Climate Control Issues

[billford]

Last weekend, my climate control started to act up. It was blowing cold air out of the center vents, the drivers and passenger temperature display showed "00"

I could not change the temperature on the touch screen or the manual buttons, they were locked up. But I could change the fan speed. The a/c, defrost and recirculate buttons all would light up when touched, but did not change anything with the air flow or temperature.

 

Since I could not drive it due to fogging on the windshield and freezing interior temperatures, I was going to get it towed to the dealer.

 

Before towing it, I tried the Sync system master reset. It did not help.

 

Then I tried removing the 12 volt battery cable and waited for 10 minutes. When I reconnected it, then the climate control started to work normally and I could drive it again. And so far it has been ok.

 

Since the system started to work after disconnecting the battery, I believe that it is a software issue. But this 1 month old 2014 is supposed to have the latest updates already.

 

I realize that it should have been checked for codes by the dealer first before disconnecting the battery, but I was stuck and had no choice but to try and disconnect the battery as towing would be the last resort.

 

So the question is, why did it happen in the first place? Software issue? Hardware issue?

[inco]

I hope you will drop by the dealer and share your experience and have them check for codes, or perhaps reflash everything. I also have a new unit and right now it's super cold outside -1f without the wind chill. I doubt I would be able to do the battery connect.

Check back in if you will as this is not something to ignore.

[FordIVTteam]

...

 

So the question is, why did it happen in the first place? Software issue? Hardware issue?

 

Hi billford,

 

It's hard to pinpoint the cause of this. I encourage you to bring this to your dealership's attention the next time you're in for service.

 

Kim

[hindsight]

2014 Ford Fusion Hybrid at 3000 miles, climate control freak out failure problem, manufacture date sept 30?, 2013. Driving in California 95+ temperatures today 1.5hrs, air conditioning suddenly stopped working. Went into a store, turned car back on and noticed outside temp showed -40 and climate control, in manual, showed 35, but at least the a/c came back on and fan speed still worked. Driving car some more, outside temp corrected itself back to actual 100F outside temperature and then, using voice control of climate, was able to set climate control to 70F, but still controlling fan speed manually due to excessive noise/blowing otherwise. Another 4 hours of driving after that. Not a good sign for Ford Quality is job #? :rant2:

 

No recent car washes or rain that could get the sensor wet, maybe a bug hit it?

 

Update 5-31-14: No further freak outs of the climate system to this date. I wonder if not driving in Auto mode could make the A/C not control itself properly? The external air sensor failure does seem most likely, but maybe just a loose connection that would change the resistance or connection quality of the circuit?

Edited May 31, 2014 by hindsight

[Waldo]

2014 Ford Fusion Hybrid at 3000 miles, climate control freak out failure problem, manufacture date sept 30?, 2013. Driving in California 95+ temperatures today 1.5hrs, air conditioning stopped. Went into a store, turned car back on and outside temp showed -40 and climate control, in manaul, showed 35, but at least the a/c came back on and fan speed works. Driving car some more, outside temp corrected itself back to 100F and then using voice control of climate, was able to set to 70F, but controlling fan speed manually due to excessive noise/blowing otherwise. Not a good sign for Ford Quality :rant2:

 

Bummer, that's not a good thing, but it's not as complicated a problem as you describe. Sounds like the real problem was the outside ambient temperature sensor gave a false reading. The climate computer relies on that ambient sensor for it's calculations, so if it thinks it's -40 outside, then it will turn off the A/C. Then there is a bunch of software that "smooths out" the transition back to normal, so even once the sensor gets back to normal, it still takes the system a few minutes to get back to normal.

 

If it happens again, pay attention to that ambient temperature reading. Your problem is likely isolated to that sensor.

[hybridbear]

2014 Ford Fusion Hybrid at 3000 miles, climate control freak out failure problem, manufacture date sept 30?, 2013. Driving in California 95+ temperatures today 1.5hrs, air conditioning stopped. Went into a store, turned car back on and outside temp showed -40 and climate control, in manaul, showed 35, but at least the a/c came back on and fan speed works. Driving car some more, outside temp corrected itself back to 100F and then using voice control of climate, was able to set to 70F, but controlling fan speed manually due to excessive noise/blowing otherwise. Not a good sign for Ford Quality :rant2:

Bummer, that's not a good thing, but it's not as complicated a problem as you describe. Sounds like the real problem was the outside ambient temperature sensor gave a false reading. The climate computer relies on that ambient sensor for it's calculations, so if it thinks it's -40 outside, then it will turn off the A/C. Then there is a bunch of software that "smooths out" the transition back to normal, so even once the sensor gets back to normal, it still takes the system a few minutes to get back to normal.

 

If it happens again, pay attention to that ambient temperature reading. Your problem is likely isolated to that sensor.

I agree with Waldo. My parents had the ambient temp sensor get messed up in their C-Max Energi. It started reading either -40 F or 120 F. Most of the time it would read 120 F. This was in the dead of winter and meant that they couldn't get any heat because the car thought it was hot outside. The Ford dealer took apart the passenger side mirror to access the sensor and found that it had gotten wet. They dried it out and put some sort of sealant to protect it from water. No parts needed to be replaced. Their sensor went bad right after they got a car wash. The high pressure spray must have found a way inside the mirror too far. Did you recently get a car wash?

 

Get Ashley (Ford Service) involved to help make your dealership experience less painful.

[tr7driver]

I agree with Waldo. My parents had the ambient temp sensor get messed up in their C-Max Energi. It started reading either -40 F or 120 F. Most of the time it would read 120 F. This was in the dead of winter and meant that they couldn't get any heat because the car thought it was hot outside. The Ford dealer took apart the passenger side mirror to access the sensor and found that it had gotten wet. They dried it out and put some sort of sealant to protect it from water. No parts needed to be replaced. Their sensor went bad right after they got a car wash. The high pressure spray must have found a way inside the mirror too far. Did you recently get a car wash?

