How to Turn Frunk Lighting (actually NOT!) Off When You Want to Leave Frunk Open?!

[Jim Lewis]

Update: After my OP on 6/15, I discovered on 6/16 that the light that was remaining on relative to the frunk was the curved edges of the front lightbar on either side that illuminate the frunk (poorly) when open: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...ou-want-to-leave-frunk-open.15763/post-321682

After using my frunk to haul softener salt, I went to clean it up. I brushed up as much loose salt as possible and thoroughly rinsed the frunk with a hose in the street (salt does bad things to concrete).

Being a 98-degree day, I didn't want to leave the truck in the driveway with the frunk open to dry out, even after toweling as much water up as possible.

I put the truck in the garage with the frunk up, but the frunk lights and the brake lights in the rear, I think, remained on and wouldn't go off until I closed the frunk. Locking the truck with the keypad, PAAK, or the fob did not make the lights go off.

I thought of looking for some contact sensor for the frunk and putting a weight on it, but I figured the frunk closure detection mechanism is probably smarter than that.

TIA for advice on how to make the truck turn all its lights off on demand (no, I don't want to pull the 12v battery!). It seems stupid not to give the owner more control over lighting. Lighting with a mind of its own is very annoying.

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[Labs4Lightning]

Do you mean the frunk light button doesn’t work?

page 128 of my manual. And the actual button in my lightning.

 

[Pioneer74]

Every time you went to see if the lights were off, did you have your keys or phone with you?

 

[Jim Lewis]

Do you mean the frunk light button doesn’t work?

Thanks! I'm an RYFM type! I did try the useless Ford Assistant who thought I was asking about USB when I asked how to turn off frunk lighting! The button works when I open the frunk of the parked vehicle. Now when I look at the vehicle, I clearly see the frunk light button illuminated by the frunk lights (it's a lot darker in the garage now, too). I neglected to mention something I'll describe below.

Every time you went to see if the lights were off, did you have your keys or phone with you?

Most of the time to check, I just opened the door from the back hall to the garage without fob or phone but coming near the vehicle holding either the fob or the phone didn't make a difference. I think I must have entered a "special" state based on what I'll describe below.

I left out an important detail in my original description. My truck is a very tight fit in my garage with a total of about 10 inches to spare front & back combined. I was afraid to open the frunk parked inches from the front wall. So I drove to within a few feet of the wall and opened the frunk. Then I drove right up to the wall by peering between the gap of the lower part of the open frunk hood and the bottom of my windshield until the Garage Assistant (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079VX8RJ8/) said I was about 5 inches from the front wall (actually more like 8 real inches).

I think I must have triggered some sort of warning light arrangement. Just opening the frunk now in the garage didn't turn on the other lights that were on due to driving with my frunk open. There had been a "frunk door ajar" on the dash that I OK'd before driving (I was surprised the system let me drive with the frunk open). In addition to the frunk lights, the front running lights might have been on, too, and a big red light (the brake lights?) came from the tailgate area smack dab up against the closed garage door. There was such a glare reflected off the garage wall coming from the front of the vehicle that I didn't notice the frunk light button earlier today, which is obvious now when I just open the frunk with the vehicle parked (it's much darker in the garage now, too).

I'll have to repeat the experiment of driving with my frunk open tomorrow, more carefully determine all the lights that are on when I stop and shut the truck down, and see if the frunk button causes everything to turn off. Unlike the last part of the manual illustration that @Labs4Lightning provided about automatic turn-off after a short period of time, the lights that came on from driving with the frunk open remained on at least an hour after I turned the vehicle off (and I have automatic power-down turned on, too). Normally locking the vehicle will trigger all perimeter lighting, console lighting, etc., to turn off, but it didn't work for me after driving with the frunk open.

Now that I know I can open and close the frunk parked 6 to 8 inches from the wall and the frunk light button works on a parked vehicle not driven with the frunk open, I'm all set to finish drying my frunk in my garage after future washdowns. Thanks for the comments!

 

[Bwanapete]

I carry softener salt in the bed, not the frunk. Easier to clean.

 

[Jim Lewis]

I carry softener salt in the bed, not the frunk. Easier to clean.

Yeah, I thought the drain hole in the frunk would make it easier to clean (with potentially less sliding around than the bed), but the salt crystals went all over the place in the frunk. Scott fertilizer bags used to be pretty leaky, but hauling fertilizer has been a lot cleaner operation for me in recent years. It would be nice if Morton produced a stronger, cleaner salt bag. Next time it will be my truck bed.

