The vehicles electronic systems all seem to be going haywire. Towing alerts are given when not actual or sometimes not even towing. Backup camera is on/off when backing up then touch screen does not function for several minutes after backup camera was on. Towing and backup camera malfunctions affect driver safety and vehicle accident prevention. The problem has not been looked at and/or repaired by dealer as I'm investigating what the issue 'may be' (first indication is APIM module???) No OEM or Police inspections performed Started winter/spring 2022 and have gotten worse. First signs were Trailer Warning alerts then progressed with GPS and backup camera outages. Now none of vehicles electronics seem to be function at or even NEAR 100 percent effective.
2018 Ford F-150 electrical complaints
Page 5 of 7: complaints 101 to 130 of 173, newest first, as owners wrote them.
While driving 5mph 5 minutes after starting the truck, the truck caught on fire and burst into flames after stalling out.
Backup camera failed/does not show anything on dash screen. Cannot see behind me when backing up. The dealer service center confirmed the failure and ordered a new wiring harness at my cost of $450.00. The dealer said the wiring harness for the camera needs to be replaced. The camera worked sporadically and then failed. There is now a message on my dash screen saying the camera does not work.
My truck has an automatic start-stop feature. About twice a month, when I am at a stop and the auto stop shuts down the engine, the whole truck will shut down. I will then have to put the transmission into park, turn the key to off and then restart the truck. A warning light comes up on my front display which says Auto StartStop Shift to P, then Restart Engine. The A with the arrow around it is in orange. This has caused me many issues in traffic and I have been close to getting rear ended on multiple occasions because of it. I have had it to the dealer, Haldeman Ford of Kutztown, on 5 different occasions over the past 6 months and it is still not resolved. The dealership has replaced the battery, did a system reboot and replaced the starter. I have shown them pictures and videos of it happening. They put a computer scanner on my truck that I had to use to record when it happened which I did. They were also able to experience it themselves during one service appointment. My first service appointment was 3.14.2022
I put the truck in park and left it idle with the air conditioning on for a passenger got out to go do something for a few minutes and the truck just started have flames come out of it from the middle of the truck until the truck completely burned the fire started with the truck running and idling and the the truck was parked on gravel
After starting the vehicle, at any time in under a minute the vehicle's engine will randomly shut off and display a message on the instrument cluster "Auto StartStop, Shift to P then Restart Engine". A photo of this message is included in this report. This issue can occur while in Park, Reverse, Neutral, or Drive. I have had it randomly occur to me upwards of 40 occasions over the past 3 years. A few times I have actually been driving at a slow speed (below 10 mph) when the engine stopped. So far for me, it seems to only happen when the engine RPM's are below 1500 or so. It feels like the engine shakes and then shuts off, then the dash chimes and displays the message mentioned above. I follow the instructions; I turn the ignition off, shift to Park, and restart the engine. Sometimes it starts back up fine and I am able to drive away. Other times the engine shuts off almost instantly and I have to try many, many times (10 to 20) to finally get the engine to stay on so I can drive it. If the engine were to stop while I was making a turn in a busy intersection or on a busy roadway, it would no doubt cause an accident and could be serious or even fatal since I would be unable to move. I have had this looked at by my local Ford Dealer Service shop and they have been unable to replicate the issue. I am not surprised by this since this appears to be random. They have told me to shut off my Auto Start/Stop feature and that is all they did. I have not had this issue looked at by Ford, police, or insurance since thankfully so far it has not occurred in an accident. The only warning message that appears is the "Auto StartStop, Shift to P then Restart Engine" on the cluster. I have not noticed and symptoms that result in this issue so far. This issue first appeared January 2020. Note: This has NOTHING to do with the Auto Start/Stop feature of the vehicle. I have had this issue occur when the Start/Stop feature is active and when it is disengaged.
There wasnt an incident yet, but it was made a law that after may 1st, 2018, all new vehicles need rear view visibility systems. Ford made their vehicles have backup cameras, but they are faulty and stop working. Then charge consumers thousands of dollars to fix a safety issue that should be a recall, free of charge. I am filing a complaint om behalf of thousands and thousands of Ford owners. This law went into effect may 1st of 2018, According to USDOT and the federal safety agency. What ford is doing is wrong/unlawful and they should have to follow the law just like everyone else (even being an automobile company).
Engine doesn’t start when turning the key. When taking the key out and reinserted the engine starts. Auto stop start failure light displayed on dash while idling at a a stop light. Had to turn the ignition off and on several time while at the light. Vehicle has not been reported to the manufacturer or inspected yet. Vehicle is available for inspection upon request.
After towing a trailer for a few hours, the truck has difficulty cranking over after the truck has been turned off for refueling. It seems like the battery or alternator are bad, but I have had both checked and they are in good shape. This only happens when pulling a trailer. This has happened multiple times. The safety concern is being stranded on a road trip. Others have this issue on the 2018 f150 as well. I have read about this. Some have said a wire is overheating.
