Climate comes on full blast with every *other* car start?!

[WattsUp]

For the last 7 months, my FFE climate controls have operated like so:

• If the climate controls are OFF when the car is shut off, they stay OFF when the car is next started.
  
• If the climate controls are ON when the car is shut off, they turn back ON when the car is next started, with the previous mode (for example, I would often leave them set to A/C off, temp LO, and lowest fan).

Nice and sensible.

Suddenly today, the climate controls have started doing this:

• If they are OFF when the car is shut off, they come ON at full blast (A/C and highest fan) when the car is next started.
  
• If they are ON (in any mode) when the car is shut off, they will be OFF when the car is next started.

WTF?

So now, simply by repeatedly turning car on and off, the climate controls -- all by themselves, without me touching them -- will alternate between ON (at full blast) and OFF. I have repeated this tens of times now. It is totally consistent.

Has anyone else seen this crazy "toggle" behavior? Were you able to fix it? I just want the old behavior back. :roll:

I have a 2013 FFE and have not done the 3.5 MFTsoftware update.

 

[WattsUp]

Okay, fixed it... by rebooting MFT.

After verifying that the behavior described above was still occurring after the car sat in my garage for a while tonight, I pulled the F67 fuse in the fuse box under the glove box.

In doing so, I also proved the MFT software was the source of the "toggle" behavior. With MFT disabled, the behavior of the climate controls instantly changed. They simply stayed off now matter how many times I turned the car on and off.

And then, after putting F67 back, turning the car on and allowing MFT to reboot, the climate controls went back to their old behavior. That is... if left OFF, they stay OFF. If left ON, the come back ON with the same settings. Whew.

How can people who call themselves engineers create software that is this stoopidly buggy? :roll:

 

[WattsUp]

Since the F67 reset, I've also noticed one new climate control behavior. (That I actually like.)

If the climate is off, I pretty much always use the "press-fan-low-to-turn-climate-on" trick because, as most of us have learned, it's the best way to avoid being blasted (like the power button does).

But, the new behavior I've noticed since my reset is that the A/C setting is now preserved. It used to be that turning on the climate via the fan buttons would also always turn on the A/C (no matter its previous setting). I just accepted this quirk and became accustomed to turning the A/C back off right away. But now, the A/C stays off until I want it on. Imagine that!

Small victories.

 

[WattsUp]

Well, that didn't take long... car started doing the toggle climate "full blast on" and then "completely off" with every other car start again today. I fixed it the same way... pulled F67 to reset MFT. Went back to working normally.

However, I think I've noticed something in common to the original occurrence (described at the start of this thread) and this time. Both times, I believe MFT was "hiccuping". This hiccup could be heard when music was playing (of the USB stick I always have plugged in). Instead of playing smoothly, there was a repeated interruption where the music would pause for a split second, about once per second... almost like when a CD is skipping. This would last for several seconds during starting up.

Since I previously proved (above in the thread) that MFT was somehow causing the weird "toggle" behavior of the climate (disabling MFT immediately stopped the behavior), I wonder if the hiccup is a symptom of whatever is screwed up inside of MFT that causes this behavior.

 

[Kung Fu Panda]

This is what happens when you hire Microsoft to write software to control a car's functions. :mrgreen: