ChrisC
Member
Hi all -
After 7.5 months with my FFE, on Tuesday I will be trading it in for another car. The FFE is a good car, don't get me wrong, but it was just a stopgap solution for me while I waited for the BMW i3 to mature and come down in price a bit.
I feel like I have all this knowledge about the FFE that I want to pass on to the next owner. My car is going to the dealer as a trade-in, and I won't be able to communicate with the next owner, so here's the next best thing: writing up a post here that I hope new owners will find.
These are the top bugs that I think all new FFE owners should know about. None are showstoppers, especially once you know the workarounds, but they sure do stink up life with the car until you do learn the workarounds!
1. Don't start up the car too fast. Press the brake, wait a second, press the power button. If you press the brake and then immediately press the power button, often the car won't actually start up properly, and the shifter won't come out of park. You can tell if it has started up properly if you see the green car symbol on the display in front of the steering wheel. If you don't see that, press the power button again.
2. Radio won't come on. This one tortured me for months until I found the workaround. The speakers would be muted (dash display would actually say "audio off") and no amount of power button or volume presses would bring it to life. You'd have to change radio stations and change back, but that's a pain, especially if you weren't listening to the radio before. The workaround is to start a voice command (right paddle on steering wheel) and then say "cancel". Voila, radio on!
3. Use the voice control! It's actually very useful, particularly since using a touchscreen in a moving car is so difficult. Start voice command mode (right paddle on steering wheel) and then say out loud "what can I say", and it'll show you on screen. You don't have to learn everything, just the things you do every day. My favorite voice commands (besides, ahem, "cancel" per above) are "Line In" and "FM", since I am usually toggling between the radio and my mp3 player on the audio input.
4. Be patient with the value charging override. When you power off the car, for about a minute the right dash display (in front of steering wheel) will show the charging mode. This is where you can OVERRIDE the value charging, so for example you'd want to charge immediately when plugging into a public station that's away from home. Problem is, it doesn't like you to move too fast. I've done the override, only to watch the setting change back after a couple of seconds. So, when doing a value charge override, WAIT about 10 seconds after commanding it, just to see if it flips back.
5. Use the climate prestart feature of the keyfob! This is a killer feature that not all EVs have, and I absolutely love it. Using the keyfob to do this is far more convenient than using the smartphone app.
6. Remote access via web / smartphone stops working. This happened to me a couple times. One solution is to reboot the "telematics" module via the fuse panel. In the left corner of the trunk (not in the footwell!) is a fuse panel; fue #1 is tan and feeds power to the telematics module. Pull that and plug it back in. The other solution is to go to the MFM website, delete your car, and re-add it.
7. Stop Safely Now -- this bug is pretty much gone now, as Ford issued a recall on it in 2013. But if you ever get a FFE, make sure the dealer has performed the fix on it. I believe it involves cleaning and tightening a grounding strap under the car, and installing some updated software.
It would help if you point new FFE owners to this post. If there's a FAQ somewhere, link to this post from it.
Thanks!
After 7.5 months with my FFE, on Tuesday I will be trading it in for another car. The FFE is a good car, don't get me wrong, but it was just a stopgap solution for me while I waited for the BMW i3 to mature and come down in price a bit.
I feel like I have all this knowledge about the FFE that I want to pass on to the next owner. My car is going to the dealer as a trade-in, and I won't be able to communicate with the next owner, so here's the next best thing: writing up a post here that I hope new owners will find.
These are the top bugs that I think all new FFE owners should know about. None are showstoppers, especially once you know the workarounds, but they sure do stink up life with the car until you do learn the workarounds!
1. Don't start up the car too fast. Press the brake, wait a second, press the power button. If you press the brake and then immediately press the power button, often the car won't actually start up properly, and the shifter won't come out of park. You can tell if it has started up properly if you see the green car symbol on the display in front of the steering wheel. If you don't see that, press the power button again.
2. Radio won't come on. This one tortured me for months until I found the workaround. The speakers would be muted (dash display would actually say "audio off") and no amount of power button or volume presses would bring it to life. You'd have to change radio stations and change back, but that's a pain, especially if you weren't listening to the radio before. The workaround is to start a voice command (right paddle on steering wheel) and then say "cancel". Voila, radio on!
3. Use the voice control! It's actually very useful, particularly since using a touchscreen in a moving car is so difficult. Start voice command mode (right paddle on steering wheel) and then say out loud "what can I say", and it'll show you on screen. You don't have to learn everything, just the things you do every day. My favorite voice commands (besides, ahem, "cancel" per above) are "Line In" and "FM", since I am usually toggling between the radio and my mp3 player on the audio input.
4. Be patient with the value charging override. When you power off the car, for about a minute the right dash display (in front of steering wheel) will show the charging mode. This is where you can OVERRIDE the value charging, so for example you'd want to charge immediately when plugging into a public station that's away from home. Problem is, it doesn't like you to move too fast. I've done the override, only to watch the setting change back after a couple of seconds. So, when doing a value charge override, WAIT about 10 seconds after commanding it, just to see if it flips back.
5. Use the climate prestart feature of the keyfob! This is a killer feature that not all EVs have, and I absolutely love it. Using the keyfob to do this is far more convenient than using the smartphone app.
6. Remote access via web / smartphone stops working. This happened to me a couple times. One solution is to reboot the "telematics" module via the fuse panel. In the left corner of the trunk (not in the footwell!) is a fuse panel; fue #1 is tan and feeds power to the telematics module. Pull that and plug it back in. The other solution is to go to the MFM website, delete your car, and re-add it.
7. Stop Safely Now -- this bug is pretty much gone now, as Ford issued a recall on it in 2013. But if you ever get a FFE, make sure the dealer has performed the fix on it. I believe it involves cleaning and tightening a grounding strap under the car, and installing some updated software.
It would help if you point new FFE owners to this post. If there's a FAQ somewhere, link to this post from it.
Thanks!