[jason1880]

I’m a month in with my F150 Lightning. When I first drove it there was a coolant alert and the sales guy said to ignore it. It went away at first. Now the motor overheats every 5-10 minutes of driving. Also, the ac sounds like there is water sloshing around every time it starts up. The worst part is that only appointment for service the dealer would give me was 1.5 months out and I have to wait another 2 weeks driving around trying not to break this thing.

 

[grumpy]

You need to find another dealer.

 

[jason1880]

Agreed. The receptionist just hung up on me.

 

[grumpy]

Locations of EV Ford Dealers:

https://www.ford.com/buy/mach-e/reserve/preferreddealer.html

 

[Voltz]

Now the motor overheats every 5-10 minutes of driving.

Are you seeing that through the gauge on the dash? Do you know which motor is overheating? Have you noticed any coolant where you park the truck? There were a couple reports of coolant leaks where the owners noticed coolant under the truck, IIRC.

 

[jason1880]

It doesn’t say which motor is overheating. The heat level on the motors just goes high. The it says coolant temp high. Then it says reducing performance because of overheating, next it shuts down the front motor. Then all the fans go crazy. I haven’t seen any coolant leaks. The bottle under the shroud in the frunk looks like it could be empty, but there are warnings about it being under pressure.

 

[grumpy]

When I first drove it there was a coolant alert and the sales guy said to ignore it.
This is huge, the coolant is critical to your truck, and you have driven the truck a month with low coolant based on the salesmen advice. Since it is winter and temps are cool perhaps damage hasn't happened??

 

[jason1880]

The coolant alert never showed again until yesterday.

 

[Voltz]

The bottle under the shroud in the frunk looks like it could be empty, but there are warnings about it being under pressure.

This is kind of like saying that the dipstick in an ICE isn't showing any oil but there's probably some left....

Yeah, the coolant reservoir can appear empty. You need to make sure it isn't, because that salesman will have the worst case of amnesia ever known to man. It's not hard to add coolant safely, but it sounds to me like this truck should have been in the service department a few weeks ago.

Also, the part about shutting down the front motor is weird because there are two permanent magnet motors in the Lightning.

 

[jason1880]

There was never another alert again and I made a service appointment right away, but the dealer first available was a month out.

 

[Voltz]

There was never another alert again and I made a service appointment right away, but the dealer first available was a month out.

You may want to stop by in person and show somebody or find another dealer.

I went out and looked at my coolant reservoir. It has green coolant easily seen all the way up to a little above the MIN mark when cold. It sounds a lot like an air bubble trapped in the system from the beginning. Early VW ID.4s had that leading to coolant pump failures due to cavitation.