I have taken my truck to Autozone and they connected to my battery and tested the battery, charging and starting systems, all good. My orange Wrench light comes on for about one minute at start up if it has trouble starting, only after setting over night. Once it starts, the alternator charges it enough to do anything I do during the day and if I have have to drive after dark, it is charging enough that it stays running with the use of my lights, heat or AC. this time of year, Im using both. So the Alternator is working. I bought the battery in Jan 2025 with a build date of 11/24. It has NO codes. Im stumped, looking for ideas. if I say things that sounds like a girl, it's because I am one. But I also spent 30 years in a Ford assembly plant building things like the Ranger, Explorer, and Escape. So I Know a little bit but I'm no mechanic.

 

Get yourself a DMM to measure the Battery voltage post to post.
Want to see something the 12.0 to 12.6 range to be good
If below or about 1.0 volt down in the 11.4 range, there is likely an excess drain in the Sleep Mode after shutting down after about 30 minutes passes to Sleep Mode.
Start the engine and measure again at the Battery to see if the charge voltage has gone up into the 14.0 to 14.8 max range. This is normal on a fault free system.
Note here, the lower running voltage the better but the rest of the vehicle has to be powered. This indicates the Battery capacity is very good and don't need much recharge.....or.... the Alternator is not outputting the commanded level for recharge from the BMS control Module for which there would be code set to reflect this fault.
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If pre-cranking Battery voltage is too low, it may indicate there is an excess Drain in Sleep Mode.
Sleep Mode is entered about 30 minutes +/- after shutting down, all doors closed and locked, hood down.
The Sleep Mode current drain usually drops down into the 50 to 60 Milliamp range to keep Battery for some days and still able to start the engine. 50 milliamps is .050 amp below one amp drain that = 1000 milliamps in a conversion. You can see it is very low in sleep mode.
If this is an issue, you can have the problem you describe.
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There is another way to look at this from the Dash Display to see the Battery voltage from the Body Control Moule side output, not at the Battery side because there is a small normal drop through the BCM.
The display will show you the voltage drop before cranking and during cranking and the charge voltage after the engine runs a few seconds to see all the above readings.
This trick is how to get the Dash into Engineering Mode and step to the voltage reading info to check all the levels.
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Let's see what you come up with.
Good luck.

 

I tested it with a mutimeter, all the numbers were in expected range. i tested for a battery drain. That was my first thought. I may try that again just to see if the numbers come up the same. Thank you. I will definitely post here what I find, if I find it.

 

To measure sleep mod current, it has to be set up ahead of time with a current meter in series with the Negative Battery lead to see the current and not trigger wakeup.
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Try to see if a code can be read before start-up.
It may suggest something quite different.
Good luck.

 

Congratulations for being hands-on while at the same time asking for any help you can find! I am 77 yrs old with three daughters and they all can diagnose battery issues and we usually keep our batteries functioning up to 7 years.
I am going to start my answer with a new product that is super great for anyone like you, plus I have one as well. The use of a proper full function digital volt meter can diagnose many battery issues. But the CEN-TECH 12V Alternator/Battery Checker (Harbor Freight for $6.99)

does the same digital volt meter things but in a simple cheap way with just led lights.

It tests the battery post voltage (engine off) as mentioned above. 12.6v or better is preferred. It tests the battery while starting. 10.5v or better preferred.
It tests the alternator while engine running. 14.6v preferred. It load tests the battery, using the headlights as the load. Bounce back to 12.4 or better preferred.

That should be all you need to keep on top of your battery health and if this small meter indicates all is well you are done testing.

There is one other culprit that you may have and that is called “parasite drain.” That means that something is sucking the juice out of your battery when the vehicle is off. As the expert above states, your battery may be supplying 50 milliamps or so all the time while the truck is off. That normally is related to the security system. That rate of drain will cause problems if you park your truck at the airport for three weeks. But it should not affect daily drivers. If there is another drain such as a stuck audio Sync device you need to find the culprit. For this you will need a real digital volt meter. Harbor Freight has one for $7.99. That’s all you need, except for extreme caution because the truck battery can easily kill or damage you if you aren’t careful about touching the battery posts with your fingers. For that reason I recommend you have an experienced person do this following test. Remove the black negative cable from battery. Set voltage meter to 5 amps. Please note that there is a special hole for 5amp. Do not use the normal hole as that is for milliamps and even though we are wanting to see milliamps, the initial amps will be much higher. Connect one of the volt meter (set for 5 amps) leads to the battery negative post and the other to the loose unconnected black cable. Doesn’t matter which, one way will read negative and the other way will read positive but it is the number that matters. Watch quickly. The meter should show 200, 300, or 400 meaning 2 or 3 or 4 amps at first and then, in about 20 seconds, go down to 5, meaning 50 milliamps. (This meter is cheap and a bit weird. A proper digital meter of $50 or more will read properly in understandable digits without deciphering.)
If the 50 milliamps is seen after 20 seconds, you are golden. If much higher milliamps are registered then you have something in the truck sucking milliamps, a situation called “parasitic drain.” Yep, a window, a radio, a device somewhere is draining your battery at a pace that will leave you stranded. You have to find it. Pulling one fuse at a time is the normal method but not pulling random fuses but ones that your research shows are possible contenders for parasitic drain. Use the internet to get a list. Good luck.

 

Have you done any mods, or changed any electronic parts lately? Some after market electronics do not play nicely.

 

The only work I have had has been at a Ford dealership.

 

How do I set it up to keep from triggering wake up. A video on youtube said to trip the door latch but my screen still read door ajar and when opening the hood it reads hood ajar. Isn’t that triggering wakeup?

 

I bought my multimeter at Harbor Freight. It was around $7, cant remember exactly. I’m gonna retest just to verify the numbers I was getting but at that time they were all just as you said. The youtube video even told me how to set it up the check for a battery drain situation. All good. I want to make sure Im not waking it up. Youtube video said to trip the door latches, but my screen still read door ajar, same with the hood ajar.

 

[QUOTE=bammon1;7798224]I bought ……..

You are on the right track! On my 2007 Odyssey I found the left sliding door as the culprit milliamp drain due to the security system thinking the door was open all the time. I bypassed the door and all was well…..

(but, not completely….. the security system is smart enough to know the door is bypassed! So I don’t get a chirp of the horn anymore when locking the van. I don’t care because the alarm still goes off if tampered with.)