 

Your dealer actually repaired something instead of remove and replace?????? Get out the Delorean, fire up the Mr. Fusion and plug in the flux capacitor, I'm ready to go back in time and rescue you.

[hybridbear]

Your dealer actually repaired something instead of remove and replace?????? Get out the Delorean, fire up the Mr. Fusion and plug in the flux capacitor, I'm ready to go back in time and rescue you.

I was surprised too! The Ford Engineering Hotline told them not to replace any parts, but to rather clean & replace. I'd have to look at their paperwork, but I feel like this is a known issue to Ford and thus they had a repair procedure ready which should prevent this from happening again. Replacing with a new part would allow this to fail again due to water intrusion. I believe they did something to better waterproof the sensor.

[billford]

My dealer called to tell me that Ford has a new reflash to fix my original problem of the MFT showing 00 and not holding the set temperatures.

 

I'm glad the dealer did not replace any parts or go on a wild goose chase trying to fix anything, as they suspected a software issue from the beginning.

 

I would blame Ford for not keeping the dealer in the loop, that a software fix was being developed.

[bbowman590]

I just washed and waxed my 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid and started having climate control issues. It started with reading 00° as the outside temperature and blowing hot air on an actual 80° F day. I turned it off and opened the windows. As I drove, I saw the temperature start to normalize. After 20 minutes it was correct. Parked it until the next morning. Then the outside temperature is correct at 64° but it was blowing very hot air. I turned it down to 60° and it still blows very hot air. I finally turned it to lo and it blows very cold air. It also shows lo as "My Temperature". Outside temperate reading was correct all this time. So on Auto I have very hot or very cold air. Nothing in between. I have been reading the post and thinking about the disconnecting the battery for 10 minutes. Does anybody have any other suggestions?

[lolder]

That's a good idea.

[sschnath]

Just started experiencing climate control issues. At first I could only set the cabin temp to a max of 23 F! I'm not sure what the external temp was because the temp started displaying correctly after a short period of time but the system did not respond to those temps correctly. Can confirm that disconnecting the battery corrected it. Replacing the 12V battery tomorrow.

 

I now realize there was another clue that preceded the climate control problem as an indicator of 12V battery trouble--the Sync phone ringer. I had it set to ring because I usually have my phone set to vibrate only. I started getting calls where the ringer didn't go off when a call came in. It would just interrupt the radio with silence. Happened again after resetting the ringer. I could still accept and end calls from the steering wheel but the ringer just didn't work.

 

I see after disconnecting the battery that the ringer setting gets reset so it's another potential indicator of a bad 12V battery.

 

There was another topic in this forum where it was recommended that the factory-installed lead acid battery be replaced with an AGM-style battery but it was hard to find them in a size to fit the Fusion. It appears that the Motorcraft Tough Max battery is AGM so I'm going with that. Much better warranty than the Tested Tough Plus version although I'm sure that's built into the price. But it should perform better and last longer.

[lolder]

You need to investigate changing the battery type more fully as I think the car charging software wants to know what kind of battery is installed. The replacement lead-acids from Ford have been working pretty well.

[bbowman590]

My climate control problems fixed themselves after 4 days. I have had this problem twice now and it is very frustrating. Ford should figure out what the problem is and do a recall

[sschnath]

My climate control problems fixed themselves after 4 days. I have had this problem twice now and it is very frustrating. Ford should figure out what the problem is and do a recall

 

Ford isn't going to do a recall for this. Replace the 12V battery and you won't have to worry about it anymore. If you're going to keep the car awhile get the Motorcraft Tested Tough Max battery. It's working great for me and I expect it will have a much longer life than the OE battery.

[Kim Brunner]

I am having the same problem with my 2014 Ford Fusion.   The  + and - buttons to turn the heat up or down will not work on the screen and nor will the manual + or - buttons work.   The only way I can get my heat to work is by pressing the “My Temp” located on the screen.   My fan works, my defrost work, and everything else seems to be working just the temperature controls won’t.   I have no idea how to fix it and I am wondering if Ford even knows how to fix it or will they just charge me a ton of $$$$$.  

[mwr]

22 minutes ago, Kim Brunner said:

I am having the same problem with my 2014 Ford Fusion.   The  + and - buttons to turn the heat up or down will not work on the screen and nor will the manual + or - buttons work.   The only way I can get my heat to work is by pressing the “My Temp” located on the screen.   My fan works, my defrost work, and everything else seems to be working just the temperature controls won’t.   I have no idea how to fix it and I am wondering if Ford even knows how to fix it or will they just charge me a ton of $$$$$.  

Might this be another case of a failing 12V battery as described above?

[Kim Brunner]

I hope so and I plan on working on this later when I get home.  So happy I found this site and these comments 

[Mark-in-Ohio]

I had a similar situation this week (Dec, 2020). The digital display of the climate control on the screen on my 2013 Ford Fusion SE went bonkers and was displaying weird temperatures (00, 03, 35, 70 and even odd symbols like question marks). I could not adjust the temperature on the screen and the manual "+" and "-" buttons below the screen weren't working either. I took the above advice and disconnected the negative battery terminal and let it sit for 30 minutes. When I reconnected the battery terminal, the problem was gone and the screen and manual buttons were working again. I guess this is similar to unplugging a router to reboot it. Worked like a charm. I was afraid that I'd lose all of my radio station pre-sets and the bluetooth connection to my phone. But surprisingly, those were not affected by disconnecting the battery! So happy with these results!