cars are. They have far too many electrical do-dads that take the power made by the alternator and it does not leave anything to "charge" the battery. I see it EVERY day. If you only take short trips it is not enough to put a charge back into the Bronc. If you drive it short trips it needs to run like I described above.
I've seen some others have posted about charging. Just remember cars have a battery sensor on them. Either disconnect the negative battery cable to charge or only hook the red (positive) lead to the battery. The black(negative) lead should go to the frame of the Bronc, NOT the negative of the battery. The sensor cannot "see" the voltage going through the system.
Trying not to get too techy on everyone, my wife hates it and then she doesn't listen.
I find it funny when customers come in the shop and I explain the above scenario they look at me like I have 4 heads. But then a week or two later that same customer comes back in and says. "I gotta admit I thought you were nuts but DAMN I have not had the issue anymore".
edit: I did not know about the RSE sliders but THAT will definitely cause you problems. Any constant draw is a death nail for a battery.
Fords for the last several years have a “smart” charging system. It takes into account a bunch of things to determine charging voltage, battery state of charge, battery temperature, system load, engine load, etc, etc. You will see the volt meter in the dash read as low as 13V and as high as close to 15 volts. This is done to not overcharge a hot battery, hot batteries charge quickly and easily, and not to undercharge a cold battery, they don’t charge so well. It also will unload the alternator when driver demands power and load it up coasting.
I agree that accessories are part of owning a Bronco, I’m just disgusted that so many accessories and their hacked-up installations cause so many issues. There is no reason that retractable steps should kill a battery in 2 or 3 days. There also is no reason that installations use scotch locks and cheap electrical tape to hook into circuits that shouldn’t be hooked into. I work in service at a Ford dealership and have seen some really sophomoric installations. The big issue is that the vehicle gets blamed for being junk because of the problems with add-ons.
It’s more likely that the battery has been running low for a while and just got low enough to trigger the message. Do you still have stop/start active? Has it been working?I had that Ford pass app warning come up a couple days ago. Only hadn't been driven for a little over 24hrs.. Only thing I have installed recently was a cheap cargo area light, to replace the OEM one, with an on/off switch. I wonder if that is causing a battery drain. I will have to test this. This post actually has me thinking. I appreciate it
My voltage was consistently 15-15.4
