roadkill401

Just as a follow up. I figured out how to pull the silver edging strips off the Edge and remove the front faceplate from the radio/climate controls. I did order a replacement piece I found on Ebay in Quebec that was selling for $105 shipped. Far less than what they wanted at Ford. But as it was going to take 3 days to make it out to me, I decided to get adventurous and take a look at the one that the Ford Dealer has flagged in the diagnostic as failed. After unbolting it from the car, I checked to make sure that the plug was seated well. Tried unplugging it and re-plugging it back in. That made no difference. So I pulled the whole unit out of the car and thought why not look what is going on inside. The rear of the faceplate has 6 torx 15 screws (but I think I used a torx 20 driver). Once those are removed, the plastic backing is held in place by the two locator pins. These I couldn't figure out how to remove, but if you trim the plastic on the top end around the pin, you can ease the plastic backing off around the pin body. This exposes the PCB board. This didn't want to come off as it seemed that there was something else that was holding it in place after the screws are removed. To the bottom of the board there is a small white ribbon cable that connects the pcb to the button assembly. If you use your nail you can slide the binding post forward and release the cable. After you have taken the cable off, I used 99% ISOPropal alcohol to clean the contact ends and then rubbed them with a pink eraser to remove any oxidization from the lead ends. Then re-inserted the lead cable back in and locked the binding posts back into position. I then re-installed the faceplate back into the Edge and the problem has gone away. I think the error might have been caused by this ribbon cable oxidizing and generating noise to the system. I now have a spare faceplate. I will try and take some photos and post them here when I get a chance over the weekend.

I thought about that, but there is not any spot along the strip that it could clip into. Or not that I can figure out. And also it doesn't make any sense as it doesn't light up when the keys are in the ignition. Only when you take them out or the auto pool lighting is turned on.

In order to replace my FCIM, i had to remove the shifter console as the two are connected. I watched a YouTube video and i didn't see the connector that I have talked about so it must be something specific to my model. The LED is on an 8" lead coming from the back of the shifter compartment around the SD card input and USB terminals. it turns on when the car door is first opened, and also if you pull the keys from the ignition. I think it has something to do with the pool lighting. But I have no idea where the LED end is supposed to be interted or connected to. When I started to remove the shifter console it sort of was just there. But I will admit I wasn't looking for it so it might have been inserted somewhere and came free when I was pulling up. Any idea where it is supposed to go??

Thanks David. You are probably more than likely right. This is my 3rd ford. The first one was a 96 Explorer sport, and it had it's quirks but lasted me a good 12 years. I think it would have gone for much longer if it was not for a plastic switch part in the A/C controls that snapped and made it so the A/C would not turn on. The cost of fixing it was more than the car was worth and knowing that the Catalytic converter was on its way out and I'd have problems meeting the drive clean tax grab our local government brought in, I junked it for a 2006 Ford Escape. This lasted me 5 years before the rear door panels rotted out, the fuel line failed spaying gas under the rear seats, so again it cost more to fix than it was worth. The Gas problem was an assembly issue where they didn't install the tie-down clips for the gas line and 7 years of it moving caused it to tension split. I really like the drive, fit and feel of the Egde. I was just rubbed the wrong way by the dealer, that I guess isn't the cars fault, and little that Ford corp can do. After reading the posts on here about what it is that is wrong, and what part it will take to fix it, I finally found a replacement part in Quebec that I can get for a reasonable price that I have decided that I will take the DIY approach and see if I can fix the issue myself. Rather than posting here, I will move the questions over to the interior section. Thanks to everyone who have replied to this post.

What a difference a better dealership can make. I drove a bit more out of the way and went to the other Ford Dealership in my town. They were the total opposite to Kennedy Ford. They were friendly. The person at the parts desk went out of their way to help me out. Looked up the part and then figured out they even quoted me the wrong part number and no wonder why it was not available. The correct part number actually is available and is getting shipped up from the USA and should be here by Thursday morning hopefully. They have just in case, booked me for Friday to get me fixed up. they agreed that given my case, they would not require me to pay for another assessment diagnostic to get the work done. Still have not heard back from Ford Corporate about the case that I opened with them regarding Kennedy Ford last week. If I can get my car fixed and back working by the weekend, then it would do much towards restoring at least a bit of confidence back into the Ford brand. Only so much one can take, but it is totally right that you need to find a good dealer.

Gave fuse 18 a pull so now at least the front defogger doesn't blow the hot air into the car. I will have to see if this is workable until i can get the part and get it fixed properly.

