Cross Traffic System Fault

[cjn-md]

So the saga continues as my car sits at the dealership for the second weekend in a row no closer to resolution. As of next Monday I will be up to 18 days in the shop within the first 4 months of taking ownership. The dealership received the new sensors put them in and took her out for a drive to verify the repair. Within the first 2 miles from the dealership on the outbound leg of their driving loop the car set the fault code again. So now this is now looking like an issue within the wiring harness at one of the cable interfaces which could be very difficult to track down since it is data moving on the CAN system and not just a analog wire run. Stating to get old paying for something I cannot enjoy. Looks like it is time to start moving up the ladder to get some satisfaction.

[GrySql]

The Zaino seems to make the dirt stick to the paint worse than it did without Zaino. It also makes the dirt stick in little hardened spots, kind of like how the water beads up on the car.

Maybe this ought to go in the Zaino Topic. This makes me wonder about the DIY applications vs the expensive Dealer applications like the stuff on my car.

I have no experience in harsh climates (or lovebugs) so my cars paint always feels soft and smooth and is easy to clean.

Get some Formula 303 and put it on a spot on your car (or the sensors), then see what the difference is.

Wonder if it would keep the sensors cleaner??

Okay, back to topic.

[acdii]

I haven't had any problems with stuff caking, it usually wipes right off.

[cjn-md]

Well folks maybe some progress. The regional Ford tech is finally working on-site with my car (at the 15 day mark) and after bypassing the wiring harness (to rule it out) he seems to think that the PCM is the likely fault. The PCM was ordered today and if it was in-stock it should arrive at the dealership tomorrow. Once put in they still need to test it again before I get the car back. Tomorrow is hopeful , but not holding my breath most likely Monday or Tuesday. If it does go over the weekend it will be 21 continuous days in the shop. Next car payment now due and not even getting to enjoy driving it.

Keep tuned for the next chapter.

[hybridbear]

Well folks maybe some progress. The regional Ford tech is finally working on-site with my car (at the 15 day mark) and after bypassing the wiring harness (to rule it out) he seems to think that the PCM is the likely fault. The PCM was ordered today and if it was in-stock it should arrive at the dealership tomorrow. Once put in they still need to test it again before I get the car back. Tomorrow is hopeful , but not holding my breath most likely Monday or Tuesday. If it does go over the weekend it will be 21 continuous days in the shop. Next car payment now due and not even getting to enjoy driving it.

Keep tuned for the next chapter.

Have you involved Ashley?

[cjn-md]

Yes Ashley is aware if the issue and has gotten a case number assigned by Ford about this. This is the only involvement I have seen from Ashley on my case. Perhaps she is doing something on the back side but nothing I can clearly see or attribute to her actions. Truthfully I am a little underwhelmed by Ford's overall concern to the issue as it took two weeks to get a field Service Engineer on-site to work with the service team and my car. It is becoming clear that my 2014 Fusion is the first to experience this exact issue based on feedback from my service manager and that Ford is troubleshooting somewhat in the blind. The assigned Ford case manager has contacted me but does not appear to be directly involved in the process and I do not hear from her unless I reach out to her for an update. Even when I do hear from her I get the same information that I get from my service manger "Billy" who is doing a great job keeping me in the loop. Now at 22 total days in the shop with this issue in 5 months. At 30 days Maryland's Lemon law may apply. Waiting for my daily update and hoping it will be good news today. At least it's Friday!

[FordService]

Yes Ashley is aware if the issue and has gotten a case number assigned by Ford about this. This is the only involvement I have seen from Ashley on my case. Perhaps she is doing something on the back side but nothing I can clearly see or attribute to her actions. Truthfully I am a little underwhelmed by Ford's overall concern to the issue as it took two weeks to get a field Service Engineer on-site to work with the service team and my car. It is becoming clear that my 2014 Fusion is the first to experience this exact issue based on feedback from my service manager and that Ford is troubleshooting somewhat in the blind. The assigned Ford case manager has contacted me but does not appear to be directly involved in the process and I do not hear from her unless I reach out to her for an update. Even when I do hear from her I get the same information that I get from my service manger "Billy" who is doing a great job keeping me in the loop. Now at 22 total days in the shop with this issue in 5 months. At 30 days Maryland's Lemon law may apply. Waiting for my daily update and hoping it will be good news today. At least it's Friday!

 

cjn-md,

 

I've been keeping an eye on your case notes and this thread and it seems like everyone has kept you well-informed. Your CSM sent you an email on the 27th, letting you know that your dealer requested an engineer come out to look at your car. Did you get that? If not, PM me your correct email address and I will let her know.

