No fishing for me this weekend because I have no truck to pull my boat.

I dropped my 2013 Supercrew 5.0L at the dealer this morning after waking to a dead battery. The dash displays flashed off and on. Starter solenoid chattered when I tried to start it. I jump-started it to get it going.

Nothing was left on overnight so why the dead battery? No parking lights, no doors cracked open,no interior lights left on, no user error...

After the truck was started, the following symptoms occur:

1. Dash display indicates the tranny is in 5th gear. It isn't...
2. It slams hard into reverse and drive when I move the shift handle to R or D.
3. I drove straight to the dealer and on the way noted the indicator did not move from 5th gear. The tranny was shifting but seemed to shift no higher than 3rd (even at higher RPMs) with odd shifts thru 1 & 2.
4. The Select Shift feature (M) doesn't work so I was unable to manually force it to a higher gear.

They say they can't even look at it until sometime next week. In the meantime, I want to educate myself on what might be the trouble here to avoid the Service Dept. run-around I sometimes encounter with this dealer.



Here's to hoping they'll just find it, fix it and I'll leave happy.



I assume the low voltage in the system has made a computer act squirrely to cause these weird tranny symptoms.


Back to the first question, why would the battery suddenly die? I have read that others have encountered similar battery/transmission issues. I have a factory remote-start system but the current draw from that shouldn't be enough to drain the battery overnight. I was searching TSBs and found something that looked related but didn't fit this scenario exactly. Ideas?

 

The shifting rough is normal after a batt reset. The K AM is erased causing it to learn your shifting again and ur driving habits.
The other things not so normal

 

I have read of weak batteries causing our trucks to do all sorts of weird things.

Might just need a new one.

 

Hi Crank Bait,

How many miles are on your truck? I'll research some ways to help.

Crystal

 

Crystal: I don't recall exactly but it's less than 15,000 miles.

 

Bad battery can cause all sorts of strange things to happen, sounds like yours has a bad cell.
.

 

Thanks for responding, Crank Bait. Have you heard any news from your dealership? Let me know and I'll see what I can do to assist.

Crystal

 

Crystal:

I had not heard from them so I called a few minutes ago to see what was going on. They've had it since early Friday and have not even looked at it as of 1:00 PM today (Monday).

I hope they'll get it taken care of today but if they haven't even looked at it... ?

 

I recv'd a call from the dealer yesterday late. The service advisor said there was nothing wrong with the truck. Begin run-around...

Thanks to your advice, I persisted. I asked if they had checked the battery. His response... the truck has started right up and during a test drive worked and shifted perfectly. There were no error codes, etc. Nothing wrong.

Again, I asked if they had tested the battery. He said they were going to do a draw test on it. I calmly suggested if the battery had failed after sitting overnight, after sitting in their lot for 4 days due to a problem which would have been revealed by a draw test, the battery would have been dead when they tried starting it. He agreed...

I expressed my concern over taking the vehicle home and having the trouble again. If I had to return and leave the truck again fro several days, I wouldn't be very nice about it. "Please test the battery for a bad cell."

He said I might have to leave it for another day. I said, "C'mon man!" and went into a mini tirade.

Long story short, they load tested the battery, it failed, they installed a new battery and I got my truck back. Thanks, guys!

 

if the battery falls below 11.5 volts, they go into a limp home mode. this has happened one time on my wifes car. jumped it off and it went crazy, seat belt chime was going off with the belt connected, the radio wouldn't stay on the station and shifted weird among other things. replaced the battery and everything was fine, it was 10 months old.