Mustang Mach-E 12V Software Recall FAQ

[atllauren]

Hi Lauren,

Hi Lauren, who is your dealer? I'll see if I can help out in the background to move it along.

Hi Brian from Ford! I would actually LOVE your help because I have had a pretty frustrating experience with the Dealer service. I was originally told the 48-72 quote was because the repair took that long to test/validate, but their story suddenly changed to that is how long it will be before a tech even looks at it. They got the car on Monday, didn’t touch it until Thursday afternoon.

They called me this morning and told me the software update bricked the car and now it won’t start. They don’t know how to fix it and are waiting for the Ford tech team to call them.

Hennessy Ford in Atlanta

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[Gimme_my_MME]

They called me this morning and told me the software update bricked the car and now it won’t start. They don’t know how to fix it and are waiting for the Ford tech team to call them.

Wow, your dealer had to really go out of their way to mess this one up that bad

 

[atllauren]

Wow, your dealer had to really go out of their way to mess this one up that bad

It’s really been kind of a comedy of errors. Idk if this is normal of Ford service or if my dealership is just bad. They were great to work with during the buying process but their service department is a mess. Hopefully I won’t need many future service visits during the rest of my lease, but I think I will try another dealership for next time.

 

[HuntingPudel]

When I looked at the FordPass app this morning it said I had an unread message. It was a message reminding me that I have an open safety recall on my 2024 and that I should take action on it. Too funny since officially there is no fix yet for the 2021-2024 cars.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

Hi Brian from Ford! I would actually LOVE your help because I have had a pretty frustrating experience with the Dealer service. I was originally told the 48-72 quote was because the repair took that long to test/validate, but their story suddenly changed to that is how long it will be before a tech even looks at it. They got the car on Monday, didn’t touch it until Thursday afternoon.

They called me this morning and told me the software update bricked the car and now it won’t start. They don’t know how to fix it and are waiting for the Ford tech team to call them.

Hennessy Ford in Atlanta

I'll get some more details from you via message. We'll get you sorted.

 

[tls]

Customer service does not appear to know how to solve these issues, instead referring me to a dealer. The dealer doesn't appear to know how to resolve these issues.

I have to say the worst - really the only bad! - part of my Ford EV experience, with 3 Ford EVs in our stable so far, has been customer service repeatedly urging me to take my car to the dealer for problems the dealer clearly cannot solve.

It would be good for Ford and its customers if there were internal escalation paths for certain kinds of problems that a dealer really can do nothing to diagnose or solve - software problems in particular.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

It would be good for Ford and its customers if there were internal escalation paths for certain kinds of problems that a dealer really can do nothing to diagnose or solve - software problems in particular.

1. There is.
2. Dealers are known to fib, stretch the truth, and be flat out wrong.

 

[nhlapc2]

I have to say the worst - really the only bad! - part of my Ford EV experience, with 3 Ford EVs in our stable so far, has been customer service repeatedly urging me to take my car to the dealer for problems the dealer clearly cannot solve.

It would be good for Ford and its customers if there were internal escalation paths for certain kinds of problems that a dealer really can do nothing to diagnose or solve - software problems in particular.

Hear Hear!!!

 

[nhlapc2]

1. There is.
2. Dealers are known to fib, stretch the truth, and be flat out wrong.

1. There is.

PLEASE TELL US HOW!!

I've spent many, many hours on the phone or emailing with the EV charge team just to figure out that my charger is defective (2nd one to be bad). Such an utter waste of time and the rep on the phone had no answers and constantly had to put me on hold and go talk to someone else. Why don't they just connect me with someone else. Such an awful experience, compounded by stuff that appears to be going on in this thread, Ford coming out all self-righteous saying that they know what the problem is about the lockouts and that there's a fix when in fact they don't know anything at all and have it dead wrong with my vehicle.

And here the dealers are calling me daily to try and get me to come and buy a new one. Why would I do that? In all fairness, my car drives like a banshee, handles incredibly well, is super comfortable and is otherwise a gas to drive (despite not having any gas). Though it ends there. Every other aspect of my experience with purchasing and owning this vehicle has been abysmal and here over 40,000, mi and many many years and software updates later and they still can't get this stuff right.

 

[Snakebitten]

I admit that I feel fortunate that the 4 Fords I currently own have been so well built by the manufacturer that I haven't been required to suffer the franchise dealership customer service shortcomings.

Although I do my own FDRS maintenance, along with things like oil changes and battery maintenance.

 

[tls]

1. There is.
2. Dealers are known to fib, stretch the truth, and be flat out wrong.

If there's an effective process for escalating software problem reports that does not involve demanding that customers waste their time and their dealers' time with pointless service visits, I have to say the Ford customer service team members I have spoken to on the phone appear to be entirely unaware of it.

Sure there are bad dealers, and sure they make plenty of trouble for customers and for Ford Motor Company both, but it's not fair to pin this particular problem on them.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Sure there are bad dealers, and sure they make plenty of trouble for customers and for Ford Motor Company both, but it's not fair to pin this particular problem on them.

On the contrary, not only is it fair, blaming dealers for their inability to escalate an issue is quite appropriate.

Ford dealers are well aware of how to escalate issues they may have with any car including the mme. They know the phone numbers for their Ford engineers, they know exactly who to talk to and they know the email addresses. There are Ford engineers lurking on this forum who routinely deal with dealerships in Hawaii having vehicle issues and that’s with a 6 hour time zone difference.

The problem is the dealer. Some dealers are good, some are mediocre, and some are so bad they can’t be bothered to do what’s right.

The root cause, imo, is the dealership model. Dealers are the most highly protected business by law in this country. They are even more protected than the airline industry was under the pre deregulation days, and that’s saying something. Anyone saying a manufacturer should just drop those franchises doesn’t understand just how strict all 50 states laws are.

While I quite understand the frustration, the process of forcing a dealer to fix something that is unquestionably broken and needs to be fixed is tedious and not quick.

In the case we’re discussing here, either the dealer hasn’t talked to the ford engineers, or they have and haven’t received an answer yet, or they don’t want to deal with it. If this continues, my personal recommendation would be to move it to another qualified dealer. Odds are really you, and others, aren’t on an island with only a single dealer.

 

[tls]

As a customer I am entirely disinterested in taking my vehicle into the dealer, wasting my time and theirs, to try to explain to them a problem with its software that cannot even be observed in the dealership location. How on earth could this be a reasonable process to ask customers or dealers to engage in?

If the customer is already on the phone with a Ford BEV team member and has detailed diagnostic information available that the dealership almost certainly is not equipped to gather (like network packet captures, for example, or screenshots of location-dependent misbehavior of the nav or driving automation features) what purpose is served by demanding that that customer take the vehicle to a dealer?

Spend as much text complaining about dealers as you like - surely many of them deserve it - but in this case I think it's irrelevant and am unlikely to be persuaded.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

what purpose is served by demanding that that customer take the vehicle to a dealer

Because in excess of 99% of customers are incapable of fixing their cars, particularly a Mach-e.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

Happy to report that, as of this today, the software update is now available for 21-24MY. You can now proceed to work with your local Ford Dealer to schedule a time for them to perform the update on your vehicle.

At this time, I don’t have any news to share regarding the timing of this being released as an over-the-air update, but when I do I will share it here.

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