HVAC went nuts again

[Russael]

Soooooooooooooo,

 

For the 4th time, my HVAC system lost its mind in my 2013 Fusion Energi Titanium yesterday.

 

One thing I've noticed is that when it DOES fail, it ALWAYS fails via the remote start.  Meaning, I've never had it fail just by hopping in the car and going.  Always bites it via remote start, regardless if it is plugged in or not.

 

Now granted, the car is now 5 years old and I've had it freak out 3 times before... two of which required FCIM replacements.

 

Symptoms THIS time...

 

Remote started the car, went out after 10 minutes, noticed the car was on, but no A/C compressor, no radiator fan, opened the door and it's still warm inside, but the car's left screen still had "press brake and Start to run", so it WAS in remote start mode.

 

OK, so I don't get a pre-cooled cabin.  Meh.  Unplug the car, it shuts down like normal, hop in the car, restart the car.  Climate controls are completely off.  OK, that's weird... left them on last time I was in the car.  Hit "auto", hear the AC compressor start going, radiator fan going...  no HVAC fan.  Fiddle with the controls, nothing.  Uh, ok...  Time for the universal solution!  REBOOT!

 

Shut the car off, pop the trunk, remove negative battery terminal for a minute.  Reconnect, hop back in the car, turn it on... HVAC FAN!  No A/C compressor or radiator fan.  Uh... wtf.  Another reboot!

 

Rinse and repeat removing battery terminal.

 

Hop back in, same symptom - HVAC fan, no compressor, no radiator fan.  Fiddle with controls... Max AC kicks the fan and compressor on.  Yay!  Touch auto.. everything stops working... AC compressor shuts off, HVAC fan goes to floor on lowest setting...

 

Well, I have somewhere to be.  Hit Max AC again, fiddle with the controls a little more, get the AC compressor on, choose dash vents, and get the thing working.  Pull out of the garage, roll to the main road (about 1/4 mile away)... uh, I'm not feeling very cool here...  A/C compressor shut off again.

 

SCREW IT.  Roll the windows down and drove to my destination.

 

Arrive at destination, touch "auto" and everything works as normal.  Check the remote start options to see if they are grayed out, and they're not.  OK...

 

When I depart, I touch auto and everything is normal.  Drove home in comfort.

 

Not the most reliable HVAC system I've ever seen, but at least I don't need a dealership trip again.  Yet.

[muzicman61]

Interesting... For the first time in my 2017 FFE, the A/C did not work.  I manually started the vehicle with the dash button, and started driving to my destination. After about 30 seconds I realized there was a problem.  I hit MAX A/C and nothing.  Tried to manually adjust the fan speed and it was stuck at zero.  Nothing seemed to work.  Rolled down the windows and turned on the cooled seats and completed my drive.  When I arrived at my location i turned off the car.  Waited about 5 minutes and when I started it again the A/C was thankfully working again.  No idea what might have caused the glitch but just glad it started working again.  A bit scary since I'm moving in a couple months to Phoenix and would hate for it to fail again out there.

 

Anyone else had similar issues?

[Paul Creed III]

Yes, I had this issue happen several times before the last round of 12volt battery issues (which would have had the 12volt battery disconnected, e.g. a full system shutdown). 

[bdginmo]

Bummer. I had have the FCIM replaced/reflashed once as well. I haven't had any issues since then though.