At 9,000 miles the oil ran dry in the engine. No warning lights came on. The vehicle had routine oil change at 5,000 miles. I was stranded on the road with no transportation. After several oil consumption test Ford agreed to replace the motor with a long block. After 1,000 miles on the second motor the oils was over 2 quarts low on oil. Ford remedy was a longer dipstick with wider oil range. After two oil consumption tests Ford change the motor again with short block. After 20 miles the one of the heads went bad. Ford replaced one head. After 75 miles the vehicle stopped running and is in the shop again. The vehicle has been in the shop for over 6 weeks at a time. I have requested a buy back twice.
The F150 will stall when auto start/stop activates. This is a critical safety issue due to the vehicle becoming inoperable at intersections while stopped. The issue was reviewed several times by the dealership and issue persisted. The issue is still not repaired and mitigated by deactivating the system. This resulted in a lemon law lawsuit from me to ford with me winning a settlement for 8K dollars. However, this dangerous issue must be properly repaired. I am able to demonstrate this issue upon request. I have also have video of the incident with warning lights that activate.
Vehicle was inspected by the dealership and Ford inspector. VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL RELATED PROBLEMS OF THE 2018 Ford F-150. Backing up to an elevated driveway on a residential street. Braking at 0 mph and the vehicle accelerated at a speed which crashed the front end of the neighbor’s car parked at the top of the driveway. Those neighbors have two small children which play on that driveway and would have been killed. The neighbor heard the brakes screeching. I did not have my foot on the accelerator. This incident was reported to the police, the dealership and Ford which inspected the vehicle. They claim they did not find a problem, but there are a multitude of similar issues online. I received an recall email from the federal safety agency today, March 22, 2022 which I was convinced was FORD and the federal safety agency resolving this issue because the federal safety agency information (in its brevity) seemed similar to what happened with our F-150. However, the federal safety agency Campaign number 22V150000, recall number 22S11. However, our F-150 is a 5.0L engine.
The vehicle I am writing about is 2018 F150 equipped with the 2.7L eco boost and the 10 speed transmission. The vehicle came standard with the auto-stop start feature. I however do not like the system to I press the “stop/start button” to turn off the system. The vehicle has appx 53,000 miles on it I had been driving for approximately 10 minutes and had made several stops without incident. I however came to approximately the 6th stop and the engine of the truck shit off completely, oil pressure indicated zero with a battery discharge light. The center screen displayed the message “auto stop start, shift to P, then restart engine”. I shifted to park and was able to restart. Although I was at a stop I worry if the vehicle is capable of shutting down randomly like this while in motion. This was not a routine shut down of the auto stop start system. I understand that this is anecdotal, but Ford F-150 owner forums online are filled with similar complaints of 2018-2020 F150s with the auto stop start system displaying the same message and having similar shut downs. I will be taking the vehicle to a Ford dealership for evaluation. However this is an issue that warrants attention and a TSB by Ford needs to be developed.
On Jan 1st-I was returning to SE Michigan from Cincinnati and driving thru rain most of the way back that has turned to snow shortly after I crossed into Michigan. I was on M23 doing about 70MPH just south of I96 interchange (Brighton, MI) when my vehicle shuddered three different times in about a minute for maybe 2-3 seconds. Then a warning light flashed on my dashboard and went off before I could read it. Then it appeared again and flashed off again. Then vehicle shuddered again and my entire dashboard lit up with every warning light seemingly possible and all type of warning/error messages started circling thru main dash info center. My engine turned off and I had no power steering, brakes, etc. I pulled off to the side of the road safely but in a very congested area with left & right merging lanes. I shut engine off and waited 5 minutes and turned it back on and proceeded the test of the 30 minutes home w/o incident. I haven't had the issue since. However, I went online and saw numerous reports of other situations from F150 owners-most seemed to be a one time occurrence. Others, it was constant or would happen at specific speeds. Unfortunately, most don't report these incidences. I had an appt scheduled to run codes but had to reschedule and had it in this morning for a tailgate issue (separate recall issue). While I was able to get it to the side of the road, had my 17 year old daughter been driving this, it could have been a very unfortunate incident (new driver, petite girl with limited strength to turn or compress brakes with no power assist to either or panicking with no experience in such a situation). This needs to be investigated due to numerous complaints/reports on online forums.
The A/C unit does not blow hot or cold. This seems to be a common problem for years with a lot of the FORD F-150 based on a lot youtube videos. No one can seem to understand where the problem is originating from. When I got it diagnosed that they suspected the grounding wire is exposed and touching metal at some point in the system. Overall, I think electrical wire that is not working can have a knock on effect to other parts of the car system.
