Connectivity Dead - 2024 F-150 Lightning Lariat

[PrimeRisk]

It appears that connectivity in my '24 Lariat is dead. I can't connect to the vehicle through FordPass and in the vehicle I can get no connectivity, so Connected Nav, Streaming, Alexa, BlueCruise, etc are all down. If I try to connect to WiFi, it simply shows no networks in the list.

I have gone through the following steps to try to get it reset:

1) Cycled the "Connected Vehicle Features" in the menus.
2) Soft-reboot of Sync through holding Volume Down + Skip on the steering wheel
3) Hard-reboot of Sync through holding Volume Down + Skip on the steering wheel for 10 seconds, opening door, pressing lock, and closing door to get the double-honk / flash.

Nothing seems to get the connectivity working again. Any other ideas out there?

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[Tfarrell73]

Pull the 12 volt battery negative cable for a few mins

 

[Ford Motor Company]

It appears that connectivity in my '24 Lariat is dead. I can't connect to the vehicle through FordPass and in the vehicle I can get no connectivity, so Connected Nav, Streaming, Alexa, BlueCruise, etc are all down. If I try to connect to WiFi, it simply shows no networks in the list.

I have gone through the following steps to try to get it reset:

1) Cycled the "Connected Vehicle Features" in the menus.
2) Soft-reboot of Sync through holding Volume Down + Skip on the steering wheel
3) Hard-reboot of Sync through holding Volume Down + Skip on the steering wheel for 10 seconds, opening door, pressing lock, and closing door to get the double-honk / flash.

Nothing seems to get the connectivity working again. Any other ideas out there?

Hi there! If you send over a DM with your VIN and Ford dealer info, I can look into your concerns on my end.

 

[vsansal]

You might want to try a factory reset for the sync sync 4 system

https://www.ford.com/support/how-to.../how-do-i-perform-a-sync-masterfactory-reset/

 

[PrimeRisk]

Pull the 12 volt battery negative cable for a few mins

Ok, the battery reset seems to have restored service. The frustrating thing is why did is lock up and I'm not going to be very keen on doing that maneuver if it locks up again.

 

[TaxmanHog]

The telematics have on rare occasion locked up, a 12v pull has been a solution, hopefully you won't need a repeat.

 

[PrimeRisk]

The telematics have on rare occasion locked up, a 12v pull has been a solution, hopefully you won't need a repeat.

Yeah, I get it, but I have some PTSD from my 2015 Leaf that had a telematics lockup issue that was a bit more dramatic. It's particular lockup would prevent the modem from hanging up and it would continue to draw power leading to a completely flat battery in 5-6 hours. It had a battery even smaller than the Lightning. This resulted in a 9 month drama where on any random morning to go to work or afternoon to go home from work, I'd find the car completely immobilized.

The dealership kept beating around the bush claiming I must be doing something because as soon as it was jumped, the modem worked just fine and they could never reproduce the issue. They claimed I must be doing something to cause the battery to go dead. Online forums were reporting this issue and there was a firmware patch to address it, but the dealership said that the patch wouldn't come up for my VIN, so I must have a different part. I pushed and pushed, but they wouldn't even look at the part to see if it was the same.

My warranty included roadside assistance, so I forced them to start towing it to the dealership and they'd have to look at it and do diagnostics. This made them less than happy, but after the 5th time I told them to figure it out or I'd be calling a Lemon Law attorney. That finally got them off the dime to get to a higher level engineer at Nissan. The engineer confirmed that the patch did apply after he forced them to inspect the physical module. Once the patch was applied, it was fixed.

Nissan also paid to replace the two batteries it had killed over that time. (When I say it flattened the battery, it FLATTENED the battery)

In the end, it got fixed, but it was 9 months of not knowing if my car would work at any given moment and that really sucked.

 

[TaxmanHog]

That hasn't been an issue with Ford's, though we seen a brief spat TCU issues on early 2023 Lightnings, that problem was resolved with Manual & OTA updates and an extremely rare change of the modem. Hopefully the 2024's are better off.

