Ford remote start problem

[Gary Waugh]

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]

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

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

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]

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]

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.


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[ExpeditionAndy]

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.


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Has you truck thrown a CEL?

 

[Gary Waugh]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[Gary Waugh]

I am only guessing at the minute, but usually the door switch grounds the wire to the dome bulbs to make them light up. That means that when the door is closed that wire is floating, the dome bulb is connected between the floating wire and VDD, which if was an incandescent bulb would mean the floating wire is actually pulled high to 12 Volts by the resistance of the bulb, so the remote start might be looking to see the floating wire being somewhere close to 12 volts to confirm all doors are shut. Now the LED's will not pull the floating wire up to 12 volts it will leave the wire floating and it will probably stay somewhere close to ground (0 volts) and maybe the remote start is sensing that and considering that a door must be open.
My goal is to check if the door switch is grounding the dome bulb wire (or connecting it to 12 volts) and then put a 1K resistor between the floating dome wire and either ground or positive and see if that causes the remote starter to be okay.. Basically I am putting a 1K resistor in parallel with the LED bulb. If that solves the problem then I will be good!!
It used to be that all door switches where connected in parallel so any door open caused the dome light to come on, but nowadays the drivers console tells you which door is open, so I suspect there are multiple circuits (one for each door) so I will probably have to add the parallel resistor to every dome light!. I will use a 1K resistor as this will only sink 12mA when the lights are on so power waste is minimal, the resistor is a 1/2 watt and will be dissipating ~144mW so should be fine!! I bought all the interior LED bulbs as a specific package from an eBay seller so no idea of the quality, but they put out a very nice white light.

Gary

 

[gixer2000]

Leds can ruin your day sometimes.. This guy had some issue for no apparent reason. They really can be weird depending on how they are designed

 

[gixer2000]

I am only guessing at the minute, but usually the door switch grounds the wire to the dome bulbs to make them light up. That means that when the door is closed that wire is floating, the dome bulb is connected between the floating wire and VDD, which if was an incandescent bulb would mean the floating wire is actually pulled high to 12 Volts by the resistance of the bulb, so the remote start might be looking to see the floating wire being somewhere close to 12 volts to confirm all doors are shut. Now the LED's will not pull the floating wire up to 12 volts it will leave it the wire floating and it will probably stay somewhere close to ground (0 volts) and maybe the remote start is sensing that and considering that a door must be open.
My goal is to check if the door switch is grounding the dome bulb wire (or connecting it to 12 volts) and then put a 1K resistor between the floating dome wire and either ground or positive and see if that causes the remote starter to be okay.. Basically I am putting a 1K resistor in parallel with the LED bulb. If that solves the problem then I will be good!! a 1K resistor will only sink 12mA when the lights are on so power waste is minimal, the resistor is a 1/2 watt and will be dissipating ~144mW so should be fine!!

Gary

I was going to suggest a resister but I would typically try to avoid it if possible. Some of the better quality Leds have stuff built in so you don't have this issue

 

[Gary Waugh]

Leds can ruin your day sometimes.. This guy had some issue for no apparent reason. They really can be weird depending on how they are designed

That problem is usually due to the dash board indicator lights!! If you car has an individual indicator light on the dash panel for left and right indicators everything works great, but if your dashboard has a single incandescent bulb to show the indicators are on, then when you turn on either indicator the bulb in the dash board acts as a small resistor and supplies current to the opposite side to the one that is supposed to flash. This causes LED's to light up (LEDs need much less current to light than an incandescent bulb) where as an incandescent bulb would not be getting enough current to light up, its basically a limitation when using a single bulb in the dash board to show when either left or right indicators are operating.

Gary

 

[gixer2000]

That problem is usually due to the dash board indicator lights!! If you car has an individual indicator light on the dash panel for left and right indicators everything works great, but if your dashboard has a single incandescent bulb to show the indicators are on, then when you turn on either indicator the bulb in the dash board acts as a small resistor and supplies current to the opposite side to the one that is supposed to flash. This causes LED's to light up (LEDs need much less current to light than an incandescent bulb) where as an incandescent bulb would not be getting enough current to light up, its basically a limitation when using a single bulb in the dash board to show when either left or right indicators are operating.

Gary

Yeah I understand why it happens but I was more showing how each led manufacturer is different from the next. You obviously know enough about them to get this worked out!

 

[Muddy Bean]

Andy, yes I have a CEL. I’ve been getting them since I bought the truck when I give it full throttle it stumbles and hates me and then throws a code. I need to get my laptop in the truck and check it...


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[ExpeditionAndy]

Andy, yes I have a CEL. I’ve been getting them since I bought the truck when I give it full throttle it stumbles and hates me and then throws a code. I need to get my laptop in the truck and check it...


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Can't they fix it before it's out of warranty? Either that or you have to stop making it mad at you.

 

[Muddy Bean]

My warranty is good until 120,000 miles...and it’s only for mechanical problems. Anything that physically moves. If the CEL is from a coil pack or something electronic (sensor etc) then I’ll have to pay for It myself. I don’t want to pay a dealer to just run the code. I’ll hook up my laptop and read the code and report back. Until then, I don’t have remote start lol


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[Gary Waugh]

Okay just completing this in case anyone else has a similar issue. I replaced all the interior light bulbs with LED lights and when trying to use the remote start, the horn would beep 3 times, indicating a door was open. replacing all LED bulbs with regular bulbs and the remote start worked fine. I replaced the bulbs one by one and tried starting the car with the remote. It seems that the bulbs in the front dome light (2 bulbs) are what are causing my issue, LED lights in the rear passenger lights and the tail light all allow the remote start to function, but as soon as one of the front lights are replaced with LED's the remote gives the open door message. I soldered a 1K ohm resistor in parallel with each of the front bulbs and everything now works great!! Took 5 minutes and normal service is resumed..

Thanks for all the suggestions and advise.

Gary

 

[Brent54]

I found out first hand that installing LED bulbs in a garage door opener can interfere with the remote operation of the opener.
http://m.geniecompany.com/garage-door-openers/accessories/led-light-bulb.aspx
I suspect there is a similar interference in your situation.