Community Forums

ngalivan64 · 05-10-2025, 04:58 PM

Is anyone flat towing a 2025 Lincoln Nautilus? If so are you having issues with battery running down where you can't start the car. We are not using any power for Patriot or running lights/turn signal. No chord is attached. We are stuck 4 days from home on the first trip with Dealers not knowing what is causing it. Computer is not showing a draw on power sitting on their lot overnight. They put a new battery in saying that was the issue and we drove 2 hours away as a test and the car was dead. Had to turnaround and go back. If someone has had this happen and the issue solved, could use the feedback.

TampaDave · 05-14-2025, 03:22 AM

Our Lincoln was about ten years older than yours, but we had to have ours in ACC mode to tow (to unlock the steering wheel) ... yours does too, no? That does result in some draw off the battery. Just gotta run a power wire from the RV to the toad's battery, no problem. Or at least, it worked until the battery died. (It is generally a good idea to carry jumper cables)

Air Conditioned Gypsy · 05-14-2025, 07:06 AM

We tow a '24 Nautilus Hybrid and it works great. When we had it set up for towing, the installer put in a charge line that keeps the battery charged while the car is being towed. So far, so good. I really like the ease of putting it in "Neutral Tow Mode" from the dash control pad.

Regards.

Chuck

Earl II · 05-14-2025, 07:29 AM

I am going to bet that you have the same basic issue that we had with our Jeep JLUR. We did not have a power wire hooked up properly from the RV. We would tow about 4 to 5 hours and the battery would almost be dead. I am guessing that you do have some type of braking system for the Nautilus? Everytime you brake there has to be some type of power draw for the brake lights no matter what.
Try adding the power wire to your hookup and don't forget to include a one way diode so the power goes to the toad but not back to the RV once you are parked. Side note... We found one night that we did not unhook that the RV thought it was still running and we could not extend our sliders or drop our front windshield shade. Once we put the one way diode in the wire this issue disapppeared.

ngalivan64 · 05-15-2025, 06:04 AM

It's a brand new 2025 with a lot of updated electronics so I am thinking we need the charge line even though manuals don't state that but do not want to damage the car. Trying to get the dealer to tell me to do it in writing or install one. Most of the charge lines on the market do not stop charging when the battery is fully charged so I don't want to risk blowing a battery up without some professional advice on that.

TampaDave · 05-24-2025, 03:26 AM

I'd be way more interested in what an experienced independent RV tech thinks than some rando at the dealership, who among other things would never put anything in writing, not in a million years. Wild card is really the RV side, how that's wired up, if it's wired up at all. Not all run power to the 7 way, and I imagine you're gonna want to make sure there's a decent ground also. Get ya a decent 6-way on the toad side, boom done

On my Fiat I just ran a wire, and it worked, although we hated that dang thing. We figured the Lincoln was worth an actual device. We were using LSL back in the day and never had a lick of trouble with it; today I'd go with the RVI product hands down

I see the RVI product has a trickle charge feature. Also it has bluetooth so you can monitor from the cab, if that's your fancy. To me that would be just one more false alarm to scare the bejeebus out of me but you gotta do you