 

[Maquis]

It’s been almost 2 years since I had this happen. Pulling fuse 27 (if I remember the number correctly) fixed it. Easier to do that the 12V disconnect.

 

[Etsquared]

It’s been almost 2 years since I had this happen. Pulling fuse 27 (if I remember the number correctly) fixed it. Easier to do that the 12V disconnect.

I thought it was fuse 32 or 34? Same results and I do think the SW has fixed the issues

 

[Maquis]

I thought it was fuse 32 or 34? Same results and I do think the SW has fixed the issues

Maybe….its been awhile.

 

[TaxmanHog]

 

[Maquis]

I thought it was fuse 32 or 34? Same results and I do think the SW has fixed the issues

I looked up pictures I took - definitely 32.

 

[roddiaz1]

PrimeRisk, are you sure you have absolutely no connectivity? I ask because I will go a few weeks without any connectivity and then Ford will do something (like an over the air update, new version of FordPass, etc.) and then I'll get connectivity for a few hours, then back to dead (no wifi, no youtube, no charge assistant, no FordPass app). When was the last time your FordPass was updated (mileage, tire pressure, state of charge, location)?

 

[PrimeRisk]

PrimeRisk, are you sure you have absolutely no connectivity? I ask because I will go a few weeks without any connectivity and then Ford will do something (like an over the air update, new version of FordPass, etc.) and then I'll get connectivity for a few hours, then back to dead (no wifi, no youtube, no charge assistant, no FordPass app). When was the last time your FordPass was updated (mileage, tire pressure, state of charge, location)?

Yes, I'm sure I was dead in the water for at least 4 days. I couldn't say how long it really was as we were on a trip and do know it was working the day we left (9/20).

I generally use Android Auto for nav/music/etc, but I do also use the onboard Alexa to run a few scripts in the house. I have one that shuts off all of the lights in and around the house as my family is forever leaving every light in the place on (yes, I realize I'm sounding like my father). I also have smart thermostats that are Alexa enabled so I can warm up/cool down the house when we're on the way home. I also have a script that will open or close my garage door on command if Tailwind is on the fritz. Oddly, of all of the built-in connectivity features in the Lightning, Alexa is the most used other than the Android Auto integration. Frankly, the only feature I will consider paying for once the trials end in 3 years.

We got home from a trip Wednesday afternoon (10/2) and we headed out to dinner and I tried to have Alexa run the light shutoff script and the response was Alexa didn't have network connectivity, try later. I didn't think much about it as those things happen and used my phone's Alexa app instead. Thursday I was on the highway and BlueCruise wouldn't engage. Not a huge deal as I think it's a huge POS anyway, but it wouldn't. At the time didn't even realize that BlueCruise will not work without network connectivity and that's now hitting me as a serious WTF as why would that tech need network connectivity at any time. Friday I started digging in and noticed that I couldn't see the charge state on FordPass nor could I remotely start the HVAC or lock/unlock. That's when I got into the truck in my driveway and poking through everything.

Can't get any charge stations to come up and Connected Nav would come up, but only with partial functionality. Funny how screen shows that the truck does have network connectivity, but I also can't get it to see any WiFi networks and in my driveway my phone can see about 15.

I started researching on how to soft reboot Sync and after that didn't work I resorted to digging into the hard reboot. All to no avail and through my searches on this forum I couldn't find any threads with this particular type of failure mode.

I guess my diagnostics should have included pulling the battery cable to reboot the entire truck. But in this day and age, are you kidding me? There should really be a more graceful way to reset modules other than unplugging the entire truck. At least I didn't have to resort to taking into a dealership as the closest one that is competent with the Lightnings is 25 miles away. The closer dealerships are completely incompetent as I've found out the very hard way.

A quirky side-effect of this issue, now that the vehicle is connected again, it appears to be that Ford is now going to terminate my BlueCruise trial a couple days early. I bought the truck on the 3rd of the month, so it follows that all of the trials will end on the 3rd of the month. BlueCruise trial now ends on 11/1.

Meh.

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