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1Pedal mode causes rear rotor rust

Zprime29

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I swear Tucson has cameras at the traffic lights that time turning it to yellow at the perfect distance where you have to decide in an instant if it's worth running a possible red light or hit the brakes hard. My only consolation when I see the 60% brake score is that I at least exercised the brakes a little.
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Dspade

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Make sure you brake hard enough to use the friction brakes periodically.

I learned this the hard way when my Chevy Volt didn't pass inspection. The rear rotors had rusted too badly from disuse.

1782233643430-vz.webp
I don't know what the hell you were doing with your rear brakes, but this picture isn't from Disuse! Are you smoking crack?
 

EFG

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I had issues with the rotors of my Chevy Bolt rusting in the Northeast when I lived there, I moved to Florida, problem solved. No salt on the roads. Lightning has been exclusively located in FL, I check them pretty regularly and not a touch of rust since 2023. Just one more reason to move south!!
 

chl

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Never had rust on my 2012 Leaf rotors, always use regen as much as possible, always come to a complete stop at stop signs (after I got a warning one time, I now stop and count to three - people behind me sometimes get antsy - tough) but rarely drive it on salted/sanded roads here in Northern Virginia.

So far haven't had any rust on the Lightning either, don't use 1-puddle driving, always maximize regen if I can, I do drive it on snowy salted/sanded roads, but we don't get much of that here, we have a lot of summer humidity though, and apparently invisible pond-terrorists who plant algae at national monuments and remove truck bed liner coatings from reflecting ponds....:)
 

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garsh

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I don't know what the hell you were doing with your rear brakes, but this picture isn't from Disuse! Are you smoking crack?
I had issues with the rotors of my Chevy Bolt rusting in the Northeast when I lived there...
Bingo. The car was mostly parked outside in wet, cold New York state, driven on salty wet roads in the winter, with occasional trips to western PA. This was absolutely due to disuse of the friction brakes.

It doesn't take much to prevent this. Just slight friction braking once a week would have been enough. This amount of rust happened after about two years, IIRC.
 

Jim Lewis

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Hopefully, by keeping my Lightning in a closed garage when I'm not driving it, where the humidity is usually lower than 60% (this is central Texas) and with no salt on the roads in winter, rust-related issues will be minimal.
 

Zprime29

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Ford F-150 Lightning 1Pedal mode causes rear rotor rust 1782339925633-7q

When it comes to worrying about rust, single digit humidity FTW. Now if I could stop shocking myself every time I get out of the car, touch a door knob, get up from my desk, ....
 

EFG

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google "static shock car straps"

When you mentioned this, I remembered these things from the 70's hanging from every 5th car. They weren't from the factory but people installed them all the time. I remember my auto shop teacher saying stop wearing polyester pants!!

If this is happening on carpeted surfaces, speak to your carpet shop, growing up, my buddy's dad owned a high end carpet store, he grounded the carpets to prevent them from shocking people in rubber soled shoes, for customers who asked at install time.

On aircraft, they deal with this via static wicks on the trailing edges of wings and tails. The act of flying through the air (like our cars to a lesser extent) generates static electricity from the friction with the air. There are interesting videos out the about the static discharges from rescue helicopters flying close to the water and the blades cause the same effect. You can also see this effect when power linemen equalize the charges between the copter and the powerlines they are working on via a long rod.

https://news.northeastern.edu/2025/01/24/get-rid-of-static-tips/
 

RickLightning

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Ive heard this many times. I just recently turned on 1PD and love it. I do break every once in a while and check my rotors visually from time to time.
Brake...

Much less of an issue with the Lightning than the Mach-E.
 

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Henry Ford

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Both of these ideas will work as intended but introduce risk. If you are in neutral, you have disabled the go pedal. If TCS is off you've turned the go pedal into a ditch attraction switch.😁

For the same result check your rearview mirror, if nobody is behind you press the brake pedal with more authority than usual and continue about your day.

There are a couple things you can do to force the friction brakes to operate. Likely the best is to while at speed, shift into neutral and apply the brakes. Obviously do this in a location where you can safely drive in an abnormal state (empty road or parking lot for example).
Many posts on this. Simple trick - turn TCS fully off once every couple of weeks in good weather. This disables regen entirely, and a few normal stops will clean them right up.
Remember - TCS is off when you do this, so your 600 horsies are unbridled.
 

Adventureboy

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Both of these ideas will work as intended but introduce risk. If you are in neutral, you have disabled the go pedal. If TCS is off you've turned the go pedal into a ditch attraction switch.😁

For the same result check your rearview mirror, if nobody is behind you press the brake pedal with more authority than usual and continue about your day.
100% agree. I live in a busy area, so firmly braking without affecting folks following me is a rare possibility - there is almost always someone close behind me. I've used all three methods and they all work. The TCS method is the least intrusive for me since I just drive normally for a few minutes while keeping the Giddy-up in check.
 

flux capacitor

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I read through all the replies and I am shocked no one said anything about putting the truck in neutral while going down the road. Ford has stated that you cannot tow it by putting it in neutral what makes you think you can put it in neutral without damaging something more significant. The only way you can tow is by getting all wheels off the ground. The tech that said this knows nothing about Lightnings.
 

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Make sure you brake hard enough to use the friction brakes periodically.

I learned this the hard way when my Chevy Volt didn't pass inspection. The rear rotors had rusted too badly from disuse.

1782233643430-vz.webp
If that is the case, why they didn’t rotate/spin them in place and clean them out. They can do that for ICE vehicles. Those disks look rough but they can clean them but the service department is looking for extra revenue.
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