Neutral Tow / Transmission Problem

[GddyupGG]

Our experience with Ford customer service is they stuck to a script and really offered no assistance. Once the dealer determines you were flat towing they will do what they can to not warranty it, and Ford will tell you its the dealers call and the dealer will tell you its Ford's call. We asked for a Ford engineer to come and read the "black box" and we were told no by the dealership. Dealership stated only a Ford engineer could read the black box. All we wanted was something to show that the car was put into "flat tow mode" correctly, or show is it wasn't and they refused to do that and kept reverting to the memo I attached. The kicker to all of this is we too were on a cross country trip and had no other back up car, no loaner car, nothing and it took 2 weeks for dealership to even advise us on it, and 7 weeks to get the car back and that was with us pushing hard. I really hope things work out for you. I am bitter betty on the Bronco because of what we went through.

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[Ducati1098]

@Ducati1098 Any idea if neutral tow activation will show up? I'm familiar with mode 6 but haven't played around with FDRS to see what, if or how anything else is logged.

I'm not sure off hand. There is a slight possibility it could be in the freeze frame data, but I can't say I ever remember seeing it for sure. I'll dig around and see what If I can find something

 

[dgorsett]

Unfortunately, Ford is going to fight you if they determine that you were towing the vehicle. According to one of the posters on this thread who spoke to my husband, Ford is aware there is an issue but they are not warrantying it and blaming it on consumer. We will never flat tow this vehicle again. It appears these flat tow systems are very delicate. I have attached the memo that Ford and the dealership will throw at you. Demand a Ford engineer come out and look at vehicle. We tried to do this and got no where. Maybe you will have better luck. Shame on Ford for not standing behind their vehicles. I am so sorry this is happening to you.

pdf states presence of a tow bar mounts is evidence of towing. Those guys using the recovery mounts on a modular bumper should play dumb. I have Blue Ox mounts so I would be screwed.

I will be extra cautious to be sure Acc is off and try to check trans temp, by feel, about 50 miles in as I have done sometimes.

 

[Blue Bulldog]

You need to call customer assistance and get a case opened, 800-392-3673. Ultimately, the dealer will have the final say on if it's a warrantable defect, if they don't have enough evidence to make the call, they can reach out to their FSE to assist.

From what has been posted on the boards, it seems more have been denied than covered. Of course, this is just a small sample on one forum. We had one that would not come out of neutral, did some testing and got with hotline who suggested a cluster. Waited months for the cluster to come off back order and it didn't fix the problem. Ended up taking a chassis control module. The bad part is there aren't specific guided routines in FDRS or the workshop manual for neutral tow diagnostics. Dealers may be more prone to deny coverage due to a lack of tests or proof to support it being a factory defect which is why user error is cited.

I don't know this for sure but there may be a record somewhere in the software history log that shows neutral tow was enabled. I'm not familiar enough with FDRS to know where or which mode to look at but that might be a possibility to plead a case.

Apparently Ford engineers can access more information in the systems. It will show if it was in tow mode or not. But does it show it coming out of tow mode because of dropped voltage. Who knows.

 

[flip]

Apparently Ford engineers can access more information in the systems. It will show if it was in tow mode or not. But does it show it coming out of tow mode because of dropped voltage. Who knows.

The warranty trainers preached to give the customer the benefit of the doubt when you have grey areas like this. Knowing there are issues and that there's no readily available proof to say it was owner induced and not covered or something in the system that definitely showed neutral tow was engaged, I'd be inclined to cover. That said, I'd make sure we did a very thorough inspection and documented as much diag as possible to ensure our determination was justified.

 

[GddyupGG]

The problem is they refuse to show you that it was your fault, they refuse to show you what the black box read out says. Ford stands behind what the dealership says, and not all dealerships are created equal. Unfortunately we broke down in middle of nowhere and had to deal with the worst dealership. I say to anyone that has this happen in the future, Demand that a Ford Engineer comes out and reviews the black box, demand that they show you that you didn't put it into neutral tow correctly and remind them that this is a known problem that they have a team of engineers working on. Knowing what we know now I wish we would have put up more of a fight.

 

[Ducati1098]

@flip I looked through freeze frame on a few vehicles I had in. I did not see anything directly showing neutral tow mode status. Also I’m not entirely sure freeze frame would be able to trigger an event while in neutral tow mode. Didn’t have any luck finding it anywhere else.

Apparently Ford engineers can access more information in the systems. It will show if it was in tow mode or not. But does it show it coming out of tow mode because of dropped voltage. Who knows.

It wouldn’t necessarily matter if it was because of voltage though. There are such things as related damage.

If this was in fact what happened.. In my opinion, a case could be made that the battery not being sufficient to keep it in neutral tow mode caused the transmission damage. If the battery is still under warranty and was the actual cause, then so is all other resulting damage.

 

[Blue Bulldog]

@flip I looked through freeze frame on a few vehicles I had in. I did not see anything directly showing neutral tow mode status. Also I’m not entirely sure freeze frame would be able to trigger an event while in neutral tow mode. Didn’t have any luck finding it anywhere else.



It wouldn’t necessarily matter if it was because of voltage though. There are such things as related damage.

If this was in fact what happened.. In my opinion, a case could be made that the battery not being sufficient to keep it in neutral tow mode caused the transmission damage. If the battery is still under warranty and was the actual cause, then so is all other resulting damage.

