I saved the DTC log before i cleared them with forscan. I will grab it here in a few minutes and look. The new battery will be here today. Though i know nothing about changing battery strategy…I have never heard of having to do that with a car before. Sounds like something similar to what i have to do with the floor scrubbers and such that i work on when changing battery types.
This car has me pretty frustrated. While i like tinkering, i wanted to buy a nice car that wasnt a project right off the bat. I drove 3 hours to look at it, im pretty sure the guy cleared all the codes for the other problems im haveing before i got there. They started showing back up the next day. Very frustrating. I suck at buying cars lmao…
Im fairly positive that the hvac system was working on my drive home with it though…im pretty sure i had the heat on because it was chilly out. I wish i had paid more attention. I didnt notice the issues until after i updated to sync 3.4. Which was the next day as an attempt to fix the slow laggy screen and the randomly functioning backup camera.
So i was just out tinkering around, and saw a video were a guy tapped on the driver’s side vent actuator and it switched over to blow out the front vents. I tried this with the key on, fan running on high, and front vents selected. Sure enough, it switched to blowing out the front vents, so i started the car and let it start warming up. I put it in auto, the fan slowed down as it should as it was still blowing cold air, and as the engine warmed, the air started getting warmer and the fan speed started increasing too. I felt this huge wash of relief. Thinking that at least part of my issue has been resolved.
Then about halfway warm, something changed and the air got very cold…the temp was still on high but it was blowing almost ac cold air. Also, just because, I tried to change the vent selection again. It is now stuck on the front vents, and the tapping is not fixing it this time…typical…I should have known better lmfao.
So i believe i fixed the temperature adjustment actuators by performing a calibration on the climate control system. I could tell they were working but just seemed like they would stop before opening all of the way to the warm side. I still can not change the vent selection, so i picked up a new actuator for it and will try to get it changed out this weekend. I also realized that the heated seats are not working. Could the calibration on these have gotten messed up during the sync 3.4 install? Maybe the vent selector got so far out of calibration that it broke it or got it stuck?
Sorry for the misunderstanding, i meant the calibration of the actuators not the heated seats. I had just noticed the heated seats were something else that isnt working. I worded it wrongly lol
Common issue with Taurus and Edge models. Replacing the actuator is likely the solution. It’s not complicated but it will take time because of the location.
The actuator is just bad and not traveling completely.
This confirms the issue:
===HVAC DTC B1086:07-0A===
Code: B1086 - Air Distribution Damper Motor
Additional Fault Symptom (:07):
Thank you both!! I really appreciate the help. I know this has gone a bit beyond the sync update.
Its still acting odd besides the vents not working, like it cycling on and off by itself and sometimes the fan doesnt work right away. I think i found a whole nest of gremlins lmao…i greatly appreciate all of the help though so THANK YOU!
The climate-controlled seats can be problematic in 2015 thru 2017, certain Ford and Lincoln models. This is due to the redesign of the seats that are equipped with a TED (Thermionic Heater). This is used as a heater and cooler by reversing the voltage to the device and using a fan to dissipate the heat from the device. Ford stopped using these in 2018 and revised the seats for a cooling effect, rather than actual cooling. The lack of cooling performance has been noted by Ford and customer complaints, and Ford has several TSB and SSM’s for these seats. None of the Ford solutions work, however. There is an aftermarket solution that works quite well for this, which is to modify, or add, seat venting for the TED. The modification does not affect the appearance or other functioning of the seats. I have made this modification to my seats in my 2015 F-150 after Ford Service totally destroyed my perfectly good seats trying to make their solutions work to no avail. They bought me 2 brand new seats for my Platinum F-150, then I made the modification, improved the modification and sent a newly revised design to the guy who was providing it, and he now makes the later version with those modifications. The seats perform as well as they can with the restricted design by Ford. There are asbuilt settings that will also help with the performance of the cooling and heating for the Driver’s Seat Module (DSM).
That is a bit confusing, i will try to read into it a bit further…
I got the actuator changed out today and it worked! But boy what it a pita to change out. I was able to get all of the screws out of it and got it dropped down, but there was no possible way for me to get my hands up in there to position the new one so i ended up removing the steering column. That opened it up enough for me to get the new one in place and the screws started.
I was looking around at a spreadsheet i found for taurus, hoping maybe the setting was wrong for the climate controlled seats…it seams most of my settings match the sync 2 apim data and not the sync 3 apim data…but the car had sync 3.0 when i got it…i tried the sync 3 settings for the climate controlled seats and it didnt do anything so i switched it back.
I also had an issue where the blower fan stopped working for a bit, then started working again a bit later. I also had to recalibrate the actuators twice. The first time i did just because i installed the new actuator, but after that the temperature actuators were off again and would only blow cold or colder. One more calibration fixed them again.
I’m wondering if you have a bad fan or fan controller. That behavior would not be caused by the Sync system, but thru the HVAC controller, or FCIM. Look for any DTC’s related to that. And clear the CTC’s you had for the actuator…
I was thinking more that maybe the sync system was the reason that the climate controlled seats were not working anymore…the number of things that i have found wrong with this car so far is baffling me.
The seat controllers are the SCMG and SCMH. The climate controller for the seats is the SCME. These have relay outputs to drive the seat functions. There are issues with these about connector failures at the controller, where the pins overheat and burn up the connector. This covers a lot of vehicles, not just yours. The Sync unit only reads the status of the controller and sends commands. Do the seat functions all work thru the front panels (FCIM)?