Trunk opened on its own and hit the garage door... Come on Ford!!!

[GW Shark]

Mine opens consistently when I wash the car. Even if I'm not behind it. Yesterday it opened 4 times and I was on the sides for all of them. Maybe there is a triggering flow of water near the sensor? At any rate, it seems to happen more frequently as I get updates (on 4.2.2 now). I got tired of it and turned off the kick feature as well. Too bad, as I enjoyed it. Be sure to go over your features when you get updates. I've had updates turn 1 pedal braking off more than once; resulting in me running a stop sign!.

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[mkhuffman]

All you people tend to forget ... this is a Mach-E we are talking about. The golden rule for all Mach-E's is to back into everything, including garages, or you might end up like this guy:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/towing-out-from-driveway-back-first-?.20198/

I'm good here....

 

[i8iridium]

It's funny that I enabled mine that never had it, and I've never had a problem ? The garage door also isn't close to mine. Makes me wonder for those that have this issue, the garage door itself has a cause in it? Moreover, with PAAK, bluetooth signals can get pretty wacky. I've been able to unlock the car with my phone in the house, so it could potentially think the phone is near the back and open.

 

[scoopman]

It's funny that I enabled mine that never had it, and I've never had a problem ? The garage door also isn't close to mine. Makes me wonder for those that have this issue, the garage door itself has a cause in it? Moreover, with PAAK, bluetooth signals can get pretty wacky. I've been able to unlock the car with my phone in the house, so it could potentially think the phone is near the back and open.

I suspect that the car is not tuned properly in two respects:

(1) the kick sensor for the kick-to-open is not tuned properly to not "false-positive" especially on moving people or other living things (or other objects) that move along the back side behind the rear tires, and change the light that the sensor appears to detect as motion in the right place.

(2) The sensor requires this motion (which seems much easier to register false-positives than any other vehicle I've had, basically it's like Ford didn't put in any time to tune this properly before launch), but it also requires FOB or PAAK to be nearby. I believe that Ford also isn't doing an acceptable job of tuning the RFA module in the car to require the PAAK/FOB to be ONLY IN THE BACK CENTER. It shouldn't only fire the hatch open unless that FOB/PAAK is in the middle back, but clearly the antennas have allegedly picked up the FOB or PAAK in the owner's house in their garage, 20 feet away, then falsely trigger with a "oh great! there's a kick!" and open the hatch erronously.

Both of these very low-quality, poor attention-to-their-product-experience details by Ford, coupled together, are what is causing $500+ of damage to all of these cars.

 

[Neil4Real]

I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to say about this but I think I can say that tomorrow they are going to start swapping my entire trunk to send my old one back to their lab to figure out why this is happening.

I’m shocked they care enough to dive further into it since it’s only 2021’s that shipped with it active. Unless they’re planning to bring it back and want to fix the issue? Makes me think this will just be another black hole diagnosis that never actually gets diagnosed or no bulletin solution comes out for it.

 

[DevSecOps]

I’m shocked they care enough to dive further into it since it’s only 2021’s that shipped with it active. Unless they’re planning to bring it back and want to fix the issue? Makes me think this will just be another black hole diagnosis that never actually gets diagnosed or no bulletin solution comes out for it.

I'm not sure that it's just '21 that have the issue. From what I understand it's something in the tailgate. They aren't replacing the kick to open sensors, at least that I'm aware of.

 

[GW Shark]

Just to add a few details on my situation, since there are so many variables - '21 Premium EX. No garage (outdoor car) and PAAK is not set up as I'm 100% fob (PAAK failed to setup multiple times after Fordpass and other vehicle updates so I just got tired of of fooling with it). Luckily, Ford recognized the unreliability of PAAK and gave us an additional FOB.

 

[astrorob]

I'm not sure that it's just '21 that have the issue. From what I understand it's something in the tailgate. They aren't replacing the kick to open sensors, at least that I'm aware of.

that's right. i have a '23 (which lacks the kick sensor) and it opened the tailgate into my garage door one day. i had to disable the automatic lift gate entirely and now i have to open/close it by hand.

 

[i8iridium]

I suspect that the car is not tuned properly in two respects:

(1) the kick sensor for the kick-to-open is not tuned properly to not "false-positive" especially on moving people or other living things (or other objects) that move along the back side behind the rear tires, and change the light that the sensor appears to detect as motion in the right place.

(2) The sensor requires this motion (which seems much easier to register false-positives than any other vehicle I've had, basically it's like Ford didn't put in any time to tune this properly before launch), but it also requires FOB or PAAK to be nearby. I believe that Ford also isn't doing an acceptable job of tuning the RFA module in the car to require the PAAK/FOB to be ONLY IN THE BACK CENTER. It shouldn't only fire the hatch open unless that FOB/PAAK is in the middle back, but clearly the antennas have allegedly picked up the FOB or PAAK in the owner's house in their garage, 20 feet away, then falsely trigger with a "oh great! there's a kick!" and open the hatch erronously.

