glseibert

I expected that Ford corporate listen to their customers and at least acknowledge the suggestion/complaint. The fact that the customer service representative assured me on the phone she would pass my issue up the management chain and then dropped it completely is what is most annoying. In this particular case, the repair is a simple change to the software that controls the display update. That's not something any dealer is capable of doing on their own. Unless Ford corporate supplies the dealers with a software patch in the form of a TSB, the dealers cannot do a thing. I suppose the Pinto gas tank was operating as designed. It just wasn't designed to remain intact when the vehicle was rear-ended.

Temperature decreasing is not a problem, HarleyJoel. The software doesn't place any limits on the rate at which the display decrements when it notices the reading is higher than is being measured. The problem is when the external air temperature is on the increase. The software will not update the display unless the car has been moving at a minimum of 25 MPH for a minimum of 90 seconds. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, it is common to see temperature swings of 40 degrees over a single day. That is the condition where the problem manifests itself. Garage, and thus the car, is 60 degrees F while it's 80 outside. Driving around town, one cannot get to 25 for the magic 90 seconds. Your body is telling you it's hot. Your $30K+ brand-new car is still telling you it's 60. On a related note, I've discovered if you send a letter to Ford at the address in your owners manual, you'll eventually get a nice form letter reply indicating they want you to call them and discuss the issue. When you actually call that number, you get someone asking, "What are you calling about?" "Err.... Umm... Your letter said you wanted to talk to me about this. Just make sure someone who has some authority hears about this." "Sure thing, sir. Thank you for calling Ford." Fast-forward to a couple months later at the dealership (Speedometer stopped working TSB). Service manager sees the fact we called, but there is no indication the customer service rep actually did anything. Really makes one feel like Ford doesn't give a hoot about their customers. I guess Ford is telling us they never wants us to buy another of their products. After our 95 WindStar experience, it took a lot to decide the FFH was what we should buy. Guess we should have stayed with Saturn. We'll know better next time. BTW, I must give Kudos the the Service Manager at the Ford Store in Morgan Hill. He's really following up on this. If corporate cared about their customers half as much as the folks at the dealership seem to, we would probably consider another Ford product.

Poking around motorcraft.com, I found http://www.motorcraftservice.com/vdirs/ret...id=&gutsid= Is that what you are looking for?

Hey Hevengineer, Do you have the TSB number for this software update? Went to get the Speedo fixed (TSB 9-13-09) and the service manager pleaded ignorance. Eventually they will tire of spending their Tech's time to tell us what we already know. SM indicated he would be in contact with Ford Engineering tomorrow. I'll update all if anything positive comes of this exercise.

Thanks for the emotional reinforcement. Having been in the software development business for 30 years, my reaction was the same as Jon's. Now, if I could only find where they stored that literal 60 in the flash... <Dream sequence> I wonder if the gas versions share the same sensor management code.

Imagine driving through town and you notice the temperature hasn't changed since you left the house this morning. Garage was a cool 62 degrees when you went to work which is about 2.5 miles away (lucky). After work drove to the grocery store. By this time, it was well above 90. Display still said 62. Huh? Broken already??? To the friendly neighborhood Ford dealer to have it checked out. They say: Works as designed. You have to be moving along at least 25 MPH for 90 seconds before display adjusts in the upwards direction. Then it will adjust 3 deg/min so long as your speed doesn't drop below 25. The designers were trying to ensure the engine compartment heat would not affect the display. How is it possible to maintain such a speed for that duration in town? You're lucky if you can go 1/4 mile without hitting a light or stop sign. Seems like a software design error maybe? Wrote a letter to Ford. Got the canned response, "Bummer Dude. Deal with it." No other vehicle we've ever owned with a built-in external temperature does this. Sure it reads hot until you're moving along, but that's to be expected. Oh well, except for this, we're happy with the FFH so far.

This is more annoying than anything else. Other than this issue, we have so far been quite happy with our FFH (almost 1000 mi). Anybody have issues with the way the external temperature sensor updates as it's getting hotter? Seems like the software doesn't sample the external temp sensor until the vehicle has been moving 25 MPH or faster for 90 seconds. After that it will increase the displayed temperature by 3 deg/sec. According to the dealership, this is as-designed. We took it in as it was close to 100 but the sensor said 63 and this was after my wife drove home from work in the afternoon. When driving around town, how often do you reach 25 MPH and exceed that for 90 seconds? If I could figure out how to hack the software ...