greengoose

Quick background: I have a 2012 EcoBoost F-150 Lariat. My truck sat in the driveway from July 2015 - Jun 2016 while I was deployed. It was driven rarely. Came home and drove it 10,000 miles since without any real issue.

I did notice that the performance seemed slightly sluggish but not anemic. I bought a new Audi and thought the sports car was making the truck seem slower then I remembered it.

Fast forward to last week. I took it in for an oil change. (Had it changed the first week I got home back in July.) The dealer said I needed an air filter, brakes and a new battery. Said the battery should have pulled 700 amps, only pulled 580. I said no the the brakes and battery. I said Ill get the brakes next month and Ill order an Optima battery online. The service rep kept pushing their battery. I still said no.

Today I opened up the hood to replace the battery. OMG, the positive battery terminal was MEGA corroded, completely covered the terminal post, and 2-3" in diameter of greenish crusty battery gunk. I started thinking about the dealer promoting a new battery vs a good cleaning.

Anyhow I replaced the battery. Almost 2 hrs worth of cleaning with baking soda and water seemed to do the trick. Not a real good fit. Had to take off the recommended blue brackets as the negative cable wouldnt reach. Terrible fit overall, but was able to get it connected by bending the clamp arms.

Took it to work tonight. Immediately I noticed the headlamps were brighter. I also thought it seemed to be more responsive. As I exited my community I got on the gas. Holy poo batman, the original power has returned. I would not have believed it had I not done it myself. It now presses me in the seat like it did when it was new. Very happy for that.

I am a bit curious as to what exactly was robbing the power with corroded battery terminals. Alternator being loaded down trying to charge the battery? Voltage to something on the ignition? Thoughts?

This may be common knowledge to the community. I have never heard of this before.

Note: I used a 9v computer memory saver when I swapped the battery. (NOCO BTE296S)

Thanks,
Bryan

Tothemax

In for the answer.

I am wondering if the removal of the battery reset your computer and changed back the shift points.

greengoose

I did consider that too. I did have a "memory" saver batter plugged in my car 12v outlet to preserve the radio / seat memory. It worked for that. Not sure how that battery would or would not apply to the computer.

Tothemax

You can reset the shift points by removing the battery for an extended period of time. Lots of guys do it.

bsmit24

called a KAM reset. (Keep Alive Memory) the PCM memory gets wiped after a certain amount of time. good to hear your power is back!!

suboldguy

On the imports we used to pull the ecm fuse to erase the learned shift points and throttle curve, did it at every oil change and car always felt way better.

Paints-n-cows

I am curious as well....but my suspicions are that the lagging battery probably is pulling on your alternator trying to make up for the lost amperage. With all of the electronic gizmos to include the power steering, the draw has to be really high.

As an interesting side note, I bought my '14 at 30k miles on it. I had the Ford dealer pull the Oasis report on it and I noticed that it had the TBI replaced at 12k and then it had another issue at 25k with a bearing on the output shaft of the transfer case.

Anyway, both times the servicing Ford dealer replaced the battery at the same time. I thought that was kind of odd but now that you bring that up, perhaps they weren't up to snuff.