After multiple phone calls to the dealer that I went to for the diagnosis, I got the part number that they are saying that I need. It is a DT4T-18A802-BA. This is pretty similar to some of the full dash panels that were linked to in this thread. I have called around to many of the junk yards and their dealer network and up here they want close to $480 for the part. The number given from Ford was $640, and based on those numbers I am likely better off just to wait the 4-6 weeks and get a genuine part new. The second part to that is the bit about the airbag warning light. I have not gotten a clear answer from anyone as to if the FCIM does play any part to having this light turned on or not. I think that I will need to wait for Ford Corporate customer relations to get back to me as I have an open case with them. It would sting pretty bad if it turns out that something else went wrong (or got broken) from bringing the car into Ford for a diagnosis. Going in, the FCIM was intermittent in when you turned the car on, it would turn the temp to 24 and turn on the front defog but the controls were still active, and then after a few minutes it would fail and the controls would turn off. There were no other problems and nothing with the AirBag system. Looking on Ebay, I can find some of the front panels that others are selling. Sadly for me, all of them are located in the USA so I have and exchange rate, international shipping and dealing with duty and customs brokerage. It is the last two that are the most headache as all the courier companies seem to add significant up-charge as soon as Canada is involved. There might not be any actual duty but will be tax, but you end up paying easily $30+ for brokerage just to pay the 6% GST tax. This can raise the price of a $130 US part to $300cad. And I know that I am hesitant to DIY this repair. And this is for parts that are close but not exactly the one that is specified. I am also hesitant as if your read enought they talk about new software for the FCIM and if you are putting in different part numbers, could you be getting old or incompatible firmware/software for my edge that might cause additional issues down the road?? So it looks like I am stuck waiting for mid July early Aug to get my car fixed. With the weather we have it is impossible to drive with the blower heat turned on. I looked in the fuse section of the manual, and there is nothing listed as a fuse for front Defog. There is a 40amp fuse for a Blower. I gather that the whole heating/cooling system is run by a large blower that is directed by different flaps inside the car to direct the air. Does this blower just move air for heating/cooling or serve as a dual role? If the air is not blowing then the heat given off would be dramatically less. Not that I would be doing 2-3 hour drives. I am thinking likely short runs to buy groceries or to drop off and pick up my daughter from things like dance camp. But having a non working vehicle is costly in my life. Would pulling the blower fuse have any other effect on the car?

The problem that i have is that this FCIM is a major component that controls the passenger seat sensor for the AirBag. The airbag is a mandated major safety function and without a working FCIM is totally disabled. I am not under the delusion that Ford needs to carry every part that can break for a car and have it available at the drop of a hat, but one would think and expect that mandated safety components would be carried. From reading more in this forum, it seems like this piece is a common part for multiple years and models of vehicles. So to carry a few of this part in stock would cover many potental customers. The dealer (who is probably talking out is ass, said that it's just a low failure rate product so they don't carry it. If this is the case, then having 10 stuck in a warehouse somewhere in North America should not be that difficult. But I think likely this is not the case and Ford just simply is not allocating enough spares to cover the demand. This is where I feel I have been let down by Ford. It's a 4 year old car. I believe they are mandated by the government to carry spare parts for a specified time (and I think it's at least 10 years). So they failed me. Yes it is the FCIM. (front control interface module). Its for the controls on the front of the dash under the sync screen. The kicker is that is also has a small light to tell you if the passenger airbag is on or off. That LED is enough to take out all of the AirBag system if it can't communicate to turn it on or off. Thank you for the links. It's the first one, and now at least I have the OEM part number. Sadly the dealership won't give them out even when you pay for the diagnostics. That is another reason for my distain right now for Ford. As I have a part number, I can at least phone around to junk yards to see if I can get the piece.

Sadly, it sounds a lot more like trying to find a decent garage that can find me an off market or second hand FCIM and get it installed for cheep and then decide if it's worth the risk to keep driving this car or see how much i can flog it for and move to something more reliable. Ford has sadly turned into their own worst enemy. And I look at the rantings of your US president when he in a speech went on about why nobody buys American cars. I think I know that answer now. It's not the fault of the worker who puts the cars together. They do try their best and for the most part do a good job. But it's the company they work for that undercuts the quality and sacrifices the customer in the name of greed and profit. People don't buy USA cars because they know they are just going to get crap in the long run. You might luck out and get one that works. but heaven forbid you get one that breaks, it will end up costing you far more than simply buying a foreign car to begin with. It seems Ford is selling to the millennial who wants todays trend and will lease for 2-3 years and move to the next new thing. It costs money to build something to last, so cut out and skimp to maximize profit as who cares if it lasts beyond that time frame. The sucker is the person who is loyal and wants to keep a car.

