I bought my '15 Platinum last August and have put 40k miles on it. I have noticed that the prompt for perimeter alarm has been coming on as I turn off the truck, the running boards have been retracting slower, and my favorites screen kept going back to the start screen. Not only that, it was cranking over slowly. I replaced the battery today and everything is back to normal.

I have just never had to replace a battery this soon and these things aren't cheap.

Has anyone else had this issue?

 

No, they're not. How often do you drive your truck? The Platinum has tons of electronic dodads in it that constantly use battery power to maintain their "state" even when the truck is shut off and nothing is obviously on. My old King Ranch had a bunch of these things too and I calculated that at the "vampire" draw it put on the battery of 0.05A, the battery would be dead in 42 days. I'm pretty sure the Platinum has an even bigger vampire draw.

I bought a Battery Minder for my King Ranch and am using it on my new truck again. I haven't had any battery problems since I started using it. You might consider the same remedy if you're not driving your truck a lot.

- Jack

 

Another issue is how old the truck was when you bought it. If it was sitting around on the lot for several months, the dealership might not have been keeping up on the battery. You can check the build date, I think it's on the driver side door jamb. If not it's on the widow sticker. Even if you saw it delivered to the dealership, it could have been sitting around on another lot for several months.

I bought my 2015 in December. It has the 2.7l engine with the auto shut off. It was built in February and had sat on the lot 10 months. When I first tried to take it for a test drive the battery was dead. So dead it couldn't even unlock the doors. I asked to make sure the battery had been replaced when I bought it. It hadn't and had gone bad. Because of the auto shut off the battery had to be good or the truck wouldn't shut down. After driving a week I took it back nobody at the dealership could understand what I was saying (they weren't listening). When I finally found someone who would listen they figured out the battery had gone bad. It was replaced and all has been good since.

 

The battery should have been covered under warranty if you only had the truck for 9 months.

We had a new Motorcraft battery last about a month in our Flex (a replacement, not the original). Had a bad cell, replaced for free.

 

Lots of driving you do.


Sounds like you had bad luck with the battery. Lots of things will kill batteries.


I've had a couple vehicles go 5-7 years but most only last a couple years it seems.


I had a diesel once that lost the batteries at around a year so I got some diehard platinums and they were like $400 but lasted another 5 years great till I sold it. I really wasn't happy about the expense but I felt it was the trailers I was hooking it to causing the problem so I spent the extra money.

 

I drive it just about everyday and put some miles on it too.

 

Batteries are usually not covered under warranty. besides, I have 40k on it anyway.

 

Batteries are covered under the 3/36 bumper to bumper warranty.

 

Then, I think you just had a faulty battery - possibly one that became severely discharged on the dealer's lot. No auto battery likes to be deep cycled.

- Jack