Got a question - from what I read - whenever you put a new battery into a newer ford vehicle you need to reprogram the PCM to accept the new battery - can anyone explain why this is necessary and what happens if you don't do this - and can this be done without a fordscan tool - thaiks

 

I have never done anything special. They often need to relearn how to idle, but I just drive on

 

Sometimes they do require some sort of re-programming for the battery change. There is nothing in the 2016 Ford Workshop DVD about the SD needing any programming but

The 2016 Escape does have this as a line item in the replace procedure...

1. If installing a new battery, use the scan tool to carry out the Battery Monitoring System (BMS) reset after the battery is connected.

 

Never done anything special here either. My radio kinda freaked out on my on my 2011 after changing the batteries. But after disconnecting and letting it sit for an hour or so, then reconnecting, the radio came back to normal.

Also, if you have two batteries, replace them both. Just do it.

 

I just wanted to maybe add a little clarity to this. I just put a new battery in my '11 F350 and some research online would lead you (er, me at least) to believe ALL Ford vehicles 2011+ suffer from this campaign called BMS which was clearly just a way to try to keep Team TFI engineers busy on a system where they couldn't do too much damage before retiring.... I mean ya figure they were likely drawing up TFI in the early 80's so most of those guys have gotta be near retirement by now.

Anyway, I very much wondered if my '11 actually had this-- I mean I've never received any warnings AND I don't have any of the fancy stuff BMS will allegedly shut down if it sees problems, like heated seats, nav etc. Now, I don't think that's all BMS does - according to my research (ie Google and everything online is of course true) it appears Ford states in some owners manuals you might lose some creature comforts if a problem is detected, but there's also a good vid from Makuloco where he shows it controls alternator output (and is thus ultimately a CAFE thing).

Anyway after taking a close look at the myriad of connectors and heavy-ish gauge wires splitting off the left side of my battery, I figured I MUST have BMS.....but I don't.

I booted up my freshly downloaded Forscan on my newish Acer laptop, then spent 3+ hours getting my OBDlink EX to be happy, then bought an extended license to be able to get into the BCM module. Note: it appears you wouldn't need an extended license just to turn BMS off (edit: I mean reset to ZERO, not turn it off!!) if it's factory equipped. In the Service (wrench) section I had no option to "reset BMS" with any of the BdyCM listing.

But I wanted to disable TPMS anyhow and so while in the BCM (with my extended lic) I noted my '11 F350 showed "Battery Management Configuration: Disabled". Now ....unless I'm reading this wrong and maybe this had to do with dual batts in diesels? (I'm 6.2 gas) ). But I don't think so as in the Service area I did NOT get a line like this guy does at 2:10

Anyway if you watch the vid above (again, you can pretty much skip to 2:10) and look at my pics below you'll see what I'm saying

On the left side of my batt, I figured some of this had to do with BMS but apparently not

Once into my BCM (with extended license) you can see it already reflected Battery Mgmt as "disabled". I did not have a line selection in Services tab like the gentleman in the video linked above at ~2:10 to Reset the BMS

 

Also, I have no idea if you did have factory BMS and didn't want it.....would it be as simple as going into the BCM and disabling? I suspect not, but I'm the type who prefers simplicity and reliability over tiny gains in MPG. That said, BMS doesn't seem to be that intrusive or unreliable, but it IS just one more thing to fail and if it never tells your alt to charge, that's not great (not sure I've heard of such an occurrence, though)

 

I went thru this on my 2015 Taurus recently. The dealer reset battery life to zero for me since I bought the battery from them.

Evidently there is a different charging strategy for a new battery vs. an older battery. It is best to do the reset if possible to get the longest battery life out of the new one.

I read online that leaving the battery unhooked for 8 hours would effectively do the reset for you but I can't verify that.

 

I read online that after changing the batteries it would reset itself in 8 hours as long as the truck was just sitting.
its amazing that with all the high tech electronics it just can't figure it out itself, almost seems they just want you to bring it to a dealership and pay stupid money to perform what should be a simple task, ugh.