 

Ashley

[Fastronaut]

Yes Ashley is aware if the issue and has gotten a case number assigned by Ford about this. This is the only involvement I have seen from Ashley on my case. Perhaps she is doing something on the back side but nothing I can clearly see or attribute to her actions. Truthfully I am a little underwhelmed by Ford's overall concern to the issue as it took two weeks to get a field Service Engineer on-site to work with the service team and my car. It is becoming clear that my 2014 Fusion is the first to experience this exact issue based on feedback from my service manager and that Ford is troubleshooting somewhat in the blind. The assigned Ford case manager has contacted me but does not appear to be directly involved in the process and I do not hear from her unless I reach out to her for an update. Even when I do hear from her I get the same information that I get from my service manger "Billy" who is doing a great job keeping me in the loop. Now at 22 total days in the shop with this issue in 5 months. At 30 days Maryland's Lemon law may apply. Waiting for my daily update and hoping it will be good news today. At least it's Friday!

Without going through a litany, I had a 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid Titanium repurchased in Maryland under the Maryland Lemon Law process. Ford repurchased the vehicle and I selected another identically configured car from the lot. I was lucky to find one. My case involved may days at the dealership and the dispatch of a Ford ENgineer from the local region. I also had the ability to have one of the actual Ford Design Engineers contact the dealership Service Department to walk them through things. My circumstance revealed a manufacturing defect.

 

Using the Maryland Lemon Law process, be aware that you will likely lose a few dollars in Sales Tax. Maryland will reimburse your original Sales Tax, but you will be charged a higher Sales Tax on the new vehicle at MSRP. I didn't mind because I got a reliable vehicle.

 

One thing that I have found on my 2013 and 2014 Fusion Hybrid Titaniums is that I needed to set the sensitivity to HIGH in order to get the best performance from the active sensors. When at lower settings, I got a lot of false triggers. In the recent snow storm, my sensors got clogged pretty easily from road salt and I had to keep them cleaned out.

 

Good luck cjn-md. I'm in the Columbia area and can recommend Apple Ford for excellent Service. Believe they are the largest Ford Dealership in Maryland.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Fastronaut

[cjn-md]

Ashley, Yes the CSM contacted by email with this information but the local Service Manager "Billy" had already communicated this to me.

 

Fastronaut, Thanks for sharing your story it is good to know you were taken care of. I pass by you every day heading down to Beltsville on my 120 mile daily loop to work. It was nice getting 43mpg average in the I95 commute traffic, the loaner is "just" breaking 30.

 

My car is spending its third weekend in the shop, one way or the other there will be movement on this next week as by Friday it will have spent 30 days total in the shop for this issue since I got the car the end of August 2013.

[cjn-md]

The sad saga continues. The dealer replaced the PCM and on the test drive after the new unit was installed and programmed the error message returned.

The dealer has contacted Ford Technical support once again for guidance but I am not holding my breath. Crystal clear they "FORD" have no clue of the root cause.

Today is 22 days continuously in the shop trying to address this issue. The car is now at 26 total days in for service counting my previous 4 visits with the same issue.

[Waldo]

The PCM runs the engine, not the blind spot system. The PCM doesn't have anything to do with the blind spot system. Blind spot has just two components, the sensor and the control module. If it's not either of those things, it's the wiring between them.

[cjn-md]

Waldo, Thanks for the feedback and I agree the path they are taking does not make sense and have provided my opinion from the get go. I had two different persons tell me the PCM was being replaced. Hard to believe they would replace an unrelated part. I firmly believe this is a wiring issue but not sure how they will find the issue since this is digital data moving on the wire verses point to point analog.

[Fastronaut]

The sad saga continues. The dealer replaced the PCM and on the test drive after the new unit was installed and programmed the error message returned.

The dealer has contacted Ford Technical support once again for guidance but I am not holding my breath. Crystal clear they "FORD" have no clue of the root cause.

Today is 22 days continuously in the shop trying to address this issue. The car is now at 26 total days in for service counting my previous 4 visits with the same issue.

I feel your pain cjn-md. Been there, done that. Time to talk with your dealership senior management about getting higher horsepower support from Ford -or- a repurchase. If you do a repurchase, make sure the dealership has what you want on the lot first; otherwise you'll have to wait for a delivery without a car.

[cjn-md]

28 continuous days and counting and the tech team is still looking for the root cause. At this time they are looking at the ABS wheel sensors as these apparently communicate on the same sub-system as the Cross Traffic system. Personally I do not see the correlation as that is not the error I am getting and an error with the ABS should leave a footprint in the ODBII computer.

