BCM Updates, APIM Updates and Walk Away Lock Feature

[ChrisCon]

I'd like to see one picture of this, because I've not heard of it prior. I'm thinking this is disinformation.

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[Mike G]

Yeah, I forgot about getting the FP notices. I even get them on my watch.

 

[Sneakypetie78]

Are we sure that's on a lightning? I haven't heard one person speak of this, other than wishes....

 

[Mike G]

Hi guys, I’m only a month into this truck and want to understand. I thought updates just happened automatically (do I need to give the truck access to my Internet?). Where do you see this list of available updates? How do you monitor things like 12v battery ? Is there a list of all these acronyms?

I would love WAL, I start walking away and then have to turn back and press the buttons.

You can post your VIN to this thread to request a list of available updates for your truck in FDRS (Ford's software updater and diagnostic tool).

Theoretically, OTAs are supposed to arrive occasionally and provide enhancements and corrections for issues the engineers have discovered and the coders have patched.

However, due to the long and often tortuous 'process' that OTAs go through to simply get to your truck, many people don't see updates very often, and some just don't get them at all for a variety of reasons.

It's my understanding that the 12V battery status is available from the Ford owner's dashboard for your VIN. However, it is just a snapshot based on the last time your truck reported in to the cloud.

 

[Scorpio3d]

This is a long post so bear with me as i would really like your experiences,

I have been wanting to get the updates that add the Walk Away Lock feature with the on/off toggle and the battery percentage shown on the cluster without having to switch to the calm screen. I have researched this enough to know that the BCM has to have an FDRS for the WAL and Batt % and the APIM needs to be updated to version 1122 for the toggle to show up.

I made an appointment at the dealership this morning to have all of this done, I get there at 7AM and immediately start getting resistance from the service writer about updates that can take 4-5 hours. i was not taking no for an answer so he called in the service manager who tried to explain that updates are not covered under warranty and that i would have pay for these services. (this is the dealership I purchased the truck from) I advised him quickly that I paid for a service/maintenance contract when I bought the truck that was to cover any and all software updates for the life of the contract (5 years or 100K Miles) After hemming and hawing he agreed and said he would get it taken care of.

they gave me a ride home and within an hour so the SM called me to let me know that the tech had just connected to the vehicle and was going to start the updates but they wanted me to know that in order to install the lastest updates to the BCM, APIM and all other modules, there may be prerequisite updates needed that could create more issues. he referenced SSM #s: 52679, 52574, and 52039.

These SSM's warn that basically, updating these modules may actually "BRICK" the truck until another solution comes out from Ford or at least cause connectivity, charging and radio problems that truck does not currently have.

But...he said he would push it all through if I wanted them to, he just wanted me to be aware of the potential consequences. I obviously said hell no, I do not want you doing something to my truck you cannot fix. I have attached my request and the SSM info below.

This was going to be part of my 20K mile service visit. So I paid $1500 for a maint. contract that for this truck would cover, tire rotation and balancing (Discount tire will do this for free), Cabin air filters every 20K miles (a $20 filter) and software updates that in 21K miles they have not been able to push through. In addition to all of this, the week after I bought this truck, Ford started lowering the prices on these things by nearly $15K.

I really do love the truck, and aside from not being able to get updates for features I would like, i have had Zero issues thus far. everything has worked and performed as it should.

i am really mostly put off by the crappy dealers doing everything they can to get out of giving us the service we deserve on these trucks. if there are features available, EVRYONE should be able to enjoy them, not just the few that actually get regular OTA updates and have the features made available to them.

What are your experiences and have any of you ran into the issues noted in these SSMs?

Just to give you an update I did have something weird happen last night when I was taking my buddies computer back over to him! I stopped at the grocery store to pick something up and when I was leaving the screen froze with the back up camera showing a truck behind me. Not a big deal. I just stopped the truck and turned it off opened the door and the radio stayed on for 15 seconds or so and then finally powered down. Restarted the truck and everything was fine after that.

 

[Mike G]

Are we sure that's on a lightning? I haven't heard one person speak of this, other than wishes....

So you're basically saying that @ChrisCon and I are lying is that it?

