Stop Safely Now Warning

[dogbarczar]

After charging my FFE at work yesterday, I got in to go home and pressed the start button and got my first stop safely now message. I tried restarting the car numerous times to no avail. The car was towed to Downtown Ford in Sacramento. My FFE has 2000 gas free miles on the clock. Today, the dealer called me and said they are still doing testing. I wanted to start this tread totally dedicated to this problem. Thanks in advance for any input you can offer.

[dwf123]

Read the forums. There are lots of posts about this issue. I, fortunently, have not had any messages, but many others have.

[dogbarczar]

Rats! Spoke to the dealer and he said a rat got up on top of my motor and chewed a high voltage wire all the way through. Fortunately my insurance company is going to pay for the damage. They are going to replace the wiring harness that contains the wire as they don't want to splice the wire.

[Don A]

You're joking!

[Parzival]

I'd push for Ford to pay for it. If it's appetizing to a rodent, what's to stop it from happening repeatedly?

[jeffand]

Get a cat.

[dogbarczar]

Got the estimate from the dealer, $2800 for the harness and $1000 for the labor. I could have done it my self for about $5, but Ford is recommending the harness and so is the insurance company. Since it is a lease car, I probably have no say in the matter. I would have removed the pins from the connector, soldered new wires to them, then reinstalled them in the connector and spliced and soldered the new wires to the old ones with heat shrink, a little electrical tape and some flex tubing to finish off the repair and called it good.

Have a cat at home, but this happened at work while charging in our shop garage. I normally charge outside, but a fellow jealous coworker complained that the charging cord was a tripping hazard, even though I ran the cord next to a curb. You would have had to intentionally cross between the car and a curb to be able to trip on the cord. The tripping hazard claim was exaggerated! My bosses solution was to charge the car inside the shop.

The rat also chewed a water hose on the expansion tank of our Ford F550 truck.

[Parzival]

$4000 to replace a wiring harness. Does that include lubricant?

10% of the MSRP

[jeffand]

I have had problems with rodents eating insulaton off of wires. But fortunatly it was only a grounding wire on my 1987 Shelby CSX. I would set up traps, or use rat poison to cure the problem.

[Leo]

I had the same issue, minus the rats. Got into my FFE this morning to take kids to school and then go to work. It was fully charged. Went about 2 blocks and it stopped. Really sucked. Had to get pushed out of the intersection. While in the intersection I tried to restart it but it wouldn't go. About 5 minutes later all is well. Drove it to work and back with no issue, about 40 miles. It has 1250 miles. I called Ford they said I can bring it in. Not sure I will unless it happens again. Anyone else had a similar issue?