The passenger side door would not lock. The door appeared to be closed, but when I drove about 300 feet, the door flew open. I had to keep hitting the lock button and slam the door closed before the door actually locked. The outside temperature was 22 degrees Fahrenheit. This happened to me one another time, also when the outside temperature was below freezing.
The contact owns a 2018 Ford F-150. The contact stated that while driving approximately 45 mph when the vehicle's side air bags on the driver-side, front and rear, suddenly deployed without impact. The contact then noticed that a small fire had sparked on the floorboard near their feet. The contact had pulled over to the side of the road where an observer was able to retrieve a fire extinguisher from their home and put out the fire. The contact was unable to verify if a fire report was made. There were no injuries. The vehicle was towed to the dealer who had not diagnosed or repaired the vehicle as of yet. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 55,000.
I was driving and as I came to a stop I lost all power and engine shut off. Received an error message to put vehicle in park and restart engine.
my tailgate opened on its own while i was pulling a trailer and the tailgate got all scratched up . This isn't the first time its opened on its own .ford had put an update on the truck after the first time that was supposed to resolve the issue . I took it back to the dealer and they looked it over and said they can't find any problems now. i don't feel they were being honest in there assessment or did they look very hard to fix this issue . if the tailgate opens again on its own it could be very dangerous for any traffic behind as unsecured cargo could fall out at highway speeds .
apim module only works part time. When it is not working, which is 99% of the time, the radio, GPS, and other devices will not work correctly. Ford diagnostics at the dealership tell me the apim module needs replacing.
Complete failure of the Sync 3 Advanved Program Interface Module (APIM). Recall available up until 2017 model year, 2018 needs to be included. I purchased my vehicle used in August 2019 with 28,000 miles and had problems with the APIM from the start. Dealer refuses to replace. Problems include: -Device will not update firmware over Wi-Fi or USB flash drive. -None of the official Ford Sync mobile apps on iPhone will connect to APIM. -Resuming music from USB flash drive frozen in memory from same song and time every time I start the car even after playing many songs ahead. -Turning off the vehicle loses the current clock time. -Driving durring the day with headlights off, screen randomly goes black into night mode. Dealer quoted me $1008 to replace APIM, not gonna happen. I researched prices online and can purchase this and do it myself for less than $300 but, I shouldn't have to.
Ford Sync 3 system in 2018 F-150 has been faulty, dealership diagnosed it as a faulty APIM, no longer covered under standard warranty. Online forums are littered with similar issues, Ford refuses to address or cover, wants > $1k for replacement. Symptions: - Main display screen goes completely blank - Backup camera does not display - Handsfree bluetooth disconnects - GPS freezes, directions do not display
The apim is defective the GPS signial on the navigation is messed up it will show that I'm in the middle of a lake or field when I'm on the road, the navigation is also very slow and the backup sensors don't work as expected when backing up the 360 camera is also extremely lagy and takes 15 seconds to activate. Ford says this part is 1800 but it is an internal part of the navigation system and shouldn't just fail
2018 f-150 panoramic sunroof tracks and motors broke and stuck open position. Was driving and with fumes from other cars entering my vehicle from open roof and inability to close, I was getting lightheaded and almost passed out from exhaust fumes sitting in traffic.
I took my truck to the ford dealership I purchased it from because the tail lights stopped working. The service manager informed me that water was in both tail lights and had to be replaced for $3,000. My truck is a 2018, has only 18,000 miles and well taken care of and no accidents. The service claimed the water got in because of damage to the tail light. The marks he pointed out on the tail lights were very light scuff marks and could not allow water to get inside. They would not cover the replacement because of the scuff marks. I went on a ford forum and found that there had been plenty of other 2018 (and other years) that had water in their tail lights as well. The trucks that were out of warranty just remove the tail light, drained the water, applied silicon around the seems of the tail light and had no issues since then. I've attached pictures. You'll see that there is no way water could have enter where you see scuff marks like the service manager claims. The pictures are the left and right tail lights. Ford forum on tail light issue: https://www.f150forum.com/f118/water-my-tail-light-452633/
Electric tailgate latch fails causing tailgate to open unexpectedly; happens whether in motion or standing still. Evidently there is a recall for this problem in canada, but not the us.
Power door locks would not open. Had to use key to enter vehicle and then physically pull up door locks to open doors. Only happened when temp was freezing twice so far when vehicle was parked outside
I had just got my kids in the truck, started the truck and turned on the front and back defrosters. While sitting and letting truck warm up, the inside of the cab started smoking- got my kids out quickly and then the back middle window shattered out of nowhere.
Dash board is warped. Rear window defroster not working
Sync3 is a nightmare leading to extreme distracted driving. Bluetooth drops off, buttons freeze or are slow (20-30 seconds+) to respond or not respond. Any function tied to sync3 does not function properly. Navigation, phone, music, air/heat, bluetooth, carplay etc. Varies day by day, minute by minute. Google it. Well known problem. It is impossible to go hands free. Happens driving and stationary.
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