 

[H8N-8NT-EZ]

- so there is one update that 2023s were/are locked out of, but we have been advised that it is an error on Ford's end that they even thought was fixed at one point . I have a 2022 so this did not affect me .
- In response to your original post , I currently have the SSM 52679 situation where I can't update my PCM because I ran that update day 1 before it was suspended . This has caused absolutely no negative effect on my truck, just means those modules are frozen at current software level until August .
- Can these updates brick your truck ? Can the dealer brick your truck ? Yes and yes but in my experience it's extremely unlikely as long as you have a good power supply / charger going to your 12v battery as you run the updates .
- actually using FDRS is as easy as reading and clicking yes and waiting. It's incredible that dealers can charge these huge prices to update vehicles when I could teach my great aunt Susan to use this software in 2 to 3 minutes and she passed away last year.
- edited to add : -- I think the dealer might have just been trying to scare you away with the information they shared with you . Also , do some updates take hours ? They do, but this is the work flow .
First minute- turn on computer , load software, sign in , turn on truck, hook up cable , hook up battery supply.
Second Minute - Read words on screen and click yes .
Next 180 minutes. Walk away from it and wait until it's done . In extremely involved scenarios you may have to turn your truck off and on a couple times when the computer tells you to . The dealer gets to bill out all those hours , so it seems like easy money and I'm surprised they are so resistant to do it .

This is all true, but you have to consider that the truck is taking up valuable stall space as you cannot hook up the 12V charger and FDRS computer in the parking lot. So while the truck is sitting in a bay, they cannot work on another vehicle in that bay. And you are asking the dealership to do this without getting paid by Ford to do it. If I was a service manager and had to prioritize installing updates that Ford isn't going to pay me for or put a vehicle in the stall that is going to get me paid I know what I am choosing.

Its not the dealer's fault.

 

[chl]

This is a long post so bear with me as i would really like your experiences,

I have been wanting to get the updates that add the Walk Away Lock feature with the on/off toggle and the battery percentage shown on the cluster without having to switch to the calm screen. I have researched this enough to know that the BCM has to have an FDRS for the WAL and Batt % and the APIM needs to be updated to version 1122 for the toggle to show up.

I made an appointment at the dealership this morning to have all of this done, I get there at 7AM and immediately start getting resistance from the service writer about updates that can take 4-5 hours. i was not taking no for an answer so he called in the service manager who tried to explain that updates are not covered under warranty and that i would have pay for these services. (this is the dealership I purchased the truck from) I advised him quickly that I paid for a service/maintenance contract when I bought the truck that was to cover any and all software updates for the life of the contract (5 years or 100K Miles) After hemming and hawing he agreed and said he would get it taken care of.

they gave me a ride home and within an hour so the SM called me to let me know that the tech had just connected to the vehicle and was going to start the updates but they wanted me to know that in order to install the lastest updates to the BCM, APIM and all other modules, there may be prerequisite updates needed that could create more issues. he referenced SSM #s: 52679, 52574, and 52039.

These SSM's warn that basically, updating these modules may actually "BRICK" the truck until another solution comes out from Ford or at least cause connectivity, charging and radio problems that truck does not currently have.

But...he said he would push it all through if I wanted them to, he just wanted me to be aware of the potential consequences. I obviously said hell no, I do not want you doing something to my truck you cannot fix. I have attached my request and the SSM info below.

This was going to be part of my 20K mile service visit. So I paid $1500 for a maint. contract that for this truck would cover, tire rotation and balancing (Discount tire will do this for free), Cabin air filters every 20K miles (a $20 filter) and software updates that in 21K miles they have not been able to push through. In addition to all of this, the week after I bought this truck, Ford started lowering the prices on these things by nearly $15K.

I really do love the truck, and aside from not being able to get updates for features I would like, i have had Zero issues thus far. everything has worked and performed as it should.

i am really mostly put off by the crappy dealers doing everything they can to get out of giving us the service we deserve on these trucks. if there are features available, EVRYONE should be able to enjoy them, not just the few that actually get regular OTA updates and have the features made available to them.

What are your experiences and have any of you ran into the issues noted in these SSMs?

I feel your pain.

I have experienced only the SYNC4 issues, audio drop-outs when playing music via BlueTooth, but not the others you mentioned.

I worked around the SYNC4 problem by:

1) using an FM transmitter device between my mp3 players and the FM radio (mine is an old iTrip) e.g., Zune and iPod, or portable XM tuner - but a lot of spaghetti wires so instead I decided to do (2):

2) formatted an SSD in exfat, put it in a USB enclosure, loaded all my music files onto it from my PC, and plaay it through the USB port in the Lightning (a 2023 Pro model).

I haven't needed a HV battery module replaced - hope I never do, fingers crossed. And I haven't had the first issue either.

I did have a sheet load of trouble getting a recent update. My LV battery never seemed to get up to a level where it would allow the updates to install.

