Ford Changed the Colour of Our Order

[GDN]

Except I'm NOT talking about a remote feature, but a stand-alone feature in the vehicle. In fact, the value charging schedule was never something that could be edited remotely, just enabled and disabled. It still can, though enabling it, whether by remote or in the vehicle, is ignored by the car and charging wi'll just start immediately.

The car is also now really bad at estimating how long it will take to reach full charge, saying things like 0.4 hours whether the SOC is 90% or 10%. I don't expect the estimate to be perfect, but for over 4 years it wasn't orders of magnitude wrong.

Every problem you can imagine has happened and will likely happen again with the Lightning and the app. I've been very critical and hard on them in the forums (If only Farley would listen to his public) because I came from Tesla, who has had time to perfect, but is light years ahead on technology and their app.

However in the last couple of weeks, Ford has been able to push out a few SW releases and update the apps, and as we speak mine is working pretty well including reporting my drives and charges. This has been very poor the first few months.

Do not come here expecting perfection or likely anything above a grade C until Ford keeps updating and further improves this software. I'm guessing they put most of their engineering time in on the new platform that will be built in a few years in TN. We are already history, there won't be any more vehicles built on our platform and it is NOT forward compatible with anything else Ford will build. Tesla can still update their 10 year old cars with their current software builds (they don't get all features, but it does update) and Ford has no current infrastructure like that.

As far as the cell connectivity, you can't fault Ford on that one, the telco's update as new technology comes out and then sunset the older technologies, that will catch every connected vehicle. The key is Ford knows this and we'll want to know how modular and "cheap" did they make it to upgrade? They likely haven't gone out of their way to make that easy, they'll want a revenue stream out of the upgrades.

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[F150ROD]

Our chance to place an order came up in late September and we made our choices and a purchase agreement was drawn up with our selections including the colour choice of Antimatter Blue.

Somehow, the colour got changed to black and we only found out about it a week ago when we were told a VIN had been assigned.

This week I've been told it can't be changed. I've let our sales associate tgat is not good enough. I would normally be a little more flexible, but we've been having an issue with our 2017 Ford Focus Electric that has me doubting Ford's ability to provide adequate customer service for its EVs. We are seriously questioning if we want to proceed with this purchase and may cancel.

Not sure yet if that is our best option, as we may be better off to take the vehicle and flip it for a profit. Gone are the days of new vehicles losing 30% of their value the moment they leave the dealership, and with waitlisted for the F150 Lightning, there's plenty who will pay a premium to get one immediately.

We really want this vehicle, it's a lot of money to settle for the wrong colour.

I think you might be correct about adequate providing adequate service.

Ford Engineers at Corporate are on top of things with the Lightning, however, at the lower level Service Centers they have no clue.

It’s been 5 days since my Lightning went into Service for the Electrical Drain issue. Unfortunately my truck has been parked outside, it hasn’t even been hooked up to diagnostics or anything. It went straight from me dropping off to a parking spot and hasn’t moved. They told me it would take a week, understandable, but what is the process? Are they going to fly in Engineers or is the one EV specialist really backed up? Why set an appointment if it’s really just a drop off and we’ll get to it when we get to it.

I have a feeling that one week will turn to two, then three, then four.

As far as flipping, that ship has sailed for everything that’s not an ICE performance.

 

[Pioneer74]

Every problem you can imagine has happened and will likely happen again with the Lightning and the app. I've been very critical and hard on them in the forums (If only Farley would listen to his public) because I came from Tesla, who has had time to perfect, but is light years ahead on technology and their app.

However in the last couple of weeks, Ford has been able to push out a few SW releases and update the apps, and as we speak mine is working pretty well including reporting my drives and charges. This has been very poor the first few months.

Do not come here expecting perfection or likely anything above a grade C until Ford keeps updating and further improves this software. I'm guessing they put most of their engineering time in on the new platform that will be built in a few years in TN. We are already history, there won't be any more vehicles built on our platform and it is NOT forward compatible with anything else Ford will build. Tesla can still update their 10 year old cars with their current software builds (they don't get all features, but it does update) and Ford has no current infrastructure like that.

As far as the cell connectivity, you can't fault Ford on that one, the telco's update as new technology comes out and then sunset the older technologies, that will catch every connected vehicle. The key is Ford knows this and we'll want to know how modular and "cheap" did they make it to upgrade? They likely haven't gone out of their way to make that easy, they'll want a revenue stream out of the upgrades.

I think you're letting Ford off the hook too easily. I had such high expectations for them because of all the tech hires they have made recently. I haven't seen any improvement over what problems FordPass has had in the past to today.

IMO, every person that has anything to do with EV integration, app controls and Sync 4A with the Lightning and Mach-E should either be fired, or be pulled in front of Bill Ford and Farley to explain why they shouldn't be.

 

[Calvin H-C]

Every problem you can imagine has happened and will likely happen again with the Lightning and the app.

Absolutely - I work in a high tech field and this is a fact of life.

My issue here is that a feature that that never required the remote features of the app disappeared when the modem was changed.

As an extreme example, it feels like you replaced your HDTV with a 4K TV and now you can't flush your toilet. Don't worry, because you can dump a bucket of water to flush away what's in there, so it's not like you can't use the toilet at all.

