Winter is Coming! How to get the most out of your Mach-E's climate control system

[dj_stang]

The automatic heated seat feature seems to be broken or not as smart as it comes off. I actually quite enjoy and appreciate it on the driver’s side, but leaving the passenger heated seat on auto will go ahead and heat the passenger seat even when no one is sitting in the seat.

And YES, before all the Henry Ford descendants pile on in the replies, the car is WELL AWARE that no one is sitting in the passenger seat or else it would be beeping non-stop. Seems like a very basic logic check is missing in the heated seat “auto” setting.

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[Mach-Lee]

Pretty sure my piece of shit of a tesla model 3 doesn't have any physical button for this. how sure are you that this is a federal requirement?

Well, to clarify this is why: https://www.greencarreports.com/new...display-issues-after-pressure-from-regulators

Because Tesla decided to put the defroster/defogger button and other climate controls on the screen, rather than using physical buttons, a screen failure falls into the safety domain. Other infotainment functions such as audio, navigation, or phone connectivity aren't considered a critical safety issue meriting a recall.

Having a physical defrost button avoids the need for a NHTSA safety recall if the screen were to blank or freeze while driving, otherwise it would be necessary like what happened to Tesla there. That would save Ford tons of money. There must have been serious doubts about the reliability of SYNC 4A software or screen hardware which promoted the addition of a physical defrost button to mitigate that liability.

 

[Odmark91]

Press the defrost button on the display. Emergency solved. Easy peasey, lemon squeezey.

But, seriously. I have never, ever had a defrost "emergency" in the billions of years I have been driving. And have a screen failure at the exact same time? Anything is possible, but I don't need the government protecting me from every bad thing that could possibly happen, no matter how remote the possibility. Some people might need it, I don't.

All it does is make the car less convenient, and cost more. I bet Ford would have put the hatch button where I have mine now if they were not ordered to do put a duplicate max defrost button there by the almighty government.

I have never ever had a defrost "emergency" while driving either until i got my Mach-E, this car fogs up ALL THE TIME. Starting the last month or so when temperatures started to drop, on my way to work wich is about 22 miles, i have to turn on max defrost at least once, even though i always pre heat the cabin.
Last weekend i drove on a longer journey for about 750 miles and i dont even recall how many times i needed to use the max defrost, but it was a lot.

 

[Mrn]

Electrek.co: Mainstream news doesn’t understand mainstream EV range.
https://electrek.co/2022/11/14/mainstream-ev-range/

Good article on EV range maximizing.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

I didn't know the volume control knob was able to do other things. Will have to try it.

If you long press it, it activates a screen saver of a type. Not particularly useful, but there you go.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

seriously. I have never, ever had a defrost "emergency" in the billions of years I have been driving

I was trying to imagine a scenario and just couldn't come up with one. One where pulling out an ice scraper was not an option. Particularly because I've never seen a car's defrost work faster than scraping.

 

[21st Century Pony]

Press the defrost button on the display. Emergency solved. Easy peasey, lemon squeezey.

But, seriously. I have never, ever had a defrost "emergency" in the billions of years I have been driving. And have a screen failure at the exact same time? Anything is possible, but I don't need the government protecting me from every bad thing that could possibly happen, no matter how remote the possibility. Some people might need it, I don't.

All it does is make the car less convenient, and cost more. I bet Ford would have put the hatch button where I have mine now if they were not ordered to do put a duplicate max defrost button there by the almighty government.

Displays do fail at times. Mine has, twice, during long road trips. It came back both times by itself, but once it took 2 hours.

"Failed" = failed to display changing information.

This also happened once - for a week+ period - on my 2015 Ford Fusion. THAT failure made me realize how many functions are bottle-necked thru the display on modern cars. HVAC, charging (that Fusion was an Energi), navigation, and others.

I am now a fan of safety-related driving controls being manipulable by hard controls vice soft controls.

And on a larger point... without governments and taxes, there would be no civilization, rule of law, etc, etc.

 

[generaltso]

We don’t have most current software and both me and my wife have gone to raise volume and instead it increased fan speed.

You must have accidentally hit the fan button while turning the volume knob. If you're saying that the volume knob controlled the fan speed, please take a video of that happening.

 

[21st Century Pony]

One subtle video detail I just noticed: the headlight control knob shown includes the rear fog light on / off control (the symbol in the center of the headlight function ring), just like my Europe-sourced headlight control dash module. I got it for my ongoing project to add a rear fog light to my MME. This rear fog light on / off button controls the rear fog light by push.

 

[Maquis]

I was trying to imagine a scenario and just couldn't come up with one. One where pulling out an ice scraper was not an option. Particularly because I've never seen a car's defrost work faster than scraping.

When driving old, air-cooled VWs, scraping the inside of the windshield while driving was pretty normal.

 

[Scooby24]

It's a shame we don't yet have a precondition option prior to DC Fast charging.

 

[ToRue]

Winter is coming! Here's how to get the most out of your Mustang Mach-E's climate control system:

Well, well, well. I really hope to get once the update allowing me to use all the stuff described in the vid. But: Up to now: No OTA-Update at all, @Ford Motor Company

 

[Rabidsquirrel22]

They really need to add a "precondition on demand" option to FordPass. I work from home and have no kids to drop off at school, so I have no routine departure times.

Having to quickly schedule a departure time, hope it was early enough for the vehicle to act upon it, and then delete it later really sucks.

It seems like such a basic feature to have an on demand option right under remote start. But then again, having the vehicle display its DC charging speed is also a basic feature and here we are 2 years later still waiting on that....

 

[RicoSuave1911]

This YouTube channel is from Ford of Canada. This is perhaps why the knob functions in the video doesn't work for some of us. (Just tried on mine)

 

[generaltso]

This YouTube channel is from Ford of Canada. This is perhaps why the knob functions in the video doesn't work for some of us. (Just tried on mine)

They haven't gotten the update in Canada either. The new version will presumably come on 2023 models and roll out to earlier models eventually.

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