Need help Deciding to disconnect battery

[Old Aviator]

So my 22 has been hung on partial download of new update since 8/26. Yesterday I needed to charge immediate but everytime I tried to do that with the App I got cannot connect message. At that point I went in the truck and performed a Reset which cleared the preferred charging times and allowed me to charge the truck and make a 240 mile late night drive. Good news is the truck shows 23% charge and 60 miles. I did limit my speed to 65 or less.

This morning the Ford App showed I needed to reactive the connection to the truck. I tried several times and failed every time.

Call the Ford Pass App helpline. The rep found my account and said my modem had been non-responsive since 8/26! Think I can guess why.

We spent 20 mins doing more resets and finally a full return to factory settings without success. I now have screen that shows I'm driving a Mach E.

Rep said I needed to take it to a dealer but my location does not have a dealer. But truck is completely drive-able (at least it appear to be).

Any harm it trying a hail Mary and disconnecting the battery to see it that forces the modem back on line?

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[Henry Ford]

No

 

[Old Aviator]

No

We will see I just pulled the negative and will wait 10 min to see

 

[Henry Ford]

We will see I just pulled the negative and will wait 10 min to see

It may or may not help, but it won't hurt anything.

What kind of aviating did or do you do?

 

[Old Aviator]

No change but for some reason the information before (e.g, wireless) was still in the system. Expected it would reset everything. Should I have left connection off longer or is that data backed up in the system somehow?

 

[RickLightning]

The potential harm is if it's in the process of applying an update, and you pull the battery cable. Since you are clueless as to whether an update is being applied, you run the chance that in the midst of an update, you kill it, so when you connect it back up you've bricked a module.

 

[Old Aviator]

It may or may not help, but it won't hurt anything.

What kind of aviating did or do you do?

CW-4 (long before there was a 5), Senior Aviator, U.S. Army, VN '69 and '70, Cobras and Hueys, 3 years active, 12 in reserves, UH-1 IP, and AH-1G weapons instructor. Also flew for PHI in the Gulf of Mexico from Morgan City and Grand Isle early 70s.

 

[Old Aviator]

The potential harm is if it's in the process of applying an update, and you pull the battery cable. Since you are clueless as to whether an update is being applied, you run the chance that in the midst of an update, you kill it, so when you connect it back up you've bricked a module.

But I was not exactly clueless. This morning Ford confirmed they could not communicate with the truck modem despite all reset efforts and told me to take it to dealer. Last communication between Ford and the truck was 8/26 and that was when there was a partial and incomplete update. The modem would not respond to Ford after a full factory reset. Little chance I am in the middle of an update if the modem is not on line.

And based on that I took the chance and absolutly nothing changed.

 

[Henry Ford]

CW-4 (long before there was a 5), Senior Aviator, U.S. Army, VN '69 and '70, Cobras and Hueys, 3 years active, 12 in reserves, UH-1 IP, and AH-1G weapons instructor. Also flew for PHI in the Gulf of Mexico from Morgan City and Grand Isle early 70s.

Your username is certainly appropriate. I'm a civilian pilot. Currently Airbuses for a well known southern airline.

 

[RickLightning]

But I was not exactly clueless. This morning Ford confirmed they could not communicate with the truck modem despite all reset efforts and told me to take it to dealer. Last communication between Ford and the truck was 8/26 and that was when there was a partial and incomplete update. The modem would not respond to Ford after a full factory reset. Little chance I am in the middle of an update if the modem is not on line.

And based on that I took the chance and absolutly nothing changed.

Updates download, and then apply. You had no way to know if it was downloaded, and failing to update.

You asked if there was a risk, and I stated the risk. The fact that you didn't brick a module means you were lucky, as most are. But it's still a risk.

 

[Henry Ford]

But I was not exactly clueless. This morning Ford confirmed they could not communicate with the truck modem despite all reset efforts and told me to take it to dealer. Last communication between Ford and the truck was 8/26 and that was when there was a partial and incomplete update. The modem would not respond to Ford after a full factory reset. Little chance I am in the middle of an update if the modem is not on line.

And based on that I took the chance and absolutly nothing changed.

That's what I expected to happen. You won't lose any data when you do a reset.

Is there a pointer in the upper right of your screen? It looks like a Windows mouse pointer but it indicates your modem is on. If it's not there a reset might help. Since you already pulled the negative terminal I'm guessing it didn't work.

Another possibility if the modem indicator is there is that your low voltage battery isn't charged up enough. This seems to be a persistent issue with Lightnings for some reason. The easiest way to charge your battery is to turn your truck on for a couple hours. You'll have to turn off walk-away power down so it doesn't turn off after 30 minutes.

 

[Old Aviator]

Your username is certainly appropriate. I'm a civilian pilot. Currently Airbuses for a well known southern airline.

I wanted to be an airline pilot but in those days you had to have a degree even if you had the quals to fly. I hold Commercial Lisense for Rotary and Fixed multi-engine/complex and instument rated for all categories. About 3000 hours. By the time I got a BS and Masters I was recruited by a major airline but I was too far down the road in my current carrer and had 2 kids. Just could't make the move. I love to fly but things have worked out very well and no regrets.
watch this sound on

My son made that for me. He and my wife and daughther are in the video.

 

[Lytning]

CW-4 (long before there was a 5), Senior Aviator, U.S. Army, VN '69 and '70, Cobras and Hueys, 3 years active, 12 in reserves, UH-1 IP, and AH-1G weapons instructor. Also flew for PHI in the Gulf of Mexico from Morgan City and Grand Isle early 70s.

Thank you for your service!
So, which is more thrilling to "drive", the Cobra or the Lightning? My bet is on the Cobra, but the Lightning should be more comfortable.

 

[Adventureboy]

If your modem is non-responsive for more than a couple of hours, the updates won't happen and it is highly unlikely you can do additional harm from a hard power reset. In your case, it was a couple of weeks. The safer way is to pull fuse 32. This is the one that powers the modem and will do a hard reset on it while leaving the rest of the truck alone. Assuming it has been hung for a day or two, there is no harm in doing this since any update that may have been in progress on the modem has failed. If the modem doesn't come back within a few minutes of reinserting the fuse, you can try restarting sync (Vehicle powered on or on accessory - press and hold both volume-down and right-skip buttons on the steering wheel for 10-15 seconds - the screen will flash and restart). If that also fails, a trip to the dealer may be your next option.

 

[Mike G]

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