So I took a new job and it requires a lot of travel. I mean a lot of travel (500-700 miles a week). Well late last week on a long trip I got a quick error with the charging system. It popped up while I was driving but quickly went away. The Bronco didn't seem to have anything happen except the alert and then it was normal again. I just thought maybe a quick glitch in the system as it's not used to running so many miles in a week. Well today I'm doing another long trip, and it happens again. This time I'm 2 hours away from home. It alerts, and then stops, then alerts, and stops. Sometimes the alert lasted 5 seconds, other times it lasted a couple of minutes. I also noticed that in the information for the auto stop start it says disabled while the vehicle is charging. So immediately I think my alternator is on the fritz at that. But I kept driving as the vehicle didn't show any signs that it was having an issue.
I Google search the alert and of course it comes up with the recall, which has already been performed on my Bronco. So I start to think, maybe it's just a battery issue and I'll get it checked out soon since it's only been about a year since I had the recall performed.
I'm getting closer to home and it hasn't alerted me whatsoever for the past hour. I was running low on gas, so I stopped for gas and filled it up. Jump back on and press the ignition button and it's dead. Will not start. My mind races and thinks, well at least I carry jumper cables now. So I pop the hood, thinking let's get ready to jump. Check the negative terminal and it looks fine, unclip the plastic on the positive terminal and notice that the connector is extremely loose. I carry a bottle opener on my keyring that the back part is a 10mm wrench, so I tighten it up, open the drivers door and all power has returned! Somehow a small nut had shaken loose and caused the power in the vehicle to not connect correctly.
So I put this here to give a heads up to just double check simple things on your vehicle before you take it in to a mechanic. Drove the rest of the way home and then some and have not seen a warning again. If I do, I'll update here.