Fun with Ford:
2012 F150XL 3.7L, 2WD, tow package...113,750 miles.
Maintained according to manufacturer's schedule by the dealer I bought it from new.
While driving (at any speed and from any gear) truck frequently, unpredictably exhibits following:
- speedometer needle drops to zero regardless of actual speed !!
- truck loses proper shifting functionality !!
Event has occurred a dozen or so times since 12 December 2020, usually at speeds and gearing above third. Typical result is truck will not downshift below third gear, but on one occasion event occurred at a stop light, and gearing above first would not engage.
- odometer, tripmeter, gas mileage, and other digital information displays null-out to dashes instead of showing numbers
- a wrench symbol appears on right side of the digital display. wrench symbol sometimes persists through event, sometimes goes away even while gearing speedometer, etc. are not functioning
- sometimes the check engine light appears, sometimes not
- airbag light illuminates !! (is my airbag NOT functioning during these events?!?)
If I turn the truck off, remove the key and then re-start, the truck temporarily returns to normal function with no indication event occured (check engine light not on, etc.) Truck then operates normally until the event recurs, sometimes only moments or minutes after a reset, sometimes not again for the remainder of a short trip (<10 mile / <20).
Issue has twice left me in a bad traffic situation: once, with a load in the bed, I was stuck without first and second gear at a light on a grade and couldn't move because I didn't have enough torque in third gear. Another time, I was stuck in first gear trying to get through traffic to get off the road.
Truck is not safe to operate in this condition and I have stopped driving it altogether.
I filed a safety complaint with NHTSA.
Dealer says: need to replace the lead frame, which I understand to be essentially a wiring harness internal to the transmission. They have to drop the trans to do this.
And here's the nut: Ford gonna cover it.
I'll be a while without the truck because the parts have to be ordered, etc. Could be a couple weeks. But I don't care. I thought I was going to have to cover this, which would not be possible since I'm unemployed, and can't dump thousands into a 9 year old truck with only 114k on it.
