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Wrench Light


drolds1

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Wednesday evening, I was on my way to dinner on a local street with red lights on every corner.  After a time, the orange wrench light came on, along with the notice "See Manual" in the message center.  There were no drivability issues.   After dinner, the light was out on startup and stayed that way the whole way home.  My wife used the car the next morning and no light.  When she went out again in the afternoon, it was still off going, but popped on again during the trip home.  I called my longtime S.A.  He told me to wait a minute while he "tapped into" my car.  He said that it looks like communication with the transfer case (PTU) module was lost.  He knew the exact date and time the alert came up and, further, gave me dates of previous alerts that obviously hadn't triggered the light. 

 

So, I learned something.  I didn't know that they can see this stuff in their systems without the car actually being there.  That prompted me to check the vehicle health report on the Lincoln Way app.  It showed nothing.  Of course, the light didn't come back on yesterday or today, but since they have a record of it, that shouldn't be a problem.  I have a service appointment next week.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/10/2022 at 5:56 PM, drolds1 said:

Wednesday evening, I was on my way to dinner on a local street with red lights on every corner.  After a time, the orange wrench light came on, along with the notice "See Manual" in the message center.  There were no drivability issues.   After dinner, the light was out on startup and stayed that way the whole way home.  My wife used the car the next morning and no light.  When she went out again in the afternoon, it was still off going, but popped on again during the trip home.  I called my longtime S.A.  He told me to wait a minute while he "tapped into" my car.  He said that it looks like communication with the transfer case (PTU) module was lost.  He knew the exact date and time the alert came up and, further, gave me dates of previous alerts that obviously hadn't triggered the light. 

 

So, I learned something.  I didn't know that they can see this stuff in their systems without the car actually being there.  That prompted me to check the vehicle health report on the Lincoln Way app.  It showed nothing.  Of course, the light didn't come back on yesterday or today, but since they have a record of it, that shouldn't be a problem.  I have a service appointment next week.

Followup:  Left the car for service. MY SA called back the next day to say that there was a code P0024 in memory and that they applied SSM 50067 for sticking VCT solenoids and sent me on my way.   This struck as a little odd in light of what he'd originally said about loss of communication with the AWD PTU.  Lo and behold, the light reappeared upon ending a 60-mile road trip.  Of course, this was on a weekend.  On Monday, I headed back to the dealer.  The SA again said that the system was showing loss of communication with the PTU.  I left the car and went home in the same loaner I'd had the prior week (Corsair).

 

The new diagnosis was that there's apparently a problem with the BCM sending false signals.  They're going to replace it, but...you guessed it.  It's on backorder.  They're expecting it, maybe the end of January.  I'm not looking forward to this.  The SM shows a lot of trim pieces having to come off and many modules needing to be reinitialized, as well as reprogramming of the key fobs.

 

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  • 5 weeks later...

TBH, I have no idea what this could be. It would be best for your friend to get a professional diagnosis in which a tech cna drive the car and your friend can identify the noise.

 

BTW, AFAIK, there's no factory maintenance interval for the RDU.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Update:  Well, the saga continues.  I'd gone in for an oil change and state inspection in February, and the SA said he'd check if the BCM had come in. Oh! Yes, it had.  Nobody bothered to call.  I made an appointment for Thursday, 2/23. Got another Corsair loaner (which I don't like any better than I did last time). I informed them that I'd be going out of town the 26th until the following Saturday.  I was assured that it would be done by that Friday.  On Friday, the SA called to tell me that they'd replaced the BCM, but the wrench light was still on. At this point, they thought it needed a new battery cable, but that wasn't in stock and the car wouldn't be ready by the end of the day.   The SA said there'd be no problem with the loaner sitting in my garage for the week we'd be away and to call him on Friday, 3/3, which I did, but he was out sick.  I called yesterday and was informed that the battery cable didn't fix the problem either.  They are now in touch with Lincoln engineers.  Heard nothing today. Who knows what's going on?  I don't have a lot of confidence in this being resolved any time soon.

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  • 1 month later...

Little did I know how prescient the last sentence of my prior post would turn out to be.  As noted above, I left the car at the dealer on 2/23.  I just got it back Friday, 4/28.  When I left off, they'd replaced the BCM and a battery cable to no avail.  I don't have an itemized list of parts replaced, but one thing that stands out in my mind is that they replaced the main wiring harness.  I was horrified at this because after visiting the old Wixom Lincoln assembly plant in MI years ago with my LS owner's club (at Lincoln's invitation), we observed that the main wiring harness goes into the vehicle when it's still just a shell.  The tour guide mentioned that these harnesses were fragile and required careful handling. While he was telling us this, the line workers were tossing the harnesses through the windshield openings, where they landed on the bare steel floors of the body shells with a resounding bang.  A member of our group made him aware of this, and he promised to deal with it later. I only mention this, as it may play into the story later.

 

As I said, I don't yet have a list of things of work was done or parts replaced.  My SA periodically called me over the course of the 8+ weeks to keep me apprised of what was going on.  I know that there were phone calls to Lincoln engineers in MI, as well as visits from Lincoln field engineers.  I got a call last week to say that they'd replaced "some sensors," but still no luck.  At that point, I was ready to ask Lincoln to just buy the car from me, and we'd part company.  Ironically, I'd just bought the car off lease a few days before it went in for service. He told me to call Lincoln, but before I did that, he would call his liaison that he'd been dealing with first.  He advised me to wait until I heard back from him.  On Friday morning, he called to tell me that, hallelujah, they finally fixed it.  End result: a FoMoCo field guy spent a whole day with it and found that the replacement main wiring harness was defective.  That's when I recalled that harness tossing incident at Wixom 20 years ago.

 

Also on Friday, I got a voice mail from the SA's guy at Lincoln advising me to call them, which I did.  The person (Lincoln concierge) took all of my particulars. I told her that the car was now fixed, but that IMO, I thought that I deserve some kind of compensation for the loss of use of my car, despite the loaner I had. I asked for reimbursement for at least one month's payment.  She asked for documentation of the amount and that they'd get together to see what they could do.

 

It was so good to be back in my MKZ!  The Corsair was nice enough, but boring.  It had 700 miles on it when I got it and was fully optioned. It was also a good opportunity to make extensive use of the Lincoln+Alexa app so that I could continue listening to SiriusXM.  Just not my cup of 10w-30.  I'm not a CUV/SUV person, and my time with it only served to reaffirm my feelings about that.  I just don't understand the American public's infatuation with them. Amazingly, everything works as it should and there are no squeaks or rattles.  It even retained all of my settings.  There are no obvious signs that the inside of the car was apart. 

 

I'll update when I hear from Lincoln.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update: Lincoln has decided to cover 2 monthly payments for my inconvenience.  I think that's generous.  It proves the old adage that if you don't ask, you don't get.  They promised me a debit card in 3-5 business days from last Saturday, 5/6. I haven't received it yet.  I hope I don't have to contact them again.

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4 hours ago, drolds1 said:

Update: Lincoln has decided to cover 2 monthly payments for my inconvenience.  I think that's generous.  It proves the old adage that if you don't ask, you don't get.  They promised me a debit card in 3-5 business days from last Saturday, 5/6. I haven't received it yet.  I hope I don't have to contact them again.

 

Hi Art. Happy to hear you were able to receive some compensation from Lincoln. Lincoln Concierge has been very generous to me over the course of the 5 years I have owned my 2018 MKZ. ?

 

Good luck! ?

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