Battery died and now my ASS is back

[Big Blue]

Thanks all! I'll try a scan tool to see it if it stops again. I'll pop the hood and see if that disconnect is loosely reconnected... i haven't touched it intentionally and don't recall noticing anything loose or otherwise when i charged the battery.

I have the forscan dongle coming so i can brick the rest of the car Sunday : )


If you mean the ASS switch, i intentionally hit it to turn it off, but it came back on on the next go.

What I meant was a ASS Eliminator, it plugs in down by the switch and remembers if the ASS was turned off. Without it the ASS resets to ON after every drove cycle.

Sponsored

 

[TruckBox]

Forscan adapter in the mail... If the it gets in by early afternoon I'll be posting "did i brick my truck" by nightfall.

That is how it is designed to work. Was your truck's battery replaced or just recharged?

I understand that; I'd assume if there was some hardware (eliminator) triggered by that switch, it'd have been triggered by doing it again.
I'm assuming the battery is original. Both times the battery died it hadn't been driven for at least 5 days. It was only charged back up in place.

What I meant was a ASS Eliminator, it plugs in down by the switch and remembers if the ASS was turned off. Without it the ASS resets to ON after every drove cycle.

I haven't installed anything and am not aware of how it hadn't kicked in until now. Nothing makes sense. Nothing was reconnected under the hood. Pressing those buttons again don't keep it off/e.g. work as expected. Can't imagine the battery staying low enough even after 100mi+ trips.

 

[Friday yet?]

Seeing the title of this thread, couldn’t help but think that normally when I have a vehicle battery die my ASS is at the parts store.

 

[TruckBox]

Had the battery tested... it failed. Still can't figure out how it could have possibly been low enough every trip to disable ASS.

 

[airline tech]

That's one of the functions and reasons for the BMS Sensor to disable non-essential functions to preserve the (Starter Battery) for Engine Starting if the system has calculated using the (Estimated SOC) that the reading is low enough it will disable the (ASS) as it exerts extra strain on the battery it's not only looking at battery voltage its looking at the (Estimated SOC) reading, granted the SOC is tied to the battery voltage
I suspect your SOC drifted to around 68-72% (ballpark) which converts to about 12.35 volts
The (Key point) is what the BCM has stored as (Learned - Estimated SOC)

The reason ASS disables is due to (when active) you have multiple start events vs a single start event when its disabled.
So, above the minimum voltage for engine starting about 11.5 volts (ballpark) the BMS system is protecting the battery for a higher priority start (Driver Request)
The key factor (that is also monitored) by the BMS system is the current draw producing a voltage drop when starting close to the (threshold of 9.6 to 10.2 volts)

 

[DukeCanBuildit]

Had the battery tested... it failed. Still can't figure out how it could have possibly been low enough every trip to disable ASS.

Believe it or not, it really doesn’t take much for the Ranger’s battery to fall below the threshold that shuts down the ASS feature.

Infrequent driving or making only short trips are all it takes. It could go on for months before being noticed. You might want to look into a good battery maintainer - one that you can hard-wire in place.

 

[TruckBox]

Thanks all! I'll disable ASS soon and replace the battery perhaps this weekend. Hoping I don't actually need a maintainer.

I get the charging/bms/etc is all more complex than what I'm used to, but I'm still perplexed how it never once kicked on after or during any of the 2-500mi trips it's been on. And why it's still on now even though i'm back to short trips/disuse.

 

[DukeCanBuildit]

Thanks all! I'll disable ASS soon and replace the battery perhaps this weekend. Hoping I don't actually need a maintainer.

I get the charging/bms/etc is all more complex than what I'm used to, but I'm still perplexed how it never once kicked on after or during any of the 2-500mi trips it's been on. And why it's still on now even though i'm back to short trips/disuse.

You bought it used, is that right?

Did you ever have a shop charge/check your battery?

 

[TruckBox]

You bought it used, is that right?

Did you ever have a shop charge/check your battery?

Yeah a couple posts up ; ) It is bad and I replaced it this morning. Still don't get how it can be bad enough to never work until it got even worse? lol

Gotta see about Forscan once I can steal the wife's laptop for Windows.

 

[RangerBill]

Yeah a couple posts up ; ) It is bad and I replaced it this morning. Still don't get how it can be bad enough to never work until it got even worse? lol

Gotta see about Forscan once I can steal the wife's laptop for Windows.

Don't forget to reset the BMS since you replaced the battery.

 

[dtech]

Thanks all! I'll disable ASS soon and replace the battery perhaps this weekend. Hoping I don't actually need a maintainer.

I get the charging/bms/etc is all more complex than what I'm used to, but I'm still perplexed how it never once kicked on after or during any of the 2-500mi trips it's been on. And why it's still on now even though i'm back to short trips/disuse.

BMS while good in theory isn't a system that works well for all different use scenarios, this is reflected in some posters having batteries last for 4 or 5 yrs and haven't modified any settings, whilst others report batteries failing in under 2 yrs. The fuel saving concept is charging the battery sometimes to near 100% under certain operating conditions then drawing the battery down to as low as 70% , during that time alternator load is reduced, hence some level of fuel savings. But what if you are on a long trip and the vehicle is shutdown when the battery is drawn down to that 70% SOC level - then depending on overall battery health you may get warning messages and stuff like ass not working. I don't see much value in the BMS functions so several yrs back decided to simply disconnect it. Maybe some reworking of BMS code with A1 might help but at least for now automakers can eschew ass.

 

[TruckBox]

Yeah, I don't see that this tech does a lot that's useful.

Don't forget to reset the BMS since you replaced the battery.

A wonderful step not mentioned in the manual. Thanks! I'll track down a what do.

 

[Tom_C]

When my battery started to die, I did notice ASS was intermittent. But, the final kicker was when I parked with the key fob in the console, unloaded all my groceries, and then came back to lock the truck and it was already locked. The key fob was still inside, and it was locked and I couldn't get it open. My spare fob was 2 hours away. The remote phone app wouldn't work.

Short of breaking out a window, which I was almost ready to do, I called a tow service and he got into the truck with his shimmy magic. Only cost me $150... and the price of a new battery.

 

[DukeCanBuildit]

Yeah a couple posts up ; ) It is bad and I replaced it this morning. Still don't get how it can be bad enough to never work until it got even worse? lol

Gotta see about Forscan once I can steal the wife's laptop for Windows.

If the previous owner disconnected the BMS, you never would have had the ASS come on and it’s quite possible that no one would have noticed it was disconnected until your shop checked/charged your battery. The tech may have reconnected it and not noted it or said said anything to the service advisor.

Of course, it started working on its own, just as it should.

 

[DukeCanBuildit]

When my battery started to die, I did notice ASS was intermittent. But, the final kicker was when I parked with the key fob in the console, unloaded all my groceries, and then came back to lock the truck and it was already locked. The key fob was still inside, and it was locked and I couldn't get it open. My spare fob was 2 hours away. The remote phone app wouldn't work.

Short of breaking out a window, which I was almost ready to do, I called a tow service and he got into the truck with his shimmy magic. Only cost me $150... and the price of a new battery.

Ouch

Sponsored