I could have chosen NOT to do (and fork out $400+ for the hardware) if there was any suggestion that this would have been a possibility.

However in the last couple of weeks, Ford has been able to push out a few SW releases and update the apps,

I heard back in September through a FFE forum that some Focus EV owners had received an over-the-air update that fixed the problem. I waited until early November to see if it would get to me before contacting Ford again.

 

[Beans]

As I said in my post, my added concern comes from an issue with a Focus Electric. Being able to have the car charge on a value schedule was lost back in March when we spent over $400 to upgrade the 3G modem to 4G. Is this shades of things to come for Lightning owners?

The LTE in 4G is Long Term Evolution, which is a standard to be carried forward in 5G, 6G, etc. we’ll see if it happens, but the cellular companies know how big of a problem the 3G retirement was and want to avoid that in the next generations.

 

[Jmmanley1]

Our chance to place an order came up in late September and we made our choices and a purchase agreement was drawn up with our selections including the colour choice of Antimatter Blue.

Somehow, the colour got changed to black and we only found out about it a week ago when we were told a VIN had been assigned.

This week I've been told it can't be changed. I've let our sales associate tgat is not good enough. I would normally be a little more flexible, but we've been having an issue with our 2017 Ford Focus Electric that has me doubting Ford's ability to provide adequate customer service for its EVs. We are seriously questioning if we want to proceed with this purchase and may cancel.

Not sure yet if that is our best option, as we may be better off to take the vehicle and flip it for a profit. Gone are the days of new vehicles losing 30% of their value the moment they leave the dealership, and with waitlisted for the F150 Lightning, there's plenty who will pay a premium to get one immediately.

We really want this vehicle, it's a lot of money to settle for the wrong colour.

You didn’t mention the specs but Zi got a call a day or so ago that this SR Antimatter Blue was on the lot in Kansas City.

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/olathe-ford-has-a-sr-antimatter-blue.13912/

 

[Jmmanley1]

Whoops, just realized this thread is a bit dated. ?

 

[ChrisC]

Except I'm NOT talking about a remote feature, but a stand-alone feature in the vehicle. In fact, the value charging schedule was never something that could be edited remotely, just enabled and disabled. It still can, though enabling it, whether by remote or in the vehicle, is ignored by the car and charging wi'll just start immediately.

The car is also now really bad at estimating how long it will take to reach full charge, saying things like 0.4 hours whether the SOC is 90% or 10%. I don't expect the estimate to be perfect, but for over 4 years it wasn't orders of magnitude wrong.

Is this the only problem that you are having with the Focus EV? I also have a 2017 and a 2014 Ford Focus EV and they have been great car with the exception of Ford discontinuing the My Ford Mobile App that let me remotely open the doors and stop charging. I am not sure if I am still able to set the value charge with my 3G modem since I rarely use this feature. I just ordered my Lightning and really hope they do not change the color and I will keep track of that during the build.

 

[Calvin H-C]

No problem. I didn't go through all the options, but it looks close to what we have ordered.

We've had the chance to compare Antimatter Blue and Agate Black up close and they are very close.

The error was with our dealer, which is why Ford won't change it. The dealer is offering a minimal level of compensation (free window tinting or a discount on undercoating were mentioned) but claim that since we are getting the MSRP price, they can't give much more. They also know that if we cancelled, they could sell it for $20k-$30k (CAD) more off the lot (few dealers in Canada have them on the lot) or we could immediately sell it for nearly that much ourselves.

My wife (her 150!) would prefer a set of EV winter tires on rims with sensors, but the dealer claims this would be close to $3k. I question this because that's probably retail and it would only be cost for them.

We're going ahead and will deal with what their compensation will be. We will also shop around for the "extras" like extended warranty and maintenance plan that we would have just paid them for.

 

[Calvin H-C]

Is this the only problem that you are having with the Focus EV? I also have a 2017 and a 2014 Ford Focus EV and they have been great car with the exception of Ford discontinuing the My Ford Mobile App that let me remotely open the doors and stop charging. I am not sure if I am still able to set the value charge with my 3G modem since I rarely use this feature.

I never could set the value charge times in MyFordApp, but I could turn the feature on or off. Though, I usually did that when given the option after turning the car off.

Pretty much everything isle about my FFE has been excellent. Pretty impressive, given it was Ford's first attempt at a full EV.

I do have an issue with the navigation maps. I paid about $150 for an update in 2020 and was pissed off that a new major highway near me that opened just over 6 months before the update was still not there. There's over a million map changes in North America each year, so I don't expect an up-to-the-minute update. 100 days old seems reasonable, but more than 6 months?

Ford never answered my complaint back then, but I recently noticed that they now have a 5-year option for about $200 that provides one yearly update for five years. I inquired about upgrading my update for the difference in price to get 4 annual updates.

They informed me that I should contact the dealership where I got the update from. Trouble is, I didn't get it through a dealership, I got it through ford.ca

I'm thinking that maybe part of the dealership's compensation for the F150 colour mess-up could be them arranging for four years of map updates for the FFE for $50. (Same dealership sold us the FFE)

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