50k and still going

[TRP]

Thought I'd give an update on SallE as she passes 50k.

Purchased July 2021 as a demo with 2000 miles on her. This was before all the hype and widespread ADM, so I was able to get $1000 under MSRP at that time. Not bad, IMHO.

Issues and hardware that has failed/been replaced
Front motor--before I purchased
Glass roof--again before I purchased, believe this happened at delivery
HVBJB failure--down for a week waiting on parts. Happened in dealers hands during the 20k service
Battery Control Module--at same time as HBVJB, dealer replaced both
New tires--at the 50k service interval, actually completed at 48k due to leaky tire and scheduling
Bugs/Glitches--pretty much have had them all at one time or another. Frustrating, absolutely. Was even on the brink of selling and getting something else. Finances and a bit of a waiting period cooled that idea. I figure at this stage of the game all brands are going to have their software issues so no point in trading one set of problems for another. Grass is not always greener, so to speak.
Shutter assembly and radiator--Took a chunck of tire to the grill and had to get those parts replaced. Insurance and Ford body shop took care of it. Less than $2k total

I'm in the EA so I've had all the updates currently available and all of them have been OTA. Have not had to get the dealer to push any of them. Probably in the minority here.

PAAK user exclusively. Probably 98-99% effective for me. Had to reinstall a few times early on but may have been due to user error more than anything else.

Very satisfied with the car. Still a bit frustrated with the software bugs but I figure it is what it is at this stage of the game. My plan is to drive her for another 3-4 years and see what's available in the EV world at that time. With my current driving habits I'll be at 100-150k at that time.

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[Ghost Ryder]

Glad you're enjoying your car. But it's really unacceptable to have this many malfunctions at 50k. Ford needs to do better.

 

[SnBGC]

Glad you're enjoying your car. But it's really unacceptable to have this many malfunctions at 50k. Ford needs to do better.

I don't think this is the norm though. For example, I have only had to change my windshield 4 times so far. Not anything that Ford can control....it's just Arizona roads IMO. In my 64k miles, I did have an axle seal replaced on the front motor but it wasn't leaking bad....just weeping oil and getting things messy looking.

I also have experienced several dozen software glitches with convenience items but the critical systems have been rock solid. Car has always started and got me where I needed to be. Am still enjoying the car quite a bit.

 

[Ghost Ryder]

I don't think this is the norm though. For example, I have only had to change my windshield 4 times so far. Not anything that Ford can control....it's just Arizona roads IMO. In my 64k miles, I did have an axle seal replaced on the front motor but it wasn't leaking bad....just weeping oil and getting things messy looking.

I also have experienced several dozen software glitches with convenience items but the critical systems have been rock solid. Car has always started and got me where I needed to be. Am still enjoying the car quite a bit.

I surely hope that your case is the norm. So far at 16k, I have a bunch of software glitches. My PAAk doesn't work on my phone anymore after working for 14k miles. I get the drive mode unavailable bug almost daily now since the last update.

At this point, I wish Ford would stop doing OTAs because it seems to break more things. The new UI is nicer, but not worth it if it introduces all these bugs.

 

[SnBGC]

I surely hope that your case is the norm. So far at 16k, I have a bunch of software glitches. My PAAk doesn't work on my phone anymore after working for 14k miles. I get the drive mode unavailable bug almost daily now since the last update.

At this point, I wish Ford would stop doing OTAs because it seems to break more things. The new UI is nicer, but not worth it if it introduces all these bugs.

I hope so too. The first dozen or so OTAs always has some undesirable consequence but the last several have been consequence free as far as I can tell. I hope that continues to be the case.

 

[TRP]

Glad you're enjoying your car. But it's really unacceptable to have this many malfunctions at 50k. Ford needs to do better.

Not gonna argue that point, I agree with you.

Now to be fair, all the mechanical issues have been related to the electric drive components. First year of production and an early build as well, 12/20, can explain some of it. Its not great but Ford has taken care of things quickly for me and for that I'm thankful.

The glass roof was damaged when it came off of the transport at the selling dealer. Who's to blame for that, I dunno, stuff happens I guess

 

[Ghost Ryder]

Not gonna argue that point, I agree with you.

Now to be fair, all the mechanical issues have been related to the electric drive components. First year of production and an early build as well, 12/20, can explain some of it. Its not great but Ford has taken care of things quickly for me and for that I'm thankful.

The glass roof was damaged when it came off of the transport at the selling dealer. Who's to blame for that, I dunno, stuff happens I guess

It's an EV, are there mechanical components other than electric drivetrain? I guess suspension, but Ford also had problems with that.

I hope Ford succeed, but they really need to be more thorough before releasing a product, and if they find a problem, fix correctly and quickly. It's the only way to build trust and loyalty.

 

[azerik]

At 25k my job one is headed in for many of the same issues you've already handled. My car came from Cali and it appears the dealer just rotated the tires and checked off fluids every time it was in. I inherited 1st year issues, which I had hoped had been handled in it's 2 years on the road, guess not.

