What the heck happened to my Ranger?!

[VegasRanger]

So this morning I go to turn on the truck and it's completely dead, no dash lights, nothing. My voltmeter was reading battery at 12.5V which I thought should be good to go. I plugged in my jump pack and still nothing, DEAD.

Last ditch, I disconnected negative terminal for 2 minutes and reconnected. Truck came back to life and started normally.

What the heck happened? I drove the truck yesterday on a long trip so it hasn't sat more than 8-9 hours over night.

I'd like to figure out why this happened as I don't want it to happen when I'm out and about.

The only thing I can think of is that I went off roading yesterday and the truck was jolted around a lot. Maybe something got loose?

Any feedback is appreciated.

 

[AzScorpion]

Sounds like electronic gremlins? My first instinct is to do what you just did (reboots everything) then keep an eye on it. I've been off road a lot and haven't had that happen but there's always a first. Hopefully that's all it was.

 

[Toytec]

I call it extreme voltage drop across the battery terminal.

 

[VegasRanger]

I call it extreme voltage drop across the battery terminal.

I do have my LED light bar and ham radio tapped directly into the battery, but I never had an issue before. I know my ham radio does draw a little bit of power even while off, but the voltage was at 12.5 when the truck was dead. 12.5 is normal for the truck being off I think.

 

[Jmarler]

 

[JesseS]

You are not the first to have this happen, another member had the same issue awhile back, not sure if the cause was ever determined but his came back to life also.

 

[RedDakooter05]

Did you insert the key and tried to crank it too quickly?
My F150 has this issue occasionally.



Never been able to figure it out.

 

[Aonarch]

Did you insert the key and tried to crank it too quickly?
My F150 has this issue occasionally.



Never been able to figure it out.

I had a ATS 6 speed manual that would go into limp mode if you cranked it too fast. GM had automatic transmission programming in it that would load first, then the manual programming would load over top. Pretty hilarious.

Basically it would nearly brick itself if you started before the manual trans coding ran. Because it wouldn't know what gear you were in and it would shit it self.

I would have to pull the battery cables and let it sit for a bit.

 

[Clank]

You are not the first to have this happen, another member had the same issue awhile back, not sure if the cause was ever determined but his came back to life also.

I actually had this exact thing happen to me at the dealership. I was picking it up after the first scheduled maintenance. Got the keys, went out to the truck, and nothing would work. I unlocked it manually and still no lights or anything. The service tech came out and had no answers. He went and got the head of service. By the time those few minutes passed he got out there and everything worked as normal. So far hasn't happened since. Neither of those guys had seen anything like that on a Ranger, and the tech actually said he bought a Ranger because he has seen so few issues with them. So hoping it was like a one time fault in a sensor or something.

 

[Langwilliams]

This happened to me once. I parked at at my friends boat slip so I had the windows down an the doors unlocked. I noticed when I opened the door the interior light didn't come on. Put the key in an nothing. I have a off road flood light wired directly to the battery an it was bright showing a full battery. My friends truck pulled up to jump me, I got out an opened the hood. I looked in an saw dome lights so I put the key in a boom it fired right up. Never connected the cables. It's never happened again.

 

[Wytchdctr]

Maybe the ECM was programmed by the same person that did SYNC 3. That thing has done some really random stuff to never do it again...

 

[VegasRanger]

Did you insert the key and tried to crank it too quickly?
My F150 has this issue occasionally.



Never been able to figure it out.

Nope. I turned the key like I normally would. The truck was completely dead. Nothing was on, even before I put the key in. No dash lights, dome light, nothing. As if the battery was completely disconnected. I checked the battery voltage and it was at 12.5, so normal.

 

[VegasRanger]

This happened to me once. I parked at at my friends boat slip so I had the windows down an the doors unlocked. I noticed when I opened the door the interior light didn't come on. Put the key in an nothing. I have a off road flood light wired directly to the battery an it was bright showing a full battery. My friends truck pulled up to jump me, I got out an opened the hood. I looked in an saw dome lights so I put the key in a boom it fired right up. Never connected the cables. It's never happened again.

The weird thing is when I tried to jump it, nothing! Only thing that brought it back to life was to disconnect the negative and reconnect then she woke right up and started normally without the jump pack plugged in.

 

[Robiwon]

I had this happen to me tonight. I open the ford app to call road side and I decided to try and start using the app and truck fired up. I think it was some sort of update.

 

[Cabose-1]

Gremlins