Both of these very low-quality, poor attention-to-their-product-experience details by Ford, coupled together, are what is causing $500+ of damage to all of these cars.

Well, it's not even Ford's system. It seems that all the components in Fords with hands free tailgates are made by Brose. Ford just integrates the controller to talk to the vehicle over the LIN bus. Moreover, I think the tech has run it's course. It was a fun novelty. I use it, but wouldn't be heartbroken if i wasn't able to re-enable it in mine. There's been similar issues across all the Ford models, and with the chip shortage (or at least that's the excuse they're using), they're slowly removing it from their future vehicles.

I just went through the process again in our new 2023 Explorer ST. They started removing the module from the mid '22s and completely from the '23s. The funny part, they left a "dummy" module and the Capacitive sensor antennas in place. I replaced it with a real module and programmed it all back into the BCM. No issues so far. At this point it's a fun game to re-add all the features that Ford gets rid of. lol

 

[Mach-Lee]

that's right. i have a '23 (which lacks the kick sensor) and it opened the tailgate into my garage door one day. i had to disable the automatic lift gate entirely and now i have to open/close it by hand.

Wonder if it’s water intrusion shorting out the push button or the trunk module (RGTM). Water intrusion around the rear taillights is a known problem.

If water was shorting out the button, it would act like somebody was standing there pushing the button repeatedly. If the car was locked, it wouldn’t open until a fob or PAAK comes along.

 

[astrorob]

Wonder if it’s water intrusion shorting out the push button or the trunk module (RGTM). Water intrusion around the rear taillights is a known problem.

If water was shorting out the button, it would act like somebody was standing there pushing the button repeatedly. If the car was locked, it wouldn’t open until a fob or PAAK comes along.

that's a good question. the car has spent a couple of rainy days outside, but i'd say 95% of the time it's in the garage. it had been in the garage for a few days when this happened. the garage is pretty close to the living room so it's possible that we are triggering wakeups as we walk around with our phones. also the master bedroom is right over the garage and so same problem.

i haven't noticed any water dripping out when opening the tailgate, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. it wouldn't take a lot to short a switch.

i guess once the rainy season ends (will it ever end in northern ca?) i can re-enable the lift gate switch and see if it occurs again. it turns out if i pull in far enough into the garage, the tailgate will open without hitting the door. so i'll have to be careful to do that.

 

[i8iridium]

Wonder if it’s water intrusion shorting out the push button or the trunk module (RGTM). Water intrusion around the rear taillights is a known problem.

If water was shorting out the button, it would act like somebody was standing there pushing the button repeatedly. If the car was locked, it wouldn’t open until a fob or PAAK comes along.

There's actually a unused pin in the RGTM normally used for for vehicles that have an interior physical trunk button (Escape, Edge, Explorer, etc.). If that pin is shorted to ground, even with the vehicle locked and no FOB or PAAK present, it'll pop the hatch. So the water hypothesis is very viable.

 

[scoopman]

Well, it's not even Ford's system. It seems that all the components in Fords with hands free tailgates are made by Brose. Ford just integrates the controller to talk to the vehicle over the LIN bus. Moreover, I think the tech has run it's course. It was a fun novelty. I use it, but wouldn't be heartbroken if i wasn't able to re-enable it in mine. There's been similar issues across all the Ford models, and with the chip shortage (or at least that's the excuse they're using), they're slowly removing it from their future vehicles.

I just went through the process again in our new 2023 Explorer ST. They started removing the module from the mid '22s and completely from the '23s. The funny part, they left a "dummy" module and the Capacitive sensor antennas in place. I replaced it with a real module and programmed it all back into the BCM. No issues so far. At this point it's a fun game to re-add all the features that Ford gets rid of. lol

Many parts in modern vehicles are made by Tier I suppliers to automakers specifications, and then integrated into the vehicle.

Many other cars have kick to open hatches, but they don't fail as often as the system Ford integrated and shipped in the Mach E.

 

[Maquis]

that's right. i have a '23 (which lacks the kick sensor) and it opened the tailgate into my garage door one day. i had to disable the automatic lift gate entirely and now i have to open/close it by hand.

I’ve thought all along that the phantom hatch openings weren’t caused by kick-to-open. This adds some credence to my hypothesis.

 

[i8iridium]

I’ve thought all along that the phantom hatch openings weren’t caused by kick-to-open. This adds some credence to my hypothesis.

It's really not far fetched at all. The RGTM is located inside the rear hatch, and it can get water in it if there's a leak. I want to say it's below the tail light. It's been a while, so i don't remember specifically.

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