Another Damaged Liftgate! Ford should be embarrassed...

[slambertr]

I was working in my office (above the garage) several months ago and heard the liftgate open on its own. Scratches? Yes. Disabled the kick-to-open and no repeats since. But I do miss the kick-to-open when hands full/rain....

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[Mach-Lee]

I’ve enabled it on my ‘22 and haven’t had a false activation yet. I also walk closely behind my car regularly with my PAAK in my pocket and it’s never opened. You have to very deliberately kick under it before it will open.

This could just be a bug in the BCM software that’s not at all related to hands-free.

 

[moparguy]

A fellow member graciously gave me this list of needed updates for my car:

VERY helpful and I'll discuss with my dealership.

I can't see the pic, are there any modules related to doors, fobs etc?

 

[MachGT]

I disabled the auto lift gate, and plan to replace the electric struts with standard gas ones.

 

[mkhuffman]

I disabled the auto lift gate, and plan to replace the electric struts with standard gas ones.

That is extreme! No power liftgate? Wow. I just turned off kick to open.

 

[MachGT]

Yeah, that thing drives me nuts. Also doesn't help that my garage height is very low and i use a bike rack a lot. So there's more risk to damaging the lift gate than convenience of automation.

 

[River Rat]

I also scratched the liftgate but was purely human error in my case. My wife didn't realize how high the liftgate opened and we were parked such that it opened right into the metal handle on the fully opened garage door. It resulted in one small but deep (can see metal) scratch to back liftgate panel. It's disappointing because the car is still pretty new (about 2 months old).

My question related to this is how people repair the scratch (if at all)? I asked a body shop and they quoted $460. They said they can't just spot treat but would have to completely repaint that whole panel including reattaching the pony emblem. I guess the alternative is touch up paint but, probably b/c I'm still in the honeymoon period with the car, I'm interested in getting a full repair. What do people usually do for small/deep scratches like this?

Stop fast when somebody tailgates

 

[Stormtrooper]

I can't see the pic, are there any modules related to doors, fobs etc?

Yes, all the door modules are showing updates available. I've shared this with my dealer and I'll take the car in next week sometime.

I'll update the thread after the trip to the dealer. Fingers crossed!

 

[moparguy]

Yes, all the door modules are showing updates available. I've shared this with my dealer and I'll take the car in next week sometime.

I'll update the thread after the trip to the dealer. Fingers crossed!

Man would be nice if @Ford Motor Company actually pushed those updates as they come or at least every so often instead of forcing us to pay a dealer out of pocket or go through what you and other did go through! last time I talked about this I got some of the Ford warriors here defend Ford to death, software updates MUST be pushed as they are out, because they are out for a reason!

I struggled to get the dealer update my wireless charing pad, so much time and back and forth wasted for something that was supposed to be updated as soon as an update became available!

 

[ThomF]

The car is parked < 1 foot away from my garage door, so there wasn't enough time to stop it before the liftgate made contact. Luckily, the liftgate isn't dented, but there are two deep scratches in the paint.

You can limit the travel of the liftgate easily. See the manual. I have done that to stop it before it hits my garage door. I then need to be a bit careful that I don't clunk my head on the lift gate, of course.

When I'm outside, I simply lift the door the rest of the way manually, which works fairly well (as long as I remember to do so before clunking my head!).

 

[George]

Could you be setting off the “foot activation” sensor by walking behind the car? I back into my garage so it isn’t an issue, but if I have to pull into a garage, I make sure to turn that feature off.

I don't understand how to turn off just the foot activation feature. It seems to me that the only option to turn the auto-lift feature off is to turn it off completely. This would render the auto-lift from the fob, app, inside car, and the trunk button useless. All we could do is to use the button to unlock the rear hatch. Question to the poster of this message: Is there a way to actually turn off JUST the foot activation? Otherwise, we'd be deactivating a very useful feature that we paid for, and should be able to use without fear of the frunk getting significantly scratched when it open into the garage door.

 

[Stormtrooper]

You can limit the travel of the liftgate easily. See the manual. I have done that to stop it before it hits my garage door. I then need to be a bit careful that I don't clunk my head on the lift gate, of course.

When I'm outside, I simply lift the door the rest of the way manually, which works fairly well (as long as I remember to do so before clunking my head!).

See the 2nd response in this message:
https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...-ford-should-be-embarrassed.22452/post-525924

Your suggestion would mean that I set my hatch to barely open to the point of not being able to even get into it. Look at how close the garage door is to the hatch in the 1st post picture. The length of my garage forces me to park that close to the garage door.

 

[Cuddlecool]

I also scratched the liftgate but was purely human error in my case. My wife didn't realize how high the liftgate opened and we were parked such that it opened right into the metal handle on the fully opened garage door. It resulted in one small but deep (can see metal) scratch to back liftgate panel. It's disappointing because the car is still pretty new (about 2 months old).

My question related to this is how people repair the scratch (if at all)? I asked a body shop and they quoted $460. They said they can't just spot treat but would have to completely repaint that whole panel including reattaching the pony emblem. I guess the alternative is touch up paint but, probably b/c I'm still in the honeymoon period with the car, I'm interested in getting a full repair. What do people usually do for small/deep scratches like this?

Same exact liftgate-meets-garage-door scenario for me a month after I bought my MME last year. (Doh! That hurt.) Same story from the body shop when I took it in for minor road damage repair that was covered by insurance a few weeks later. (That was over $1000.) They gave me a small bottle of the Rapid Red they had mixed up, which I used to touch up the scratch on the liftgate. I can still tell where the scratch was, but probably no one else would notice if I didn’t point it out to them. I’ve touched up a few rock chips on the nose with it since then; they are still visible too, if I look closely.

 

[BilLongua]

My typical morning commute to work routine is to open the right rear door and put my briefcase in the back seat. One recent morning, when I pushed the door button, the door and liftgate simultaneously opened!

The car is parked < 1 foot away from my garage door, so there wasn't enough time to stop it before the liftgate made contact. Luckily, the liftgate isn't dented, but there are two deep scratches in the paint.

This happened the morning after I had the car at the dealer to address a series of strange behaviors (center screen rebooting several times during a trip, the front and rear cameras sometimes staying on while driving, AWD temporarily not available messages, etc., etc.).

My dealer is very responsive and they are at a loss as to what to do also. I do not fault them at all as they are trying. I am to take it back in for them to look over, but needless to say this is very aggravating and I'm doubtful that Ford can address the issue.

In the meantime, see the attached picture for my solution. This not the type of experience that MME owners should have. I shouldn't have to explain to my friends why I have a piece of foam taped to my garage door.

I have an early build (Nov. 20) and I expected minor bugs and issues out of a first year car. However at 16 months and ~ 22K miles of ownership later, I never expected these types of issues.

One last rant - I also thought I'd have a functional frunk by now.

I had a lot of weird stuff happen after the first OTA earlier this year. The Frunk would pop when I tried to close my windows from the app. The rear hatch also opened on me at one point, but I don’t recall the circumstances. The car was outside and just sitting open for hours. I ended up getting a new phone and had to reconnect all the PAAK stuff and it was glitchy until the latest updates. Seems to have settled down now.

 

[mkhuffman]

I don't understand how to turn off just the foot activation feature.

There is an option to turn off kick-to-open. If you can't find it in the menu, let me know and I will look. But it is there.

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