Quick question on vehicle sounds - interior

[5280tunage]

Hey all,

Curious if anyone has had this happen if so, did you do anything to fix it or did it mysteriously fix itself like it happened? I recently noticed that sounds I'm used to are no longer happening or are happening randomly instead of regularly. A couple examples:

- Parking sensor notifications. I used to have a "surround sound" effect that would generate sounds from the various corners of the car. e.g. if the front right bumper was close to an object I would hear sounds from the front right speakers. same with the rear, etc. Now it seams like I only get a "default" beeping sound from the front left speakers regardless of which part of the vehicle is near an object. This actually happened to me off and on since I bought the car but very randomly and then would go back to the nice pleasant sounds.

- Tailgate sounds. I used to get a pleasant sound when opening/closing the tailgate. Now I get nothing. If I hold the button down on the liftgate to set lift height, I still get a notification that that action was completed, but not the standard opening closing sounds. I've tested this with the vehicle on/off, running, etc.

Troubleshooting wise, I've done things like resetting various options (none of which were changed) prior, I've disconnected the battery for 20+ minutes to reset other items, no avail. For those of you that have read my other post, I did recently swap out my sub with an aftermarket one, but there no reason that disconnecting the sub connections at the enclosure should cause warning sounds to stop working. I have checked all speakers and all of them are producing sound just fine. all other systems work fine as well, i.e. I was wondering if maybe my replacement battery was already dying but I don't have any of the other symptoms, auto/stop start works fine, door handles lock/unlock fine.

Appreciate your help, pretty weird. Only thing I could think of that I haven't tried yet, does a Sync3 reset, reset the APIM, I would think these chassis notifications come from the APIM right?

Thanks!

 

[Going_Going_Gone]

There seems to be a wide array of things that seem to go hand-in-hand with a battery on its way out, and not all vehicles behave the same. Maybe it may be the cause of your conditions.. Have you replaced your battery yet? I just replaced mine and, in addition to the radio playing for the full ten minutes after I shut off the engine and wait for my wife somewhere, ALL of the door handle sensors work all of the time. I am having to get used to shutting the auto stop-start off when I start out. Not having that working was the main reason why I nursed my original battery for so long, but I figured I was living on borrowed time.

 

[5280tunage]

Yeah, I'm on my second battery, which is roughly a year old. I did a quick battery test with a scan tool and that didn't show any issues. when my first battery started to fail, I had the usual symptoms of auto/stop/start failiing to operate, the sensing door handles stopped working and unlocking doors, etc, which is why I'm just not sure that's it.

But actually, I just tried to do a google search for videos related to the park aid sensors and couldn't find anything. Can anyone tell me if I'm losing my mind? The surround effect I think I'm used to is real right? Is that how other folks' vehicles work normally on the platinum's with the advanced park assist?

 

[LokiWolf]

So I CAN explain the sound differences, and the why. The though, can be MANY.

The sounds difference is cause by whether the IPC(Instrument Panel Cluster) is using its internal speaker, or whether it is using the Cars Sound system because it successfully negotiated a conversation with the APIM(Accessory Protocol Interface Module). You are not hearing the front left speaker, but actually a small speaker behind the instrument cluster.

Basically when the car powers up(Not starts), the IPC tries to negotiate a conversation with the APIM, if it does not respond appropriately within a certain amount of time(That can vary), then it defaults to its own speaker that it controls. If the APIM does respond, you get the nicer, direction specific sounds.

There are several causes, the 2 most common, weak battery, and not enough time between wakeup and need for sound. I have NEVER had the symptom in the Morning, if I remote start. NEVER. The reason being is the remote start gives time for all the modules to wake up, get started, and talking to each other before they are needed.

Other reasons are failing IPC, or APIM.

Hope that helps.

 

[LokiWolf]

I missed the tailgate part...You have a failing APIM most likely. One of the other modules, not the IPC controls the sounds for the rear tailgate, and needs to communicate with the APIM to use the rear speakers.

 

[5280tunage]

Thanks Loki - there's no real easy way to simply reset the APIM correct? If you remember my fun with the USB issues about 18 months ago, I've already had the APIM replaced once, actually twice as the first replacement failed immediately on install, and I had to wait for a second one! Good times, I'll keep an eye on things and test this a bit, I could always try another new battery but sheesh, that's going to be expensive if I have to replace batteries every 12-18 months on these. Funny, I used to go sometimes 3-5 years on batteries and they seemed to be half the cost. But new technology always means better technology - right?

