Battery Saver
Start Engine or Shut off Ignition

Never had this before, 2013 FX4 F150

What does it mean?

 

Means you left your key in the on / acc position too long. To prevent draining your battery to the point you can't start the engine, it cuts the power and gives you the message that it's going into "saver" mode.

 

Thank you for the reply. Will check it out.

 

I haven't dug into it much on my '12 I bought 2 years ago. Thought it was awful quick to shut down when I was listening to the stereo while detailing the interior.

 

I've had that happen twice this winter. Didn't do it last winter which was my first with this truck. Both times it happened on a cold morning after a 15 min. drive to work. Shut off the truck and probably 30-60 seconds later it shut off the radio and displayed the message. Didn't give it too much thought at the time, it was cold. But, I will take some readings when I get a chance, probably something is going on.

 

Not necessarily. Posted many times on the 2009 - 2014 section of the forum.

These vehicles have a current draw. If you don't drive it often, or you drive short hops, then the battery will slowly drop down. When it hits a certain level the battery saver kicks in and shuts things down.

These trucks are not designed to play the radio for an hour while you work on the truck. The LCD screen is a big draw, not a plain radio.

You have the dealer perform a TSB to lower the threshold, that simply lets you let the battery get weaker.

You can drive more than 1/2 hour to charge it, and do that every few days.

Or, you can do what I did and buy a Battery Tender. I keep the truck plugged in and never see the message again.

 

Good point, Rick. I "assumed" the display came on when the key was left on. Makes sense that the parasitic load on the battery could cause the message to come up.

Weaker batteries and cold weather makes sense also.

MOST importantly - thanks for the reminder to get my tender plugged back in to my F150. It's been idle for a few weeks.