Excellent point but we would need proof that low voltage is causing it to go out of tow mode.
The fatal flaw in the system is that you really don't know if in fact it went into tow mode. At the very least it should communicate with the app so at least we could prove it was in tow mode. For Ford to lay blame on their customers without any proof is almost criminal.

 

[flip]

Excellent point but we would need proof that low voltage is causing it to go out of tow mode.
The fatal flaw in the system is that you really don't know if in fact it went into tow mode. At the very least it should communicate with the app so at least we could prove it was in tow mode. For Ford to lay blame on their customers without any proof is almost criminal.

It's more the dealer making the call rather than FMC. Ford leaves the decision making to the dealer and generally support that decision. There are rare situations where Ford will get involved but that mostly happens right before or after some sort of legal action happens.

Dealers may have sufficient information to deny a claim and regardless of how any of the parties involved feel about the decision. The second reason a claim may be denied is lack of sufficient information to support the claim being made. In this case, especially on higher dollar claims, Ford has a lot more interest to make sure what they're paying for is truly on them and that the write up, pin point tests support the repair. I guarantee you there isn't a Ford dealer out there that hasn't eaten an engine or transmission claim because some stupid small detail was missed in the diagnostics or write up.

Look at it this way. If there was no evidence of the vehicle ever being towed, off-roaded or any other type of visible neglect or damage, would this repair be scrutinized or likely denied? Probably not. The fact is there are other factors that could've caused the trans failure, improper towing being the biggest one in this situation. Without sufficient evidence to the contrary to support a covered decision, the call is the safest (financially speaking) for the dealer. Once it's done and gone, the dealer could get charged back for the entire repair with no recourse with the customer or Ford after the appeal process plays out.

I don't like being put in the position of making a decision knowing if we make the "wrong" call, we could be eating the repair if it's not a cut and dry deal. There's no one at Ford who will authorize coverage or guarantee payment so all we have to go off of is what's in front of us and what the warranty and policy says.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

Good afternoon, all,

As I sit here and read through this I have a sick feeling in my stomach. We are currently sitting at ford with an overheated bronco, 50 warning codes, no reverse and no ride home. No loaners to give and to top it off we are full timers and this is our only vehicle outside of the Rv. If you started a claim, can you provide me with that information. Ford is currently trying to prove to me that I set up the flat tow wrong. All information would be helpful. Thank you!

Good morning! If you send over a DM with your VIN and Ford dealer info, I can look into your concerns on my end.

 

[JJohnsonx21s]

They can check through the on board computer whether the vehicle was put into flat tow correctly. That was one of the first things they told me. That I did it correctly. If you left the accessory “on” after completing the sequence, it WILL draw your battery voltage down to initiate automatically putting the Bronco into Park.

Our situation was a little different as we flat towed for 5 days straight without checking on or driving the Bronco as we were on a tight time schedule to get to an appointment. The parasitic draw in that 5 day period caused the Bronco to revert to Park.

Ours was covered under warranty, but they had it for 3 weeks. We were lucky as they stated they were almost three months out on having any transmission work completed. They have a major issue with the 10-speed automatic transmissions.

They initially tried to blame our supplemental braking system on the catastrophic transmission failure, but after explaining to the tech how the AF1 works, they backed off that claim.

Good luck and hopefully Ford takes good care of you, because this is a major flaw on their behalf.

I wonder if this is what happened to us. We were driving back from Michigan about 8 hours, then we stopped at a harvest host to sleep overnight, got back up in the am and drove another 6 hours. Maybe it timed out for us as well. Not really sure. I have a camera that I watch constantly with it and never saw smoke or seen it lock up. I still really have no idea what happened or what caused this. What I do no is I followed the correct instructions to put it into tow mode and saw the flat tow enabled notification before turning the acc off. What happen after that, no idea.

 

[dgorsett]

I'm wondering about the 'shifts into park when battery is low' . Unless it also shifts the transfer case out of neutral it wouldn't adversely affect the towing, other than potentially locking the steering wheel. Or shifts into Park even with the vehicle in motion, which would result in something more violent than what has been described. Vehicles with real keys have you put the transmission in Park and the key to unlock to keep the steering free.

 

[Lisa Aiudi]

Hi. Just bought a new bronco four months ago for the purpose of towing it behind the RV. Traveled this summer all over New England. Labor Day weekend we went 300 miles to N Michigan and it wouldn't come out of neutral tow. Wouldn't go forward or reverse. Rented a car, Had to tow it back home. Went to dealership where I bought it. I bought the preferred warranty. They won't cover it. They say its operator's failure. They also won't pay towards the rental car fees I've incurred and am still paying for. The warranty clearly states all this is covered. I called Ford Corporate. Not helpful at all. It's costing me $10,000! So, now I have a car I am afraid to tow again so what use is it? Very upsetting. Something is wrong here.

 

[Lisa Aiudi]

I would prefer to talk about this on e-mail versus this forum. My e-mail address is [email protected]. Ford has eyes on this forum. I don't trust Ford after this fiasco.
We feel the same way, we only purchased because it could be flat towed, flat towed it about 10 times, and then had this happen. Now we don't want to chance towing it because even if we do it 100% correct like we did the first time and it happens again we are screwed. I drove it 800 miles home after it was fixed because we didn't want to tow it.

 

[Lisa Aiudi]

I will email you
Thank you
Lisa

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