Quick update -

Taking Loki's feedback, went through with Forscan to figure this out. Sure enough, connecting via Forscan I found these DTCs:

APIM - U0184 - lost communications with radio
IPC - U0140 - Lost communication with body control module
IPC - U0159 - Lost communication with parking assist control module A

No other codes. So I reset the DTC's and subsequently ran self tests for both IPC and APIM. Neither showed any issues. Power cycled vehicle, started vehicle, still the same chimes though. Then checked for any DTC's and no new ones showed up, guess I'll need to drive a bit to test things out some more. There's two things I'm wondering, did the system detect when I disconnected the parking assist module while sound proofing the back left panel for the subwoofer? Or is it actually battery related? I'll need to do some more exhaustive battery tests I guess. Or are these simply DTCs from having disconnected the battery for 20+ minutes?

 

[LokiWolf]

I think time will tell. Drive it, don't reset anything else anymore for 24 hours, and see if the modules get back in sync with each other and start playing nice.

 

[20Expy]

YES! I also have the exact same problem with our 2020 Expy and I thought that I'm the one going INSANE! The beeps are different each time and the tailgate beep just decided to stop.

I missed the tailgate part...You have a failing APIM most likely. One of the other modules, not the IPC controls the sounds for the rear tailgate, and needs to communicate with the APIM to use the rear speakers.

I am wondering if the APIM completely fails, is it only the beeps and bongs that it affects or is it a very crucial module that controls a lot more? Do you perhaps know how much it is to replace at the dealer, since our warranty expired about a year ago and I don't really mind the inconsistent beeps and bongs, just adds more character to the car lol.

Man, this is our first time trying out a Ford, coming from Toyota. Oh boy, does it have more character and tons of interesting quirks and features like an old Italian sports car!

 

[5280tunage]

The APIM is responsible for tons of functions in the car. They are expensive and have to be programmed specifically for your car and it's as-built config. If it's just the sounds, I wouldn't mess with it. If it actually fails the vehicle would essentially be unusable is my guess.

 

[bryz_expy]

Just had my vehicle in for service and my airbag light came on while on my way to drop it off. So I asked them to take a look in addition to the other work they were doing. Turns out for the past few months my vehicle has been telling the ford database/server that my BCM is losing communication multiple times per week for numerous modules. They think the airbag was just one message it couldn’t self correct and illuminated the airbag light. They reset all of the modules, cleared the errors and they are going to monitor it for a while remotely. I do get the random chime in the IPC and then switches back to the surround speakers.
I’m wondering if this is all related to the bcm?

I took a quick screenshot of the frequency of how often this is happening which is concerning. Service rep seemed genuinely concerned and not just brushing it off.
Is it possible the bus that all these messages are sent to just gets overloaded? That was the dealers thinking.

 

[20Expy]

Uh, the airbag light is definitely a safety concern. Ours only occasionally loses surround sound beeps, but now the tailgate beep is completely gone from the back, you can only hear it from the IPC speaker, no matter if we remote started it or not.

I do get the random chime in the IPC and then switches back to the surround speakers.

I'm curious if it changes after you turn it off and back on again, or does it just change while driving?

We have owned several mid-2000s German moneypit before and are really tired of electrical gremlins. I thought Ford should have figured it out in 2 years (we have a 2020), but apparently not! Seriously considering ESP, but I don't know if they will cover for non-persistent electrical gremlins like this. Please keep us updated!

 

[ColoradoJon]

Based on my experience with my electric stuff and the rear hatch. A hard reset, both battery cables off for 10 mins does a reset that should fix the sound coming from the dash vs the stereo unless the modules are corrupt. If they are corrupt, a dealer needs to repair it.

 

[5280tunage]

I did a full 20 minute battery disconnect and still no luck getting the sounds back, but also no additional communication errors and codes thrown.

 

[20Expy]

I think our battery is fine, because auto start/stop would still work the one time I reminded myself not to hit the button when in the car.

Today though, our 360 degree sensors completely failed, and the instrument cluster said "Park aid failed" with the parking sensor symbol, though you still can clear the message and it would reappear every time you toggle the sensor on/off button. It was wet and raining, don't know if it had something to do with it, because our 2016 RAV4 front-right sensor would freak-out every time it's wet. On some rare occasions, the Expedition sensors would also freak-out for a sec, even though it's completely dry, but we never had it completely fail before.

We turned off the car for 2 hours+ as the rain stopped and it went back to normal now. Hopefully just a bug, nothing to do with the APIM.

 

[20Expy]

Oh yeah, I was also planning to do the Sync 3 update and the hard reset by disconnecting the battery as well. Should I do the Sync update first, or it doesn't matter and I'm overthinking this?

