Stupid weather...stupid batteries
It's been worse than a walk-in freezer up here, lately. I just tried to start my truck and the battery is dead. Put the shop charger on it and at the 40 amp setting, I had electrolyte streaming out of...
Forum Discussion
westend wrote:
To answer a few questions:
Ford's implementation of "door ajar" and what it does/doesn't do. This is all about the truck in my sig line, 2003 Ford F-250 Crew Cab 4x4 5.4 V8. When a door is left open or closed/unlatched, open/latched the door ajar circuit is powered, a signal voltage is sent to the instrument cluster illuminating the located open door and the trucks ECU keeps the circuit powering the cabin overhead light powered for about 10 minutes or until 1/4 mi of forward travel has occurred. When I first brought the truck home, a mechanically disinclined ex-buddy monkeyed around with a rear door child safety switch and the door ajar problem has persisted, since. The result is that the cabin overhead light remains on when parked or, sometimes comes on by itself for a short time. I guess it is time to do some surgery and repair/replace the offending mechanism. At the same time, I'll replace the cabin lights with LED's.
If you have access to something like AutoEnginuity, it can tell you which door is reading as ajar. Once you find it, simply replace the sensor unit on that door.
Some get lucky with WD40 or whatever, but on my Excursion the sensor is different than the latch, no moving parts. Remove and unplug old, in with the new.
Often it isn't the door people suspect. FYI on the Excursion there are TWO sensors on the back hatch and only on the top, not the bottom doors ;)
Unless you have a bad GEM module, this should fix the problem. I've not experienced the GEM as mine has the hybrid cluster. Not sure if that fails the same way as the GEM or not?
Fix it up, thumb your nose at this bad weather :C
