Just lost the battery in my wifes 08 edge. They wanted to tow the thing 30 miles to replace the battery. I was at work and she wasnt too confident in getting the charger hooked up right. I told the dealer that I didnt want a car with 20k on it strapped to a tow truck because of a battery. they said insurance wouldnt allow them to do anything at my house. Told them to pound sand and I just shelled out the $$ for a batt from the Oreilys next to work.

All i could see them doing was towing it in, charging it up and telling me everything was fine. Then the thing crapping out while the wife was in town with the kids or something.

 

My battery would randomly go dead in my '03 Escape... One night I got out of work and I was stranded for 6 hours waiting for someone to come by with a battery charger... so the tow truck finally came, and got a charger and hooked it up. We tried to jump it and all did was click. We then tried jumping it off of the tow truck with no avail. Go to find out the battery was shot and it was acting like a dummy load.

I got a new Motorcraft battery out of it, because I had the warranty, a couple months later with the new battery it failed again. I then decided to get an Interstate battery, and it made the vehicle trouble free. It actually seemed to crank faster too.

Same thing with my truck. I dropped an Everlast (IIRC it's made by Johnson Controls) and it's one strong battery.

 

FWIW my stock MC battery is 4 years old now and it's still cranking strong. The best battery I've ever had.

 

13.8 may fall within acceptable range, but it's not what Motorcraft Alt. normally charge. The 14.2-14.3 is more like normal. That should be the fault of the voltage regulator though.

 

It is rather criminal in my opinion, but that is the standard battery, even with a 5.4. My brother has an '07 w/5.4 and that's what it has in it. My '04 has 650 CCA (optional) and I believe they have one more (about 875 CCA) above that. I can't even imagine why Ford would even offer that as a standard battery, much less why ANY dealer would not upgrade when they order the trucks. My wife had a '88 Mercury Topaz in the late '80's (same as a Tempo) with the 2.3 4 cyl. and that's the battery it came with. I bought her a new Tuarus SE in '95 and that's the battery it had. (3.0 V-6) It is the smallest battery that I know of in an American produced Ford product for many many years. I believe the Mazda produced Probe had a smaller battery.

By the way, I believe they use the same size battery cover for all those batteries, that's why you don't realize how small the battery is unless you take the cover off.

 

That is surprising this is the standard battery. That battery did last six months after they said it tested OK. I guess if it tests OK, and you doubt it, that means it has a short future. As it sits in my garage the bubble on top is red.

 

I can't begin to fathom who in Ford thought that if you bought a $35k truck and didn't upgrade the battery, that the same battery that we put in an '88 Tempo (it's the smallest battery, or we might have put in a smaller one) with a 2.3 4 cyl. would be just fine for your 300+ hp 5.4 V-8. But that's what they paid some J.A. to do. Mind boggling. By the way, once the bubble turns red from discharge, it will always be red, even if the battery is O.K.