PAAK not unlocking doors about 50% of the time?

[drewguitar]

Got my lightning Nov 2024 - the first three months everything worked perfectly. Walk up with phone in my pocket, hand on the door handle, it unlocks, I get in and go.

About a month ago, it started not unlocking for me. About 50% of the time, i have to key in the door code to unlock the truck. Once I'm in, it starts and works great - no issue with detecting the key. It's as if the sensor on the door handles not working properly. No change in phone, and like I said, it's never given me a "key not detected" type error when starting the truck.

The outter lock buttons on the door handles don't work so well either, so I've been locking by using bottom two digits on keypad. Perhaps these are related and it's something with the door handles?

Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas / fixes?

Sponsored

 

[Athrun88]

What phone/OS do you have? I have a S22 Ultra on latest Android and it does pretty much the same thing. Welcome lighting is also hit or miss. As much as I hate lugging around another fob, I might have to until PaaK reliability is looked at.

 

[drewguitar]

What phone/OS do you have? I have a S22 Ultra on latest Android and it does pretty much the same thing. Welcome lighting is also hit or miss. As much as I hate lugging around another fob, I might have to until PaaK reliability is looked at.

I have an S21 plus. Won't start taking the keyfob as truck works great and always starts / drivers. Just annoying going around to drivers side and using keypad to unlock.

Oddly, it always worked perfectly until about a month ago.

 

[GDN]

I get intermittent results, but I've always blamed the door handles on the truck. My phone works perfectly on a Tesla.

The door handle touch sensitivity concept is a very good one, but truly poor in theory.

Make of it what you want and yeah, it's just a little crazy, but if you just touch your fingers to your tongue and get them damp - you'll have better success. I think its about dry skin and little conductivity on the handle pad.

So dampen your hands a bit, however you choose, and see if you get better results.

 

[The Weatherman]

I have noticed the PAAK is not being recognized as quickly as it did early on. 22MY Lariat. It doesn’t unlock the doors on touch unless it now in my hand and the FPass app is running in the phone in the foreground. This behavior started about three months ago for me. In addition it has been slow to be recognized when starting the truck. Same circumstances required. iOS 18.4.

 

[F150ROD]

I have noticed the PAAK is not being recognized as quickly as it did early on. 22MY Lariat. It doesn’t unlock the doors on touch unless it now in my hand and the FPass app is running in the phone in the foreground. This behavior started about three months ago for me. In addition it has been slow to be recognized when starting the truck. Same circumstances required. iOS 18.4.

Agreed. And sometimes it’ll say No Key Detected. I’ve sent feedback and continue to send it. But no results yet.

 

[Heliian]

Your phone is probably sleeping. Make sure your phone is configured to allow it in the background. Updates on your phone may have changed the settings.

 

[sstevetx]

In the past it has worked fine most of the time on my S23 ultra, but I have noticed issues recently. There have been a few times where I've had to open the Fordpass app to get the door to unlock. I have the app battery usage set to "Unrestricted" which is supposed to keep it from being put to sleep. I'm not sure if this is an Android issue or a Fordpass one, but Fordpass did update to version 5.17 on April 1st. Android hasn't updated it's OS version in quite a while (currently on 14) and the last security patch was in March.

 

[telrod11]

Pixel 8 Pro Android 16

My results may be a bit better than what you guys are reporting. I get about 75% success with unlocking the doors, and about 90% detecting the phone is there to start the truck.

I'd say locking the truck with the push button on the door handle is down around 10%. It basically never works.

 

[swtaylor89]

Got my lightning Nov 2024 - the first three months everything worked perfectly. Walk up with phone in my pocket, hand on the door handle, it unlocks, I get in and go.

About a month ago, it started not unlocking for me. About 50% of the time, i have to key in the door code to unlock the truck. Once I'm in, it starts and works great - no issue with detecting the key. It's as if the sensor on the door handles not working properly. No change in phone, and like I said, it's never given me a "key not detected" type error when starting the truck.

The outter lock buttons on the door handles don't work so well either, so I've been locking by using bottom two digits on keypad. Perhaps these are related and it's something with the door handles?

Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas / fixes?

I find that by the driver side rear passenger door it's more sensitive than by the driver door. If the driver's door won't open, I'll back up and try to open the rear door and it'll work almost every time.

 

[Athrun88]

So dampen your hands a bit, however you choose, and see if you get better results.

So I tried this today and WOW, big change.. the little lock buttons used to work maybe 10-20% of the time on any given door. Tried it today with a dry thumb and no reaction like usual. Gave a little lick and touched again and worked immediately. If the inside of the handle is the same and that is why PaaK is being annoying, I might have to mount a damp cloth to the wing mirror, LOL

 

[Greg K]

I have S22 Ultra and find that mine doesn't always immediately work. However, I did read this on the FordPass App about having your phone on and the app working in the foreground. So, when PAAK isn't unlocking my doors, I hit the power button on my phone and it connects.

I think someone on here mentioned your phone may be asleep. Try to wake up your phone and see if that works.

 

[Whammy Bar]

Got my lightning Nov 2024 - the first three months everything worked perfectly. Walk up with phone in my pocket, hand on the door handle, it unlocks, I get in and go.

About a month ago, it started not unlocking for me. About 50% of the time, i have to key in the door code to unlock the truck. Once I'm in, it starts and works great - no issue with detecting the key. It's as if the sensor on the door handles not working properly. No change in phone, and like I said, it's never given me a "key not detected" type error when starting the truck.

The outter lock buttons on the door handles don't work so well either, so I've been locking by using bottom two digits on keypad. Perhaps these are related and it's something with the door handles?

Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas / fixes?

My money is on the rear bluetooth module going out. Same problems on my 22 Lariat... rear doors unresponsive, front doors fine. Constantly used the keypad to get in, and then PAAK was fine to start the truck (most of the time without needing the password). Also Android - Pixel 6

 

[Albern]

I noticed that PAAK isn't as responsive in the past 2-weeks or so - something must have changed on the OS side (Android) as I've been on Ford Pass V5.16 for nearly a month; PAAK had been working extremely well for me - probably 100% call success rate whenever I touch the door handles.

As for the welcome lights - I've found that it is hit or miss - maybe 25% to 50% call success rate depending on a number of variables e.g. - I just parked the truck, I already woke up the vehicle within the past few minutes vs haven't driving the truck in several days.

 

[bellyer]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and have noticed that my PaaK has also not been as responsive as it used to be. If I actually take it out of my pocket and put it up right against the vehicle or turn my body to make the phone in my pocket be closer to the vehicle, that somehow seems to help (maybe that is just in my head though). I am guessing this is an issue related to an update on the phone, as opposed to the truck, as I do not believe that I have had any updates in the past few weeks other than the window performance update, which should not have impacted the PaaK.

Sponsored