Reverse problem

I am one of the unlucky ones who experienced the "Stop Safely Now" error. I only experienced this once. Had it into the Ford dealership for service for two days and they were unable to discover the source of the problem being it didn't log any codes. Today I had another glitch with the car, this time I was unable to get the car to go into reverse. I have actually experienced this about three times now, and was wondering if anyone else had experienced it. When you put the car into reverse, and step on the accelerator it feels like the parking brake is engaged. Today I has she tried putting the parking brake on and off and that had no effect.I then tried putting the car into park and into reverse several times without any effect. What I found fixed it is like for the car into drive and then back into reverse and immediately work properly.

Has anyone else experienced this behavior? After my last experience with the" Stop Safely Now" error I am not very encouraged to take it back into the dealership. This is actually the third time that I've experienced this, but it seems easily fixed by putting the car into drive in them back into reverse. Very glitchy. D

The gear selector is really not a gear selector at all. The gear selector or shifter is really a switch that tells the computer that you want to go forward, reverse or want to park. It could be a bad switch contact in the gear selector, or a faulty wire harness. The next time this happens check the dash to see if the green car Icon is on. Next check the gear selector on the dash to see if reverse is selected. Make sure the parking brake is not applied. If it doesn't indicate you are in reverse try gently pulling and pushing on the shifter to see if reverse indicator (R) comes on. Also if you don't release the button on the shifter it won't change gears.

jeffand said:

Also if you don't release the button on the shifter it won't change gears.

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I don't think this is the case. I tested this in my driveway this morning and in my 2013 FFE the button only functions to prevent accidentally moving the lever. i.e. The transmission switched gears as soon as I moved the lever, irrespective of the button position.


WP

Thanks for all the suggestions. WIll try that next time it does it. It is really weird in the sense when you push on the accelerator when it happens it seems like it is trying to move backwards, you can feel the mass of the car moving inches, but is seems to be pushing against something that won't allow it to move. Almost like if you were to keep one foot on the hard on the brakes while pushing the accelerator.

When you place the car in park it locks the transmission. It could be that the transmission is not unlocking. Is the car parked on a steep incline? The extra force would make it more difficult for it to unlock the transmission.

firewired said:

When you put the car into reverse, and step on the accelerator it feels like the parking brake is engaged.

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This happened to me yesterday. Here is what I did:

1. Pressed the start button to shut it off. Make sure we're back in "Park". Set the parking brake.
2. Heavy sigh. Don't remember if I used any expletives. Pretty sure I was thinking of some.
3. Pressed the start button to fire things up.
4. Released the parking brake.
4. Stuck it into reverse.

And it worked! I had issues when I first got the FFE with getting it to start, thought it was always pilot error. So I've developed a habit to treat it like the Microsoft blue screen of death and do a hard reboot. Works every time.

Usually when this happened to me the car felt like it was in Neutral - it would roll on an incline, and giving it some throttle had no effect. Yesterday the throttle did have an effect, but it felt like I had four flat tires or that the parking brake was dragging. Weird.

"Yesterday the throttle did have an effect, but it felt like I had four flat tires or that the parking brake was dragging."

That sounds like the same weird sensation that I experienced.

This kind of thing happened (only once) to me. But, I think I caused it by "going through the motions" a little too fast. That is, I either released the brake pedal or shifted before the car had truly started up.

Now, I am much more deliberate in my start-up sequence...

Press brake pedal.
Pause.
Press start button.
Wait for green light in dash.
Pause.
Finally, shift and go.

It hasn't happened again.

In my last incident I know with certainty that I had the green go icon on the dash. Interesting thing was that's toting it into park, and then reverse multiple times, as well as restarting didn't help. Each time I would restart it I would wait for the go icon. The fix was putting the car momentarily in drive and then reverse. After that it immediately worked fine.

I just got my FFE 4 days ago, and have experienced this issue twice. Solved it by turning it off and starting again by going through the process slowly. This shouldn't be happening, does Ford have any advice on this issue?

RWN210 said:

I just got my FFE 4 days ago, and have experienced this issue twice. Solved it by turning it off and starting again by going through the process slowly. This shouldn't be happening, does Ford have any advice on this issue?

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I hope nothing is wrong with your FFE, but I think part of this is you just getting used to the car. The same thing happened to me once or twice early on, but now that my muscle memory has kicked in for "how to start up the FFE", it doesn't happen anymore.

I don't really think it is all that different from some regular ICE cars, if you shift out of park too fast, or forget to press the brake, for example, causing the ignition to refuse to engage.

In my two days of driving the car I've noticed all sorts of weird things happen if you try to operate it too quickly on startup.

I'm trying to get into the habit of waiting a good 5-10 seconds after pressing start+brake before doing anything else (have to at least wait for that popup: "Ready to drive").

5-10 seconds is generous. It is possible to successfully start up in just a few seconds. My routine goes something like this... depress brake pedal, wait a second, press Start, and then shift out of P only after the green "car with two arrows under it" light turns on (which only takes another second or two). Then, all is well.

I have experienced this reverse problem several times. I concluded it was the parking brake sticking because of an experiment that I did. One time when this happened I just gave more and more pressure on the accellerator and slowly that car started moving. Once It moveda. Few feet I shifted into forward and moved forward a few feet. The vehicle moved freely in both directions then.

The Ford dealer looked at this last week and couldnt repro it. I just had it happen again yesterday, ran a vehicle report to see if it showed anything. Nothing showed.

Were you parked on a slope?

The automatic "brake hold" feature is triggered if the car is parked on an incline of 5 degrees or more. This is described in the manual.

WattsUp said:

Were you parked on a slope?

The automatic "brake hold" feature is triggered if the car is parked on an incline of 5 degrees or more. This is described in the manual.

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I have a brake-hold type problem from time to time when I'm on level ground in my garage. Start up normally, put it into reverse and nothing happens. If I sort of gun the engine it jolts back and the problem goes away. I rarely use the parking brake--just put it in park when I'm on the level. I wonder if the car may think it should trigger the brake hold feature sometimes even when it should not.

It happens infrequently so I'm not overly worried about it.

I think of it as I am driving a computer. When the car malfunctions when I start it up I turn it off and even open the door. I count to 10 and then close he door and go through the steps again. I have issues with the steering being locked and the shifter being non responsive. When I am deliberate and treat it like my blackberry (pulling the battery when all else fails) the car is fine.

Susan said:

I think of it as I am driving a computer. When the car malfunctions when I start it up I turn it off and even open the door. I count to 10 and then close he door and go through the steps again. I have issues with the steering being locked and the shifter being non responsive. When I am deliberate and treat it like my blackberry (pulling the battery when all else fails) the car is fine.

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Yeah, I tried pulling the battery on the FFE, but realized it would take a jack stand and specialized tools.

I have the problem in my garage too. 1 time in 5 or so, there is a delay from when I put the car in reverse that it actually goes in reverse. I don't think it has happened anywhere else. Although I park in the garage longer than anywhere else, I'm parked at work for 9 to 11 hours a day. I think it might have something to do with the slope of the driveway...although the garage itself is flat. Perhaps the car senses the incline as I enter the garage, but doesn't realize that the floor is flat.

I usually just wait for the car to move, which is less than 10 seconds; however, one time when it did it, I shifted into drive, moved an inch, shifted back into reverse, and all was fine. I know it is the brakes sticking because one time a "gunned" it a little and got the car to move a little while hearing the friction from the brakes...but it soon fully release and I was moving again.

I never really worried about it or thought much of it...figuring it was the car trying to deal with an incline.

I just had this twice as well. I started a new thread for it that I guess could be deleted..