My random thoughts/comments/questions/concerns as I go

[NightHawk]

what is the maintenance schedule supposed to be for these, every 10k miles?

just rotate the tires.

 

[blackbeasst]

has anyone had their cruise control up and not work? like not even turn on? every 15 or so pushes of the cruise it will flicker on and back off.

 

[hybridbear]

has anyone had their cruise control up and not work? like not even turn on? every 15 or so pushes of the cruise it will flicker on and back off.

Yes. Restarting the car has fixed it for us. Both times it has happened to me it's been when we've been taking the FFE on a long drive. One was on a 42 mile drive home and the other was on our way to go camping 75 miles from home.

 

[davideos]

has anyone had their cruise control up and not work? like not even turn on? every 15 or so pushes of the cruise it will flicker on and back off.

I used my cruise control this weekend to help extend my range....it did the job, but I do recall it acting up. Now yesterday, it gave me trouble...wouldn't come on...or stay on and definitely wouldn't engage. I noticed I was in 'L' low and put it in 'D' and it seemed to work. However, I popped back and fourth a few times from D to L and I got the warning wrench.

This morning, I tested it again. When in L, it didn't engage, but in D, it did; however, it wasn't stable and eventually disengaged with a warning wrench when I toggled the "cancel" paddle. After that, I couldn't get it engaged at all.

Anyone else have experience with this problem?

Thanks

 

[davideos]

It seems that the "cancel/resume" button is causing the problem. If I turn on cruise control, it will enable just fine. Using the brake will disable. However, if I try and "cancel", it doesn't and then a second or two later, I get the "Warning wrench". After that, until I turn the car off, the cruise control doesn't work.

This may not be the case 100% of the time, but it is for the most part. Seems like the car knows the button was pressed and it knows it did nothing about it, which causes the system to stop working. It doesn't seem like it would be the switch, but rather something at the controller itself...wherever that is. I might disconnect the battery to attempt to reset something, but I don't expect it to work.

 

[WattsUp]

It seems that the "cancel/resume" button is causing the problem. If I turn on cruise control, it will enable just fine. Using the brake will disable. However, if I try and "cancel", it doesn't and then a second or two later, I get the "Warning wrench".

I use the cruise control a lot. Like, between every traffic light, and certainly on the freeway. I, too, have occasionally gotten the yellow wrench (and found that cruise was disabled until I next restarted the car).

But, for me, it has only been when using the up/down button to make speed adjustments (usually the "up" adjustment, it seemed) -- and usually only at high speed (like on the freeway). I never saw any issues when using the paddle to set/unset cruise, the brake pedal to unset cruise, or the button to turn cruise on/off.

However, this problem hasn't happened to me for the long time. When it last did, I was (fortunately) running ForSCAN at that moment and noticed that "torque" warning trouble code appeared in the log (I forget the actual code). I think perhaps that car sometimes gets confused over the "quick" throttle adjustment made with cruise and throws a bogus warning. It just seems like a bug to me and, although annoying, appears to be harmless (as it always goes away on restart).

And, as I said, the behavior has greatly diminished for me in recent times. It happened probably tens of times during my first year with the car, every few weeks or so. I think it now happens maybe once every several months or longer.

 

[jmueller065]

I also used cruise control a lot; a few times a day. I never had any yellow wrench or other errors displayed by the car when using cruise...guess I was lucky.

I also rarely, if ever, used L, and never used L with cruise.

 

[WattsUp]

I also rarely, if ever, used L, and never used L with cruise.

Yeah, I mostly use D so my "cruise-ing" would mostly be with D too.

However, I do find cruise handy to set the speed when going downhill, where L help maintain the speed better (since the cruise has more "braking" power available). So, I have used cruise with L occasionally. I didn't notice that it was more problematic versus D.

 

[triangles]

I use cruise control a lot too. Never had any issue with it at all. I also use the cancel/resume button probably more than average. I mostly only use L when no one is behind me and I don't want to use the brake pedal to decelerate. There's no hills around here to use L on anyway.

 

[hybridbear]

I use cruise a lot, including in the city like Wattsup. I have never had any yellow wrench errors with cruise control. I have had times where the cruise control will not turn on until after I power cycle the car. I often use cruise with L in the city. I do this so that if a light turns red in front of me I will get instant high regen when hitting cancel. In the city I often drive using cruise control in L with my left hand on the cancel paddle & my right foot covering the brake pedal. This way if a light turns red on me I can quickly hit the cancel paddle & step on the brake. On the freeway I use cruise with D. When I'm nearing a freeway exit I will usually cancel the cruise by shifting from D to N. I then coast in N for a bit & then shift to D once it's time to start slowing down. Then I'll start depressing the brake pedal when needed.

Note: you can turn off the cruise control with the on/off button when in N, but you cannot turn on the cruise control while the car is in N.

 

[davideos]

I've been playing with it recently and it is basically this; don't use the "CANcel/RESume" paddle and everything will be fine...with exception of not having that feature. Here is the matrix I've come up with:

CC off and paddle switch toggled: CC goes from off to on (note, the on/off switch still works)
CC on but not engaged and paddle switch toggled: CC goes from on to off (note, on/off switch still works)
CC on and engaged and paddle switch toggled: Nothing happens and then 1 second later, the warning message comes up and I get the yellow wrench.

Digging around regular Focus websites, it appears that this isn't unique to FFE. It appears that either the button assembly might need to be swapped out; but more than likely, it is the "clock spring" that needs replacement. I've read this in several places and watched a few youtube videos on other ford vehicles, but the clockspring is basically a big coil of wire that sits behind the airbag and steering wheel that passes the steering wheel electrical interface to stationary portion of the steering column. All the other buttons on the steering wheel are still working; so for the time being, I'm just going to live with it. I do recall there being a diagnostic mode by holding down certain buttons on the steering wheel. Perhaps I'll see if there is a button connectivity check.

Regards,
David

 

[WattsUp]

CC on and engaged and paddle switch toggled: Nothing happens and then 1 second later, the warning message comes up and I get the yellow wrench.

This is quite different from my yellow wrench events.

They've only ever occurred for me when adjusting speed (with cruise already engaged obviously) using the steering wheel buttons. And they were random and rare, not consistently reproducible like yours appears to be.

Yours definitely sounds like some kind of defective behavior.

 

[davideos]

Update. I pulled the cover off the steering column to try and measure the output from the CANcel/RESume buttons, but it is not accessible. After poking at it a bit, I understood better what the electrical manual was telling me so I buttoned it back up. No change in the operation.

However, as of yesterday, I see that the problem has now fixed itself. Hard to say for how long, but either the problem is intermittent or there was some sort of software condition that caused the behavior...which I think is more likely. The reason is that the Cruise Control ON/OFF, SET+, and SET- share one circuit whereas Cancel and Resume are on their own circuit. Before, when the system was OFF, activating the "Cancel / resume" would actually turn the system on....which seemed odd to me since they are on different circuits. But with that said, I don't know what the logic inside the Steering wheel position sensor module is looking for.

Anyway, I'll be happy it is working for the time being.