2013 Ford Fiesta negative battery disconnect

ezgoin wrote:
I'm considering a Ford Fiesta for our dinghy and wondered how accessible is the negative battery terminal. I've read where the cable is not easily accessible on the Focus and was curious if it's the same with the Fiesta.

The Focus is a problem to access but there are options to make it easy. I just flipped the battery around. All it took was a $9.00 cable. Others have added a quick connect to the positive terminal.

RoyB wrote:
You might want to check with FORD and see what happens with the on-board computer setups if you pull the car 12VDC battery for a long period of time.

I know on my 2004 F150 truck the battery got pulled for about a day and when I hooked it back up the engine idle was all messed up. It would die on me at the stop signs unless I held down the gas pedal... There is no idle adjustments anymore like the old days and this is all done by the computers now.......

Don't know if this happens to everyone who pulls their battery for a long period of time or not - It definitely happened to me.

Entirely different situation here.

For the Focus and Fiesta, Ford actually REQUIRES you to disconnect the battery when towing it. 'Tis in the manual. Not doing so can (and has in some cases noted here) resulted in a completely fried transmission.

Has to do with the fact these vehicles have an entirely new, different kind of transmission, that if battery power isn't disconnected, the tranny can jump into gear when being towed, resulting in major damage to the tranny.

This is actually one of the reasons we chose a Fusion Hybrid over the Focus. Didn't want to have to mess with disconnecting the battery.

You might want to check with FORD and see what happens with the on-board computer setups if you pull the car 12VDC battery for a long period of time.

I know on my 2004 F150 truck the battery got pulled for about a day and when I hooked it back up the engine idle was all messed up. It would die on me at the stop signs unless I held down the gas pedal... There is no idle adjustments anymore like the old days and this is all done by the computers now.

I eventually had to go back to FORD and let them reset the idle on my F150 truck with their master computer machine at a minimun cost of $90. It only took them about ten minutes to reset my computers but still had to pay the minimun $90 charge.

Don't know if this happens to everyone who pulls their battery for a long period of time or not - It definitely happened to me.

Roy Ken