[Fastronaut]

28 continuous days and counting and the tech team is still looking for the root cause. At this time they are looking at the ABS wheel sensors as these apparently communicate on the same sub-system as the Cross Traffic system. Personally I do not see the correlation as that is not the error I am getting and an error with the ABS should leave a footprint in the ODBII computer.

 

Have you used the word "Repurchase" yet?

[acdii]

28 continuous days and counting and the tech team is still looking for the root cause. At this time they are looking at the ABS wheel sensors as these apparently communicate on the same sub-system as the Cross Traffic system. Personally I do not see the correlation as that is not the error I am getting and an error with the ABS should leave a footprint in the ODBII computer.

 

It can tie in, the information from the ABS can be used to tell the CTA that you are moving. If Waldo is correct, the PCM would have no tie in to the CTA then, so then the ABS could be used instead. As far as the term PCM, they could be using it in the generic sense, any module could be considered a PCM in laymans terms.

[cjn-md]

Thanks for the feedback gents nice to know someone has interest in this besides me. Had not considered using the ABS data to see if the car was moving as I thought they would simply use speedo data. Who knows for sure except the design engineers.
I have indeed used the word repurchase and the CSM on my case has collected all service data for this process. So now is it wait and see.

[cjn-md]

Well here we are at the end of week five the car will be in the shop through the weekend and into next week, 32 continuous days - 36 days in total since the end of August 2013. This mornings update from my Service Manager indicates they are now replacing the entire engine compartment wiring harness due to a possibly problematic eight pin connector. The irony is that this connector was not considered a fault. The tech found some pin to pin interfaces were not as tight as they should be when doing point to point testing. If this is the case where else might the pins be bad?

I have reached out to the CSM handling my case to find out the status of a "repurchase" as the "repair" time is well beyond the Maryland requirements for a Lemon law replacement. On the bright side I have not had to expose "my" car to the snowy weather/salt here in Maryland this winter.

[Fastronaut]

Well here we are at the end of week five the car will be in the shop through the weekend and into next week, 32 continuous days - 36 days in total since the end of August 2013. This mornings update from my Service Manager indicates they are now replacing the entire engine compartment wiring harness due to a possibly problematic eight pin connector. The irony is that this connector was not considered a fault. The tech found some pin to pin interfaces were not as tight as they should be when doing point to point testing. If this is the case where else might the pins be bad?

I have reached out to the CSM handling my case to find out the status of a "repurchase" as the "repair" time is well beyond the Maryland requirements for a Lemon law replacement. On the bright side I have not had to expose "my" car to the snowy weather/salt here in Maryland this winter.

The Ford CSM hasn't got the sole horsepower to grant your wish. You want his boss involved. Your situation seems even more ridiculous than mine. Make sure you involve the local dealership SENIOR management now. Your dealership can be VERY important in this process. Chances are they have done it before and have a person familiar with the paperwork. Ford has a separate office just for this purpose and they are fairly fast to respond, once the decision has been made. Good luck.

 

PM me if you need any help.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Fastronaut

[acdii]

I would not stand for this. Replacing the entire harness because they "Think" its faulty? On day 30 the Lawyer would have been calling Ford to either buy it back or replace it. Good luck with what ever happens on this. I would not want a new car that has to have half its wiring harness replaced.

[hybridbear]

I agree that you should get your car replaced under your Lemon Law state program. I would suggest that you get Ashley to help with that.

[cjn-md]

Well folks here is more of the sad story. I now know why the Ford oval is Blue, it is us holding our breath for them to take ownership of and to fix an issue!

 

After 40 continuous days in the shop I picked up the car on 2/25 and two days latter with just an additional 150 miles driven the Cross Traffic Fault error came on again. Yet another photo to document the event, another call to my local service manager, another call to my assigned Ford CRM and another PM to Ashley.

Lot's of communication happened that I did not list on the forum, giving Ford every opportunity to do the right thing so don't flame me for a rant.

 

Today Ford called telling me it has denied my claim for re-purchase. Says it does not meet the standards of the Maryland Lemon law as it is not a primary system that is having an issue. It seems it was lost in translation that the car has a safety issue (hesitates/stalls) that is imbedded when the error message the car shows up each time a safety report to the NTSHA is forthcoming maybe they will hear me then. I guess having a vehicle out of service for 6 weeks in the first 6 months of ownership does not warranty a re-purchase.