 

[5280tunage]

Honestly shouldn't matter what order you do it in. I typically do the double soft reset procedure after I do the Sync3 updates. Mine still hasn't gone back to normal and I'm just not sure about the battery at this point. I haven't had the CEL's re-appear for the lost connectivity but I keep pointing to the battery. Trouble is two fold, for one, i'm well within my batteries free replacement period but apparently there is a national backorder on several brands of medium quality 94R (H7) batteries. Even my local Napa's are having a hard time getting the most expensive brands out there in this group, for goodness sake it's always something. Sure, I can order something off of amazon for better part of $400, but this is ridiculous. My battery charger and multiple mulit-meter trials show the battery is at optimal voltage resting and running, but my medium quality scanner says the battery fails voltage tests when I use it. Could this be voltage drop due to the aluminum chassis? don't know, but I sure would love it if this thing would go back to normal.

it's like driving around with a gremlin playing hide and seek, is it going to pop out on the coldest - snowiest night of the winter and strand me?

 

[5280tunage]

Update here. I was able to finally get a replacement battery under the batteries warranty. It's been in the car for 3 days and so far so good, the first night I set up an AGM trickle charge even thought it really didn't need it, the battery mfr date was 11/23 so it's pretty new.

For one, its really frustrating that you can't even change a battery in these without things freaking out. Yes, I get you lose some personal settings like the running boards and some other settings, but I can't stand that after changing a battery the proper way, you get 3-4 DTC's. Its even worse that those don't show up when using a pretty standard scanner, you have to break out Forscan to find them. These codes, after a battery swap, prevent remote start from working. So even though I waited till after the system would have relearned/reset the battery monitoring system (sat for 2 nights undisturbed and locked in the garage), I couldn't remote start the vehicle. So hooking up Forscan I cleared those codes and now I can remote start the vehicle.

Now on to my original issues, missing sounds for various vehicle interactions. I still haven't had the parking aid sounds come through the stereo. Until I replaced the battery, I didn't have anymore APIM/IPC errors appear so I would have hoped I'd be good. After I cleared all the DTC's, I ran a few more tests via forscan. For example, I did the ACM (audio control module) tests, those passed with flying colors. I ran APIM tests, no issues. I ran the DAC tests, no issues. Funny enough, I ran the DSP tests and each time, it would come back with a different list of speakers that have an open circuit, but the fact that it changed to some degree each time made me think that's just a faulty test (anyone else try this using forscan, curious what your outcome was?). an example code was DSP B1A06:13 speaker 9 open circuit. Actually, to that extent, anyone have a diagram showing what each speaker number is in relation to the system?

Anyway, I have no other issues really, its just really frustrating that I can't get this to return to normal. Has anyone on here tried the sub-only wiring harness I'm using (I used the Kit 10 - harness only from https://plugnplaykits.com/products/2018-2020-ford-f150-with-b-o-plug-play-harness-kits). Curious if anyone else has tried this. The sub and amp work perfectly fine, and all these harness do is essentially let you tap into the 4 sub-leads going into the factory enclosure, but in a clean way using a factory style harness adapter, that shouldn't affect anything.

Honestly it's a real pain in the rear to take apart the back of this thing, so troubleshooting isn't uber easy, looking for anyone's thoughts here. Appreciate in advance.

Quick additional question here - Anyone play with the settings for 727-01-01 related to the open detection? I'm wondering if the fact that I'm using the amplifier output connections for the stock sub, would the modules see that as an open connection and be causing issues? I see two possible options but I have no idea how they actually work, "Front/Rear Speakers Detection enabled (if Int amp)/disabled & Antenna Type & Number of Presets" and "Center Channel Open Detection & AAM & Convertible & Turn Signal Chimes". Any idea if using my asbuilt to determine original settings but change both to check for open disabled? Curious if anyone else had to do this.

 

[20Expy]

Our parking aid now mostly sounds like it's 360 degrees and rarely comes from IPC speaker. Recently, the tailgate beep also came back, but only when closing which is when it's supposed to come on if I remembered correctly, pls tell me if I'm wrong for those who have a faultless Expy. Our battery is 4 years old, but still running well, because the last time I tested the auto start/stop, it stops and starts flawlessly. Don't think I'm gonna change anything, until there is a catastrophic electrical meltdown, hopefully not any time soon!

 

[Mr Big]

Just had my vehicle in for service and my airbag light came on while on my way to drop it off. So I asked them to take a look in addition to the other work they were doing. Turns out for the past few months my vehicle has been telling the ford database/server that my BCM is losing communication multiple times per week for numerous modules. They think the airbag was just one message it couldn’t self correct and illuminated the airbag light. They reset all of the modules, cleared the errors and they are going to monitor it for a while remotely. I do get the random chime in the IPC and then switches back to the surround speakers.
I’m wondering if this is all related to the bcm?

I took a quick screenshot of the frequency of how often this is happening which is concerning. Service rep seemed genuinely concerned and not just brushing it off.
Is it possible the bus that all these messages are sent to just gets overloaded? That was the dealers thinking.

Depending on the year, there is an airbag circuit issue with the Expedition. You may want to do some research.