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New Member to the I'm Having Trouble with My ST Club

Autoworker

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I drove the Explorer yesterday without issue. This morning, the wife pressed the #1 seat position to adjust the seats. The seat moved into position, and all hell broke loose! Clicking, all lighting flashing (Interior and exterior). I went out and tried to start it, no power at all, no lighting, just dead. Hooked up my charger and did a voltage test, 3.5 volts. Called the dealer, they said more than likely a crap battery. I pull the battery, took it to the dealer. They charge it and say the battery's good. I re-install the battery and it fires up. Everything's working except THE DRIVER'S SEAT! Drove it to the dealer (after hours) and parked it. Getting it to the dealer saved a trip on a flatbed. If I were a betting man, the battery will be dead tomorrow morning. The seats so far up I can't drive it, and now I don't trust it either. Anybody else have a similar experience?
 

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TMac

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I haven't heard of anyone else experiencing this scenario, but I will say there are definitely electrical gremlins in these vehicles. I've had no mechanical issues, but occasionally the tailgate will only go halfway up. On a couple of occasions, the headlights haven't shutdown (in auto mode) when the vehicle is turned off. Once when I stopped at a gas station and then opened the driver's door, the tailgate decided to open. There was a completely unrelated post on the site about a ground from the engine to the strut tower that wasn't present on earlier models. I'm wondering if there might be a grounding problem somewhere.

In your case, since the seat won't move, I'd suspect the seat motor might have shorted. Have you checked fuse box?
 

OP
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Didn’t check any fuses. It’s under warranty, so I’ll let the dealer sort it out. I’m glad I got it out of the garage and to the shop. That worried me.
 

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Cdubya

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reset the seat module. pretty sure there is one and a forscan service procedure for it. sometimes these modules just flake out. have had wonky liftback twice, another time i got deep sleep notifications every time i turned off the car, etc.

btw, that ground cable that wasnt there on earlier explorers was jus found to be located on a different part of the strut tower. no revelations there.
 

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hbalek

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My battery died completely at about 19 months of ownership. They said it was a bad battery and replaced under warranty. I've had many other electrical gremlins with the liftgate opening randomly when walking by or touching the door handle. Also had the lights on in auto mode. That one hasn't happened in many months. The list is too long.
 

ZRX61

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TMac said:
I haven't heard of anyone else experiencing this scenario, but I will say there are definitely electrical gremlins in these vehicles. I've had no mechanical issues, but occasionally the tailgate will only go halfway up. On a couple of occasions, the headlights haven't shutdown (in auto mode) when the vehicle is turned off. Once when I stopped at a gas station and then opened the driver's door, the tailgate decided to open. There was a completely unrelated post on the site about a ground from the engine to the strut tower that wasn't present on earlier models. I'm wondering if there might be a grounding problem somewhere.

In your case, since the seat won't move, I'd suspect the seat motor might have shorted. Have you checked fuse box?
Click to expand...
We figured out they all have the ground strap from the engine to the strut tower. It's just that there are three locations on the tower it can bolt to & it could be mounted to any one of them.

With that said, I'd probably remove it at the tower end & clean the paint off the tower to ensure a good path, then coat it with Vaseline or the purple battery grease/goop after it's back together.
 

OP
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We’ve had the headlight issue on auto mode (wouldn’t shut off) and camera blue screen once in the past. The wife also told me that the dome lights came on the other day and wouldn’t shut off. Flickered and went off on their own. Weird stuff. 2020, built 8/20 16,000 miles on the clock. Camera recall hasn’t been done yet, so il bring that up too.
 

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OP
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Update: After clearing all of the codes caused by the dead battery, the dealer reset the driver's seat module. They don't have a clue on what caused the battery to drain, or any of the other issues. They didn't do the blue screen camera recall 21S44. Said the update was worse than the original issue. Ford's coming out with a new update.
 

hbalek

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Autoworker said:
Update: After clearing all of the codes caused by the dead battery, the dealer reset the driver's seat module. They don't have a clue on what caused the battery to drain, or any of the other issues. They didn't do the blue screen camera recall 21S44. Said the update was worse than the original issue. Ford's coming out with a new update.
Click to expand...
I had the recall and a new camera installed 2 weeks ago. I've had a blue screen a couple times but what's better so far is that the blue screen lasts a few seconds and goes back to normal unlike before where you had to restart the vehicle to clear the blue screen. I consider that an improvement since you don't really lose access to the camera view or back up assist. But I'm not holding my breath and expect the problem to return just like before I would go a month or so before it would occur again.
 

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Cdubya

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Were you getting deep sleep notifications before the battery drained? There was a battery drain tsb that involved reflashing some modules.... affected some MY2020s. Ive had a number of modules done for that as well as to address rough shifting. no deep sleep since and shifts much smoother. Aside from that, i avoid the dealer like the plague. better off with forscan lite and your phone to troubleshoot and reset modules as needed. also have reset trans learning a couple of times now and it helps. would definitely recommend the setup.
 

OP
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No deep sleep notifications. The dead battery was out of the blue.
 

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