 

On top of this "good news" the car is now total cluster. Since basically the whole front end needed to be disassembled (service report of what they did is two pages long) to replace the engine compartment wiring harness now the brakes and steering both operate differently then when I dropped it off and this is in addition to the primary problem not being addressed.

1. The brakes have no feel (very hard) to them re-gen brakes then nosedive braking. No smooth transition from re-gen to standard brakes to complete smooth stop as it was before the vehicle was disassembled.
2.The steering now feels like you are using a video game steering wheel controller auto-centering the wheel (yes I have lane keeping off). Turn the wheel right or left the wheel wants to go back to center.

3. The engine wiring harness is not installed properly with at least three of the harness standoffs not put back into the holders. So the harness is free to move about.

4. Since both the fender liners had to be removed as well, when they were reinstalled the fasteners installed on both sides do not match.

5. Who knows what else as I cannot see hidden areas they might have worked in.

 

Now that both the brakes and steering are involved they simply get one chance to make it right.

 

I immediately contacted the local dealer with all these issues. Since the dealer cannot take action without the direction of an FSE I am now in limbo as they determine the next steps.

 

I already reached out to BBB and they have opened a case fro me. I will be looking for the best local Lemon law lawyer to come at Ford from this direction as well.

 

So all I can say is if your car has gremlins no matter how well it is documented you are clearly on your own.

Perhaps a 30 year hiatus from Ford products was still was not long enough.

[hybridbear]

Well folks here is more of the sad story. I now know why the Ford oval is Blue, it is us holding our breath for them to take ownership of and to fix an issue!

 

After 40 continuous days in the shop I picked up the car on 2/25 and two days latter with just an additional 150 miles driven the Cross Traffic Fault error came on again. Yet another photo to document the event, another call to my local service manager, another call to my assigned Ford CRM and another PM to Ashley.

Lot's of communication happened that I did not list on the forum, giving Ford every opportunity to do the right thing so don't flame me for a rant.

 

Today Ford called telling me it has denied my claim for re-purchase. Says it does not meet the standards of the Maryland Lemon law as it is not a primary system that is having an issue. It seems it was lost in translation that the car has a safety issue (hesitates/stalls) that is imbedded when the error message the car shows up each time a safety report to the NTSHA is forthcoming maybe they will hear me then. I guess having a vehicle out of service for 6 weeks in the first 6 months of ownership does not warranty a re-purchase.

 

On top of this "good news" the car is now total cluster. Since basically the whole front end needed to be disassembled (service report of what they did is two pages long) to replace the engine compartment wiring harness now the brakes and steering both operate differently then when I dropped it off and this is in addition to the primary problem not being addressed.

1. The brakes have no feel (very hard) to them re-gen brakes then nosedive braking. No smooth transition from re-gen to standard brakes to complete smooth stop as it was before the vehicle was disassembled.

2.The steering now feels like you are using a video game steering wheel controller auto-centering the wheel (yes I have lane keeping off). Turn the wheel right or left the wheel wants to go back to center.

3. The engine wiring harness is not installed properly with at least three of the harness standoffs not put back into the holders. So the harness is free to move about.

4. Since both the fender liners had to be removed as well, when they were reinstalled the fasteners installed on both sides do not match.

5. Who knows what else as I cannot see hidden areas they might have worked in.

 

Now that both the brakes and steering are involved they simply get one chance to make it right.

 

I immediately contacted the local dealer with all these issues. Since the dealer cannot take action without the direction of an FSE I am now in limbo as they determine the next steps.

 

I already reached out to BBB and they have opened a case fro me. I will be looking for the best local Lemon law lawyer to come at Ford from this direction as well.

 

So all I can say is if your car has gremlins no matter how well it is documented you are clearly on your own.

Perhaps a 30 year hiatus from Ford products was still was not long enough.

Very sorry to hear this. I hope that you can get help from the BBB, Ashley or any other source to get Ford to take ownership. The poor way in which your car was put back together is especially concerning. I'm very sorry to hear about your troubles.

[cjn-md]

Well Allison has bowed out now that I have contacted BBB. Seems to me Ford CRM 's try to manage us not the situation. At least in my case I had no one as an ombudsman protecting my rights no one stepped up not even the dealership AL Packer Ford . No matter how you cut it 47 days in the shop in 6 months this is just not right.

[hybridbear]

Well Allison has bowed out now that I have contacted BBB. Seems to me Ford CRM 's try to manage us not the situation. At least in my case I had no one as an ombudsman protecting my rights no one stepped up not even the dealership AL Packer Ford . No matter how you cut it 47 days in the shop in 6 months this is just not right.

Who's Allison?