thorn726
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- thorn
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2023
- Threads
- 2
- Messages
- 111
- Reaction score
- 293
- Location
- Berkeley CA
- Vehicle(s)
- 2019 Ranger xl
- Thread starter
- #1
To save everyone time and avoid a barrage of "your battery is starting to go bad" comments I'll do this in reverse-
Solution: the battery cables were a little bit loose, totally solved the problems. I'll give more details on that in the summary.
Here is a list of all the messages and problems i had :
stereo stops playing and the "shut off radio or turn on ignition to save battery" message While Driving at 75 mph on the freeway! (not sure of exact wording) / this was our first real indicator something was wrong and of course we defaulted to "it must be a low battery" /no, just loose connection. This one would only happen if i had been driving on the freeway without stopping for a long time. We go on 440 mile each way trips every month and it would happen every time, but never in town.
auto stop start "unavailable" grey symbol, would function only rarely
total failure of auto-start! here are some messages it would give instead of restarting, details below:
hill start assist unavailable
front camera unavailable
something about collision unavailable.
auto stop start unavailable, on the screen not just the grey/green symbol
i think there were others.
Details: engine would stop at light then when i release brake i would get a number of messages. Not actually sure if it would have restarted eventually because i sort of panicked, and am still Not 100% used to automatic transmission/ i end up using key to turn it off and on forget to put it in park and finally realize i need to put it in park and restart. Would then restart no problem. this happened maybe three times over a month or so. I am tempted to say the last time i got the messages i waited and it eventually restarted itself. It was very confusing at the time. All due to a loose connection.
I'll get into why we didn't replace the battery shortly but yeah, at this point i should have tested it. In Part, the problems began in winter and became less as spring arrived so i thought it just wasn't charging as well in the colder weather. More on that in a bit, first-
TOTAL FAILURE: now this one made me a little nervous but finally i was led to the actual problem.
12am, overnight roadtrip at a rest area on the 5/ this is miles from anywhere- i stop and get out and when i come back to the truck it is DEAD. zero response. open it with the key, pop the hood (shaking the vehicle a little i guess) and everything comes back on/ OK....
Did that one more time somewhere else the next day and i went and shook the battery cable and everything came on. Tightened the battery terminals and problems all went away. I waited 2 months to make this report and made a road trip, none of the issues have returned and auto stop start is functioning normally.
WHY DIDNT I CHANGE THE BATTERY?
well not long after i got the truck i had left the lights on (yes it is possible to do if they are not set to "auto" and the chime will stop chiming after a short time so /yeah, this idiot did that) SO i had bought a new $300 battery just over a year ago and was not willing to buy another one. Since truck was starting fine and only showing these weird signals i figured i would try and make the battery at least last 2 years or as long as i could/ doh/ Funny is the timing of all of this. Cold did have something to do with it- i had put the new battery in when it was warm out and probably didn't tighten too much.. as it got colder, it got looser... it doesn't get very cold in most of CA but our trips take us over some cold mountain areas etc and that was when the problems would happen. Probably just plain time and my undertightening in the first place loosened the cables some as well. But the funny thing was the problem started after the one time we sat in the car for a couple hours, listening to music then running the car for 15 minutes type situation (not a good way to do things but it was cold) and it was winter// i thought maybe we ran the battery down too much that way and that it would just be weak. Then the auto start etc started working better as it got warmer out in spring and i thought maybe it was just not charging well in the cold. But on roadtrips we still got that crazy stereo shut off "turn off accessories or start ignition to charge battery" (exact wording might help searches if anyone knows it) // we'd get that message once in each direction every long trip until it finally went dead and revealed itself to be the loose battery connections... These problems started in January and went on until May!! now end of June ive been problem free for 2 months, I'm confident the battery itself is fine although it may die sooner than it would have if it had been connected better.
really dumb story but hopefully this will be easy to find when someone else is searching for answers to the same problem.
Solution: the battery cables were a little bit loose, totally solved the problems. I'll give more details on that in the summary.
Here is a list of all the messages and problems i had :
stereo stops playing and the "shut off radio or turn on ignition to save battery" message While Driving at 75 mph on the freeway! (not sure of exact wording) / this was our first real indicator something was wrong and of course we defaulted to "it must be a low battery" /no, just loose connection. This one would only happen if i had been driving on the freeway without stopping for a long time. We go on 440 mile each way trips every month and it would happen every time, but never in town.
auto stop start "unavailable" grey symbol, would function only rarely
total failure of auto-start! here are some messages it would give instead of restarting, details below:
hill start assist unavailable
front camera unavailable
something about collision unavailable.
auto stop start unavailable, on the screen not just the grey/green symbol
i think there were others.
Details: engine would stop at light then when i release brake i would get a number of messages. Not actually sure if it would have restarted eventually because i sort of panicked, and am still Not 100% used to automatic transmission/ i end up using key to turn it off and on forget to put it in park and finally realize i need to put it in park and restart. Would then restart no problem. this happened maybe three times over a month or so. I am tempted to say the last time i got the messages i waited and it eventually restarted itself. It was very confusing at the time. All due to a loose connection.
I'll get into why we didn't replace the battery shortly but yeah, at this point i should have tested it. In Part, the problems began in winter and became less as spring arrived so i thought it just wasn't charging as well in the colder weather. More on that in a bit, first-
TOTAL FAILURE: now this one made me a little nervous but finally i was led to the actual problem.
12am, overnight roadtrip at a rest area on the 5/ this is miles from anywhere- i stop and get out and when i come back to the truck it is DEAD. zero response. open it with the key, pop the hood (shaking the vehicle a little i guess) and everything comes back on/ OK....
Did that one more time somewhere else the next day and i went and shook the battery cable and everything came on. Tightened the battery terminals and problems all went away. I waited 2 months to make this report and made a road trip, none of the issues have returned and auto stop start is functioning normally.
WHY DIDNT I CHANGE THE BATTERY?
well not long after i got the truck i had left the lights on (yes it is possible to do if they are not set to "auto" and the chime will stop chiming after a short time so /yeah, this idiot did that) SO i had bought a new $300 battery just over a year ago and was not willing to buy another one. Since truck was starting fine and only showing these weird signals i figured i would try and make the battery at least last 2 years or as long as i could/ doh/ Funny is the timing of all of this. Cold did have something to do with it- i had put the new battery in when it was warm out and probably didn't tighten too much.. as it got colder, it got looser... it doesn't get very cold in most of CA but our trips take us over some cold mountain areas etc and that was when the problems would happen. Probably just plain time and my undertightening in the first place loosened the cables some as well. But the funny thing was the problem started after the one time we sat in the car for a couple hours, listening to music then running the car for 15 minutes type situation (not a good way to do things but it was cold) and it was winter// i thought maybe we ran the battery down too much that way and that it would just be weak. Then the auto start etc started working better as it got warmer out in spring and i thought maybe it was just not charging well in the cold. But on roadtrips we still got that crazy stereo shut off "turn off accessories or start ignition to charge battery" (exact wording might help searches if anyone knows it) // we'd get that message once in each direction every long trip until it finally went dead and revealed itself to be the loose battery connections... These problems started in January and went on until May!! now end of June ive been problem free for 2 months, I'm confident the battery itself is fine although it may die sooner than it would have if it had been connected better.
really dumb story but hopefully this will be easy to find when someone else is searching for answers to the same problem.
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