gotsmart
May 13, 2013Explorer
Majestic owners - check your cigarette lighter
This is a pic of my 2004 E450. It did not come with a cigarette lighter and the socket for it was not working. That was fine with me. I plugged my phone into the power port just above it.
Last Thursday I had all 10 spark plugs replaced (the OE plugs only had 112,000 miles on them). When the job was finished the Check Engine light came on (it was a poorly seated coil pack). The tech plugged in a OBD scanner into the OBD port and got nothing.
It turns out that the fuse for the cigarette lighter (which is also used for the OBD port) was missing. The tech installed a fuse and the OBD port worked fine.
I can't speak for CA but my guess is that they like to deactivate the cigarette lighter socket because it does not shut off with the ignition and leaving something (like a GPS) plugged into it could draw down the chassis battery over time to the point of not being able to start the truck.
I will be looking to buy a cigarette lighter dummy plug to protect the socket.

Last Thursday I had all 10 spark plugs replaced (the OE plugs only had 112,000 miles on them). When the job was finished the Check Engine light came on (it was a poorly seated coil pack). The tech plugged in a OBD scanner into the OBD port and got nothing.
It turns out that the fuse for the cigarette lighter (which is also used for the OBD port) was missing. The tech installed a fuse and the OBD port worked fine.
I can't speak for CA but my guess is that they like to deactivate the cigarette lighter socket because it does not shut off with the ignition and leaving something (like a GPS) plugged into it could draw down the chassis battery over time to the point of not being able to start the truck.
I will be looking to buy a cigarette lighter dummy plug to protect the socket.