I tried a lot of things, what worked was to plug in the Ford Charge Station Pro, turn on the truck in full drive mode, turn off pro power on board, turn off auto shut down, turn off lights, set charging for 90% after 1am (a close to 3-1/2hr process to 4:22am), set a custom update install for 4:30am, close and lock the truck, then go to bed...got up at 8:20am, unplugged truck from FCSP, changed time for updates to 8:30am, turned off truck and locked doors. By 9:15am the updates had been installed. However, my tires over-inflated:

According to the Ford Account Vehicle Dashboard...

A few bugs in the system, a HAL 9000?

 

[Sneakypetie78]

So you're basically saying that @ChrisCon and I are lying is that it?

Show me an F-150 Lightning screen with this option, and I'll take it back. Not Fordpass for an unnamed vehicle. Until then, I'll say I haven't seen it confirmed yet.

 

[chl]

This is all true, but you have to consider that the truck is taking up valuable stall space as you cannot hook up the 12V charger and FDRS computer in the parking lot. So while the truck is sitting in a bay, they cannot work on another vehicle in that bay. And you are asking the dealership to do this without getting paid by Ford to do it. If I was a service manager and had to prioritize installing updates that Ford isn't going to pay me for or put a vehicle in the stall that is going to get me paid I know what I am choosing.

Its not the dealer's fault.

Gee, what happened to the customer is always right?

Greed prevails over customer service now?

 

[ATXORIGINAL]

I feel your pain.

I have experienced only the SYNC4 issues, audio drop-outs when playing music via BlueTooth, but not the others you mentioned.

I worked around the SYNC4 problem by:

1) using an FM transmitter device between my mp3 players and the FM radio (mine is an old iTrip) e.g., Zune and iPod, or portable XM tuner - but a lot of spaghetti wires so instead I decided to do (2):

2) formatted an SSD in exfat, put it in a USB enclosure, loaded all my music files onto it from my PC, and plaay it through the USB port in the Lightning (a 2023 Pro model).

I haven't needed a HV battery module replaced - hope I never do, fingers crossed. And I haven't had the first issue either.

I did have a sheet load of trouble getting a recent update. My LV battery never seemed to get up to a level where it would allow the updates to install.

I tried a lot of things, what worked was to plug in the Ford Charge Station Pro, turn on the truck in full drive mode, turn off pro power on board, turn off auto shut down, turn off lights, set charging for 90% after 1am (a close to 3-1/2hr process to 4:22am), set a custom update install for 4:30am, close and lock the truck, then go to bed...got up at 8:20am, unplugged truck from FCSP, changed time for updates to 8:30am, turned off truck and locked doors. By 9:15am the updates had been installed. However, my tires over-inflated:

According to the Ford Account Vehicle Dashboard...

A few bugs in the system, a HAL 9000?

I have not had all of these problems. In fact, I have had no issues at all so far with this truck. I took it to the dealer and asked for some specific updates. They told me that pushing the updates I was requesting COULD cause all of these problems. In my opinion, it was a scare tactic because for whatever reason they do not want to do it. Well it worked as I was not going to take a chance on creating problems that did not exist nor that Ford has a solution for. Service after the sale is just non-existent these days.

 

[ChrisCon]

This is all true, but you have to consider that the truck is taking up valuable stall space as you cannot hook up the 12V charger and FDRS computer in the parking lot. So while the truck is sitting in a bay, they cannot work on another vehicle in that bay. And you are asking the dealership to do this without getting paid by Ford to do it. If I was a service manager and had to prioritize installing updates that Ford isn't going to pay me for or put a vehicle in the stall that is going to get me paid I know what I am choosing.

Its not the dealer's fault.

In the original poster's post , he paid for a service contract that included updates, so the dealership should be able to bill the service contract provider for the updates. Ford should also pay the dealers to do updates during the warranty period, but that's another story.. I'm with you though. I personally love my dealer, but there is no way they'd be installing updates for free for me (I also didn't pay for a service contract that included that )..

 

[Sneakypetie78]

Can anyone here show me they have auto lock on walk away, in their Lightning? Anyone?

 

[ChrisCon]

Are we sure that's on a lightning? I haven't heard one person speak of this, other than wishes....

- it's from my my phone on my truck . Private message me your phone number and I will text you a video of me with my truck (in the Hamptons , lol @ATXORIGINAL if that's what you were joking about before ) and my phone and you can watch me walk away from my truck in real time and the truck lock and the alert come up on my phone. I don't have the toggle on my center stack because o haven't had the UI update yet that enables the toggle as @MikeG mentioned in a previous post.

 

[maverick129]

Can anyone here show me they have auto lock on walk away, in their Lightning? Anyone?

I do. I took my truck in for some recall work and the dealer updated something. The toggle isn’t in sync, but it works well with PAAK. A feature I really wanted and glad I have it

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