When towing a trailer with trailer brakes, the trailer brakes are tested and confirmed to be working at the beginning of the journey, but at some point during the journey, the trailer brakes will stop working with no indication compromising my stopping ability. This issues has occurred multiple time and can confirm there are no problems with the trailer brakes themselves. This same issue is being reported by multiple other 2021 F150 owners.
2021 Ford F-150 Hybrid electrical complaints
Page 3 of 3: complaints 41 to 44 of 44, newest first, as owners wrote them.
The trailer braking system on my new 2021 f150 powerboost malfunctions every once in a while. While towing my 27 ft airstream trailer the brakes will often stop working. They always work when I begin a trip, but then the brakes fail during the trip. I receive a notice when attempting to manually apply trailer brakes from inside the cab that the trailer is not recognized. Several other new f150 powerboost owners are experiencing the same issue and their experiences can be found on the f150gen14.com user forum. I have included a link to the forum thread. Https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/threads/trailer-brake-not-working.3039/ so far none of us have any success working with ford dealers. I have tried several and they are not helpful. I also called ford customer service but they could not find anything in their database indicating there is a problem. The only clue I've found so far, for my truck, has to do with the seven pin plug. We have tried two different testing devices and both show there is about a 6 second delay sending a signal to the ebrake pin. The other pins for lights fire immediately, but the ebrake pin has a delay. Others are looking at the brake module in the truck and other programming issues. As you can see from the user forum there are many theories and no solid solutions yet. I have had my airstream brakes inspected twice and they have not found anything out of the ordinary. This is a serious safety issue because a 7k lb trailer pushing you down a steep mountain with no brakes is terrifying. Someone is going to have a serious accident if ford does not take the issue seriously and find the cause.
Trailer brakes although operational at start of journey intermittently fail to operate some time thereafter at which point they stay failed. This happens without any warning or notice to the driver. All indications are that trailer is attached correctly e.g. vehicle self diagnosis of trailer lights shows lights operational and trailer connected. Operating the trailer brake via. dash brake controller either shows normal BUT no trailer braking occurs OR will show an error message "No Trailer Attached" but trailer attachment is verified through trailer lights shown (by truck) as operational. Safety implications of this should be obvious - no trailer brakes will force truck to stop truck+trailer combo using only the truck brakes, leading to drastically increased stopping distance or possibility of brake failure e.g. on long downhill stretch of road. Dealer is unable to reproduce the problem, has suggested changing brake controller (but really for lack of other ideas) and agrees that the physical fit/dimensions of the trailer plug itself seem poor quality compared to other trucks - possible cause? Other instances of owners experiencing this problem are documented in this forum thread: https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/threads/trailer-brake-not-working.3039
I purchased a new Hybtid 2021 Platinum Ford F-150 in March. On Wednesday, August 5th, I reported to Ford I received a warning light “your charging system required service soon.” Since I had the truck serviced one week before, I contacted the dealer and the earliest they could see me was next Tuesday. ( specialist has to work on the truck). Since I was out of town located in Boone, NC, I went to their local Ford dealer and reported my problem. The earliest they could see me was one week from now. I drove the truck for two days with no additional warning lights. I stopped the truck under a shade tree with the truck running (in electrical mode) to have lunch with my wife. I left the AC on and my dog in the truck. For safety reasons, I opened the passenger door to keep an eye on the dog since he had heart disease. About 20 minutes later I noticed my dog panting. I went into the truck and the AC was blowing hot air. The car’s battery charging system light was on and the battery light was on. I turned off the truck and put my dog in a cool location. Since the dog has end stage heart disease, I am confident my dog would not had survived in this hot weather if I did not catch this problem early. I restarted the truck, drove the truck around, the warning lights did not turn in and the AC worked fine. Since EV hybrid trucks can run indefinitely beyond 30 minutes with the user option to turn the generator pack turned on, there is absolutely no warning this type of issue can occur. I am sure users feel safe with having EV in a truck and confident of no failures, however, I did not see this ever happening. I believe animal and children can be at risk if left alone for a short period of time in this type of failure. In my case, I was only three feet away. Also, Ford specialist are hard to see and my dealer had no solution until the truck could be seen.
VIN decoder
See the problems and recalls for an exact car
Buying a used 2021 Ford F-150 Hybrid?
Check the exact car before you pay: accidents, salvage or flood titles, odometer readings and previous owners.
Check its history