I purchased a 2013 Edge two years ago off lease from a local ford dealership. I thought it was going to be a great car but reality plays a totally different path. The car came with the GPS system installed, but it seems that getting this to work properly has been an issue. It has been back into the dealership several times and I have just come to know that the GPS really isn't a GPS after all. It is good for a map but not knowing where you actually are. Now I have the issue with the climate control not being able to communicate. Sadly, I am out of warranty and left with the aftermath of this. I am told it is the FCIM that is defective, but from Ford, they say this is not a stocked item that Ford Parts carries and must be special ordered from the manufacturer who happens not to have any stock. So it will take between 4-6 weeks to get the part. The sad bit about this is this module controls quite a few thing, like: -the climate inside the car. without it working you get no controls and the default here in Canada is for defog on full heat. Might be ok in the winter, but not any bit of fun in summer time. -the passenger seat airbag sensor. So your airbag safety system now no longer works. Major safety system is now compremised -the volume control on your radio also is part of this. So you get to listen to the radio at full blast without any hope of turning it down. -also that same volume control is the on/off, and trust my luck, it has decided that it wants to be stuck in the ON position. So I have ownership of a car that really you cannot drive, and Ford has taken the side that sorry, it's your problem! Ford? NEVER AGAIN!

It has come more and more apparent that you need to have a dash camera running all the time to prove that you are not in the wrong if you get into an accident, or stop sign / red light ticketing. For Christmas, my father purchased me a unit like he put into his 2007 Toyota Prius. He has an AUX 12v power point that is linked to the ignition so it turns off when the car is off. As we all know, this is not the case on the Ford Edge models like mine. The unit I got doesn't know enough to turn on and off with movement, so as long as there is power, it is running. Fine for some, but it pulls enough juice from the battery that it will easily run the car dead in 4-5 days. For me that is a problem as I don't drive every day and have gone for more than a week without needing to drive. One option is you have to remember to unplug the unit (off) and replug it (on) each and every time you want it running. Not something that I am really good at. I am looking to figure out where to get a +12v line that I can tap into to run the 0.3a usb power plug off of. I have read with Google search that some suggest running a fuse tap off #41 to power a relay to convert one of the front AUX 12v plugs into an ignition triggered plug. What does fuse #41 power? and could I just use a fuse tap to connect the 0.3a usb power plug directly to that line as I just need to power this one device? Any alternatives would be great.

Well, yes. I drove about 75 miles yesterday, mostly highway. I don't know what the issue was, but I tried some of the 'internet suggestion' with combinations of turning to start and off, hitting the hazzard light switch 6 times, and any others I could find. Even tried one where you let air out of all the tires. Non I tried would get the car to honk and display anything on any of the dash consoles. I eventually gave up, pumped my tires back up to pressure and drove down the street to get the mail before going shopping. In the 50 feet down the road, the tire light decided to turn off. No idea what I did to fix it, but it decided to work. Now, the left and right displays on the dash decided to turn to black a couple of times that afternoon, but I'll just take that as a Microsoft glitch unless it keeps doing it often

Rather than taking the tires on and off the factory rims I went and bought a new set of rims last year for my winter tires with the tpms sensors installed . The local tire garage did the install as they were new. In the summer time, i jacked up my car and swapped the winter tires/rims for my factory summer ones and everything was fine. Now it's winter again and I figured the process was simple. I swapped back on the Winter tires/rims and figured that everything would be OK. NOPE! My Edge now complains that the tire pressure is off and has the warning light pop up every time the car is started and the waring light on my dash. I have paid the extra $120 for the tpms sensors when I bought the tires so I want them working as they should. they worked all last winter. The tire pressure is fine. How does one reset the wheel TPMS sensor link with the car without having to buy one of those learning tools off ebay? or is that the only method to get it done?

OK.. So with the Analog speedometer, if the fault was with the internals to it, one would expect that the error would be a percentage inaccuracy. So at 50km/h if the speed was off by 2, then at 100km/h it would be off by 4. But in my case, the error is exactly 2km/h slower on the speedometer compared to the cruse control at all speeds (that you can engage cruse). So either the speedometer marking were just painted wrong, or some other component is calculating inaccurately. In reality, it's just another one of those things that you just live with. But it's just another example of the BS they give us along the same lines that "We have to build to a longer life standard with it being a car". What they are infact saying to us is that they can build crap that doesn't work properly but it should last you forever.

In my case if you look at it, the speedometer is slower. So if I am driving with the speed displayed by the speedometer, then I would be travelling faster than I think that I am. This puts me in the liability side of getting a speeding ticket for driving too fast. And the point of people saying an Analog gague is a bit of a misnomer as the whole of the interface pannel is completely digital driven. The dial itself does not get driven by a turning wire but it plugged directly into a computer board. If the parts supplier cannot build a dial that can accurately turn to the correct position when the digital signal is sent for a specific number then they should be replaced by a better company.