Ford remote start problem

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Gary Waugh

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Hi Everyone, I have a 2008 Ford expedition EL that I have owned from new. It has a ford remote start that has always worked fine. I recently changed the interior dome light bulbs for LED bulbs (I like the whiter light) and everything seems to work fine, the bulbs come on when the door is opened and go off as expected, I cam start the engine with the key and everything behaves correctly (no error messages, etc). However whenever I try to start the car using the remote start, it locks all the doors and then instead of starting the engine it gives 3 beeps and all the interior dome lights come on. According to the ford manual, 3 beeps mean a door is open!! I have confirmed several times that all the doors are closed, so I am suspecting that changing the dome light bulbs to LED's is somehow messing up the door open sensing system? has anyone experienced this before? I don't want to go back and replace all the bulbs with regular bulbs so I am hoping someone can give some suggestions? I love the LED interior lights. I might need to add some bleed resistors in parallel with the LED bulbs to dump more current, but thought I would ask here first before trying anything?

Thanks Gary
 

Carl H

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Have you tried going one by one back through the bulbs (reinstall the incandescent ones) to see if there is something related?
 

ExpeditionAndy

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Hi Everyone, I have a 2008 Ford expedition EL that I have owned from new. It has a ford remote start that has always worked fine. I recently changed the interior dome light bulbs for LED bulbs (I like the whiter light) and everything seems to work fine, the bulbs come on when the door is opened and go off as expected, I cam start the engine with the key and everything behaves correctly (no error messages, etc). However whenever I try to start the car using the remote start, it locks all the doors and then instead of starting the engine it gives 3 beeps and all the interior dome lights come on. According to the ford manual, 3 beeps mean a door is open!! I have confirmed several times that all the doors are closed, so I am suspecting that changing the dome light bulbs to LED's is somehow messing up the door open sensing system? has anyone experienced this before? I don't want to go back and replace all the bulbs with regular bulbs so I am hoping someone can give some suggestions? I love the LED interior lights. I might need to add some bleed resistors in parallel with the LED bulbs to dump more current, but thought I would ask here first before trying anything?

Thanks Gary
Gary, I really doubt that it has anything to do with your new LEDs. You may have a door ajar switch that is sticking. You might try shooting them with WD40 to see if any are sticking. you could also have the codes read to see if there is any indication of a problem.
 

Carl H

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I was just reading the 2011 Remote Start thread that is stickied and someone did the same thing as you (replaced the bulbs with LEDs) and he left the lights turned on with the dial on the dash and was having the same issue. Not saying you did it, but is there a chance that you left the interior lights on and therefore it won't remote start?
 

Muddy Bean

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And just one more data point for the fun of it, when my truck is throwing a check engine code/light, it disables the remote start. Basically it just honks twice at me and won’t remote start.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 

ExpeditionAndy

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And just one more data point for the fun of it, when my truck is throwing a check engine code/light, it disables the remote start. Basically it just honks twice at me and won’t remote start.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Has you truck thrown a CEL?
 
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Gary Waugh

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Thanks everyone, i used forscan and no error messages are being given. I went back and replaced all dome lights with incandescent bulbs and the remote start now works, so it is definitely due to the LED bulbs!! This weekend I will replace each bulb individually with an LED bulb and try the remote start until I find what is causing the issue.
 

gixer2000

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What brand Leds did you buy? I'm asking because not all Leds are created equal and some will cause odd issues for whatever reason. If your able to locate which led is creating the issue I'd recommend trying something from diode dynamics or Morimoto(profile) in that spot. They do far more research and design into getting Leds to work correctly for every application and if they don't work their tech support will work with you to reach a solution.
 

ExpeditionAndy

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Thanks everyone, i used forscan and no error messages are being given. I went back and replaced all dome lights with incandescent bulbs and the remote start now works, so it is definitely due to the LED bulbs!! This weekend I will replace each bulb individually with an LED bulb and try the remote start until I find what is causing the issue.
That is really weird. I can't see how the LEDs could effect the remote starting. I had absolutely no issues with mine when I put them in the 17. Please let us know what you find. I am really curious about this.
 

gixer2000

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That is really weird. I can't see how the LEDs could effect the remote starting. I had absolutely no issues with mine when I put them in the 17. Please let us know what you find. I am really curious about this.
My guess is the truck is thinking the dome lights were left on and this could be a safety ford worked into the remote start. An led bulb won't show resistance like an incandescent bulb will and I'm not sure if the car is somehow recognizing that.

But like I said above it could just be the quality or the design of the particular led he used
 

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