I did discover that the rear of the frunk is covered by a removable mat. Salt crystals even managed to work their way under that!

 

[RickLightning]

Leave frunk open. Light will turn off in 10-15 minutes (I forget which).

 

[Jim Lewis]

Non-Responsive Lighting Paradox Update:

Actually, things are more complicated than I initially thought: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...-off-when-you-want-to-leave-frunk-open.15763/

It's not the frunk lighting that was originally left on when I drove and parked the truck in my garage with the frunk open while moving the vehicle. It was the front lightbar (I thought the side edges of the lightbar were the frunk lights!), the running lights, the perimeter lights, and the backup/brake lights on the tailgate and back of the cab.

When I closed the frunk and locked the vehicle to get all those lights to go out and then opened the frunk later in the day without unlocking the truck, IIRC, it was just the frunk light that came on. And then that's why the frunk light switch button was so obvious. The frunk lights hadn't been on before(I think); now they were the only lights on. I turned them off with the frunk light switch, left the frunk open, and let the truck sit overnight plugged into my FCSP.

Today I went out to the truck, unlocked it by touching a door handle with my phone in hand, and, IIRC, only the frunk light for the open frunk came on initially. But after the first round or two of that, the frunk lights of the open frunk never come on, and subsequent cycles of opening a door only bring on the lights that stayed on after driving with the frunk open. And now for the sitting truck, locking the truck or just letting the truck sit causes all those lights to go out, whereas the same lights wouldn't go out for me yesterday after driving a short distance with the frunk open until I put the frunk down after an hour or so of waiting for them to time out.

At 104 deg F outside my house, I don't feel like opening the garage door to repeat the experiment right now of driving up to the wall with the frunk open. That will have to wait another day or two for a cooler time in the early morning.

P.S. An even better concluding coda to this update post! As another experiment, I'm leaving the back hall door to the garage open to see if that facilitates keeping our insulated garage cool when it's 104° F or so out. I heard a relay clicking on the truck and walked over to the open back hall door to find that the frunk light had decided to come on by its lonesome. Fifteen minutes later or so, walked over to the door again, and the frunk light had gone out.

Yet a further note: Going out to the vehicle now and just touching the driver's side door handle with fob and PAAK more than 40 feet away causes only the light of the open frunk to come on (times out after ~10 min). The vehicle is locked (not sure if I did that). This last observation might explain why only the frunk light came on earlier in the day; perhaps the truck had not yet connected with my PAAK via Bluetooth when I first touched the door handle for the day after having the phone > 40 feet away all night long.

Another (final?) note: Yesterday no problem getting frunk to open and close parked 6 to 8 inches from garage wall. Today late at night, the open frunk didn't respond to frunk button presses, in-vehicle control, fob, or PAAK, even after backing away from garage wall. Only got the frunk warning alert beeps. Manually pressed frunk closed. Drove outside garage. Frunk opened and closed with in-vehicle button. Drove into garage, opened frunk a few feet from the wall, drove up to wall. All lights except frunk light went off on pressing last 2 digits on door frame keypad (this time garage door was open-so nothing smack dab behind vehicle like yesterday). Closed frunk by frunk button press at same distance it wouldn't close just a few minutes previous. Perhaps my frunk closure problem (and earlier lights wouldn't go off problem?) was related to washing out the frunk using a hose spray nozzle and getting water spray into nooks and crannies that the spray shouldn't have gotten into? Or perhaps with all the playing around with lighting, I just lowered my 12v battery voltage enough that turning the vehicle on was required to charge up the LVB enough to operate the frunk?

 

[Jim Lewis]

Further Non-Responsive Lighting Paradox Update (and Postscript) (8/1/23 epilog):

In retrospect, it's likely what caused the non-responsive lights is that on driving into a dark garage in the middle of a very bright day outside, I unconsciously turned the headlights from Autobeam to the full-on position. I recently did the same and discovered that when I exited the vehicle, the same set of lights was on as described in my OP post in this thread, and pressing the LOCK door keypad code would not turn off all the perimeter lighting as it does if the lights are on in conjunction with the Autobeam headlight setting. Perhaps the logic of the full-on setting is that the driver is supposed to want lights on until he/she intentionally turns them off whereas Autobeam is letting the truck decide what to do.

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