 

[TRP]

It's an EV, are there mechanical components other than electric drivetrain? I guess suspension, but Ford also had problems with that.

I hope Ford succeed, but they really need to be more thorough before releasing a product, and if they find a problem, fix correctly and quickly. It's the only way to build trust and loyalty.

My biggest complaint honestly is with the software. Seems as if with every new release something else breaks and it takes too long to fix, if it ever gets addressed.

Software is the reason I almost traded it off late last year, then I elapsed that with all the new EVs on the market, software was the biggest issue across the board. So decided not to trade a set of problems off for another set of the same problems.

In 3-5 yrs who knows where the EV world will be, but hopefully software is not the biggest issue still

 

[azerik]

Thing with Ford you need to realize is they're trying too hard to use the same software and hardware across several platforms. The Mach-E mini display is also in the Volvo c40', using virtually the same software with different cars and buttons, then also using that and pieces of it in the F150, and the Bronco, and anything else using Sync4(a). But it appears they don't do much testing when they do roll the updates. So works in 1 car with this module, might not work in another car with a different module or different software in that module. They're figuring out OTA opens more cans of worms than fixes them. Tesla has 4 cars. Maybe 4 different versions of hardware. It's a much smaller and slightly simpler way of managing it. Sync4a across Ford, Lincoln, Volvo (I'm sure some others) across each car line, across each module versions, across each module software version. It's a nightmare as the developers are under pressure to push out new things, they don't test that old things broke. They couldn't mock up this amount of testing with out some serious effort and $ for hardware virtualization in automated testing. But investing that money could well save their asses later.

 

[Hammered]

I surely hope that your case is the norm. So far at 16k, I have a bunch of software glitches. My PAAk doesn't work on my phone anymore after working for 14k miles. I get the drive mode unavailable bug almost daily now since the last update.

At this point, I wish Ford would stop doing OTAs because it seems to break more things. The new UI is nicer, but not worth it if it introduces all these bugs.

Suspension issue causing the drive mode? That's a software patch fix.

 

[Blue highway]

I don't think this is the norm though. For example, I have only had to change my windshield 4 times so far. Not anything that Ford can control....it's just Arizona roads IMO. In my 64k miles, I did have an axle seal replaced on the front motor but it wasn't leaking bad....just weeping oil and getting things messy looking.

I also have experienced several dozen software glitches with convenience items but the critical systems have been rock solid. Car has always started and got me where I needed to be. Am still enjoying the car quite a bit.

20K miles, zero failures outside of software gremlins... June 2021 build.

 

[Ghost Ryder]

Suspension issue causing the drive mode? That's a software patch fix.

Software patch is only for 2021 MME. Mine is a 2022. I actually took it to the dealership and they claimed it was related to the HVBJB recall. What can I say to that?

 

[Hammered]

Thing with Ford you need to realize is they're trying too hard to use the same software and hardware across several platforms. The Mach-E mini display is also in the Volvo c40', using virtually the same software with different cars and buttons, then also using that and pieces of it in the F150, and the Bronco, and anything else using Sync4(a). But it appears they don't do much testing when they do roll the updates. So works in 1 car with this module, might not work in another car with a different module or different software in that module. They're figuring out OTA opens more cans of worms than fixes them. Tesla has 4 cars. Maybe 4 different versions of hardware. It's a much smaller and slightly simpler way of managing it. Sync4a across Ford, Lincoln, Volvo (I'm sure some others) across each car line, across each module versions, across each module software version. It's a nightmare as the developers are under pressure to push out new things, they don't test that old things broke. They couldn't mock up this amount of testing with out some serious effort and $ for hardware virtualization in automated testing. But investing that money could well save their asses later.

Tesla really has 1 car currently. Once they streamlined for the 3's mass manufacturing, its parts are now found in all of them. Motors, inverters, computer, etc.... It's the same hardware in all of the cars. I believe even the semi is using the 3's motors and thus inverter, computer and so on.

Ford on the other hand has dozens of vehicles. The lightning has 1 motor, MME has 2, there's at least 3 electric motors shared across their hybrids and PHEVs with a dozen ICE engines. There's 10 or 11 unique HVBs. They've started to at least share the sync 4 IPMA across as many of the platforms as they can, which isn't really saying much as its CPU/GPU suck major azzz (galaxy s7 cell phone).

Now that's no excuse, ford has made their parts bin overly complex. There should be ONE motor between the lightning and the MME and ONE inverter. That would have simplified the parts chain going from 3 motors and 3 inverters down to 1 motor and 1 inverter. They were at least smart enough to use the MME's motor and inverter for the e-transit. Their ICE motors make no sense. They've got 10 turbo'd engines currently in production, not counting the larger diesels, plus several n/a versions. Poor decision after poor decision.

 

[Hammered]

Software patch is only for 2021 MME. Mine is a 2022. I actually took it to the dealership and they claimed it was related to the HVBJB recall. What can I say to that?

Wow, is it the suspension fault though that's killing the drive modes? Do you have FDRS or some other means to look at all DTCs?

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