2016 SHO Climate Control randomly turns on and off

[2016SHO]

I have a 2016 SHO and I recently noticed on cold mornings the heat will randomly turn on and shut off. Any help would be greatly appreciated...

 

[BweegN]

Howdy! Welcome to the Forum! Few and far between of us SHO folks that actually are on the forum in the upper Northeast area.
Check out the Northeast section: northeast chapter

Regarding the climate control: Is this a new issue with the car and you've had the car for a while or possibly a setting?
I'm thinking when I remote start the car, my climate control automatically does its thing but that is an option in the menu of goodies you enable/disable.
I'm thinking a good way to test it out is to adjust the temp control to hotter and see if it stays on longer. If so, it's probably just doing its job. Been a while since I've started mine :-/

If it is a new issue that came up, my first concern is if there is something causing the power button to activate on/off; Moisture, fingerprint, oil, etc?
My next concern would be if any moisture had entered the car at some point and if any of the harness connections are faulty.
Hopefully others with running cars can chime in, LOL. Good luck.

 

[deltch]

I just started having this issue with my 2017 SHO, except it's happening with the climate control. Although its very intermittent, I've found that it typically happens during the morning hours if I'm driving or sometimes when it's raining but it never happens when the sun is out.

I'm kind of concerned that heat soak might have melted some wire insulation somewhere but I have no idea where to start looking with this.

 

[GHNorth]

I just started having this issue with my 2017 SHO, except it's happening with the climate control. Although its very intermittent, I've found that it typically happens during the morning hours if I'm driving or sometimes when it's raining but it never happens when the sun is out.

Battery? There's likely more load on the electrical system in the morning (cold and/or headlights), when it rains (wipers/headlights), after dark, then during the day. My climate control was misbehaving badly just before my last battery swap.

 

[joe raptor]

I'm experiencing the same problem with the car ,2014 !! , can anyone point out how to resolve this issue ? I have been looking around the internet and I can't find anything !!!! Thanks

 

[deltch]

Battery? There's likely more load on the electrical system in the morning (cold and/or headlights), when it rains (wipers/headlights), after dark, then during the day. My climate control was misbehaving badly just before my last battery swap.

The battery is still fairly new, only done about a year ago. I have not seen this happen after dark, only in the morning or while it's raining.

I did notice something interesting recently though, it started doing it in the morning as usual but it stopped doing it after I opened my driver's side window for some air since the climate control wouldn't turn back on. I left my window open about halfway for a total of 15-20 minutes before turning the climate control back on and it didn't do it for the rest of my commute.

I'll experiment further with this to see if that is actually a factor or not whenever I commute in the morning again.

 

[COMpulse]

Capacitive buttons on the head unit?

 

[deltch]

Capacitive buttons on the head unit?

Mine's a newer generation than that. The buttons are actually touch buttons, not physical switches. I should also mention that it is not cold in the morning where I am, only about 60-70 degrees at the lowest during this time of the year

Layout is identical to the below image, but the sync version is more up to date than the one in the photo.

 

[COMpulse]

I forgot that video was with my old 2013.

My 2015 with the Sony headunit is like the one in your pic. I believe they both use capacitive buttons. I had issues with temp and sometimes audio control. Can't recall if dealer replaced the faceplate or the whole headunit.

 

[Redbull14]

I had a similar problem. Lack of climate control function and random climate control actions. Had to replace the faceplate that contains all the buttons. Unfortunately, very expensive, $500+. Sometimes the APIM (Accessory Interface Protocol Module) will go bad, which is a box behind your sync screen which controls all the accessories. Also expensive to replace. Hopefully you can rule out/in the cheaper causes first (sensors, wiring harness, battery). Good luck, of all the troubles to diagnose the climate control system is a pain.

 

[deltch]

I got a video of the issue happening with mine. Note that later in the video when I press the 'Max A/C' and air circulation buttons, they temporarily don't work while its happening.

2014 Taurus Climate Control malfunction - Ford Taurus Forum

 

[2016SHO]

I got a video of the issue happening with mine. Note that later in the video when I press the 'Max A/C' and air circulation buttons, they temporarily don't work while its happening.

2014 Taurus Climate Control malfunction - Ford Taurus Forum

Any idea what the fix is for this??

 

[SHOrod]

Looks and sounds to be very consistent with an issue with the FCIM, and more specifically, the little ICs for each of the capacitive buttons on the FCIM. The FCIM is not difficult to replace, but can be a bit costly and not always easy to find on the used market.

I'm starting to read about enough of these that it might be worth starting an FCIM scrapyard to rebuild units with parts from scrap units. At least on the FCIM for my MKS, the parts are not available to the consumer and I wasn't able to identify any drop in replacement parts.

-Rod