2015 FFE didn't start right away this morning

[slinky]

Hi, We have only had our car for about 2 weeks now. We love it so far. But this morning when we went to start the car after it was fully charged last night, we got the green car ready light, but after putting car into Drive, it didn't go. Everything else on the dash looked normal, but the car just didn't go when we stepped on the gas pedal. We tried pushing the off/on button a couple times and it didn't help. Then we opened and closed the door, to start from scratch and it was fine. The car then started up like normal and we drove it fine this morning. Does anyone know what might have caused this or had this happen?

Thanks!

 

[scottt]

I had the exact same thing happen to me my first month of ownership. Everything looked normal, yet putting the car in drive or reverse did nothing. Tried several restarts. Then, luckily I recalled reading some thread that mentioned opening and closing the driver's door resets something. Did that and everything was fine.

Hasn't done it since.

 

[jmueller065]

The FFE is very particular about the time it takes to "boot up". There was much discussion about this early on.

Everyone eventually develops a list of steps to ensure that the FFE powers up properly. Its typically something like this:

• Open door and sit down pressing your foot on the brake
• Press start button for 1 sec or so
• Close door
• Buckle up
• Adjust radio, mirrors, etc.
• Count to 5 (optional )
• You should now be ready to go

 

[cpwl]

I've had Montgomery for just over 4 months now and this has happened a few times, including once to my wife (the first time she needed to drive him while I was away)! Needless to say that ended up in a bit of a panic call to find out what she was doing wrong. Nevertheless....

Jamie is pretty much our resident FFE guru so I'm very circumspect to say anything that is not in full agreement with him. In our case though I have found that it is the period of advance when stepping on the brake pedal and the duration of pressing the start button that are the issues, I've never had to open the door and I generally buckle up before even beginning the start procedure. I always press the brake pedal for 1-2 seconds before I deliberately but gently press the start button for a minimum of 1 second. If you do both nearly simultaneously you run the risk of actually pressing the start button before the brake pedal is depressed and releases the safety interlock. “Stabbing” at the start button will activate the displays and may illuminate the “ready to drive” symbol but as you have found out doesn’t actually start the car. Stabbing the start button was actually my wife’s problem as she tends to be very “quick” with her activation inputs on pretty much everything. Since identifying these two factors and taking just a moments more time neither of us have had a “failure to start”.

Good luck and enjoy your FFE – which is the by far the best non-Tesla BEV on the market today

 

[FFEsquared]

One possibility: the car might have sensed you were on a hill and you didn't press the accelerator hard enough to overcome the system's desire to keep you from rolling backwards. It's called hill start assist.

 

[damania]

About 1/4 of the time the car doesn't start in drive mode when pressing the start button. Why does Ford have this "feature"? If we wanted to unlock it we should first have to put it in N then press the button without actually having to start it.

Anyways, I always look for the green arrows to indicate I have started properly.

 

[slinky]

Thanks for the responses! It really helps. It relieves me that it probably has to do with pushing the start button too quickly or something and not some other problem.