Our '18 Expedition Limited went into limp mode today while my wife was driving to pick the kids up from school. After parking (post limp mode) to retrieve one of the kids, the car wouldn't start again. It cranked, but wouldn't turn over.
When I first arrived on scene, I smelled a faint odor of fuel and melting/burning. Faint, but noticeable.
The next few hours were spent waiting for the tow, then working with the tow operator, our local Ford service center, and corporate Ford trying to figure out how to get this car into neutral for towing without the engine running. This was a big mystery to everyone apparently.
Ultimately, we got the engine running quite by accident, I think. There's a "brake-shift interlock access slot" hidden in the center console. With the engine off, it didn't matter how we pressed this button, we were NEVER able to shift from Park to Neutral. Nor were we able to get the associated indicator lights to flash on the display.
As a last ditch effort, I tried depressing the button in the slot and trying to start the car simultaneously and, despite having tried to start numerous times/methods before and failing, the vehicle started, after a series of kinds strange steps. I can't remember them all, but it was definitely not a normal start. The one thing about it I do recall is that a message like "drive mode not available" flashed on the screen.
The other peculiar thing was when I turned the car off after this strange start. It also was a peculiar shut-off experience, most notably the parking brake automatically engaged when the engine shut off.
In any case, after finally getting the car pulled onto the flatbed for towing, we noticed a flow of fuel had dripped down from the underside of the vehicle and made a small stream of fuel down to the back of the tow bed. Obviously quite concerning given the series of events that led up to this.
Anyone experience anything similar to any of these events and arrive at a conclusive diagnosis and fix for any/all of it? I always like to have additional thoughts/questions to throw at the dealer in case they come back to me with the patented "there's no error codes, can't reproduce, it's 'normal'" lines. Can't imagine they'd feed me those lines on this one, but you never know.
When I first arrived on scene, I smelled a faint odor of fuel and melting/burning. Faint, but noticeable.
The next few hours were spent waiting for the tow, then working with the tow operator, our local Ford service center, and corporate Ford trying to figure out how to get this car into neutral for towing without the engine running. This was a big mystery to everyone apparently.
Ultimately, we got the engine running quite by accident, I think. There's a "brake-shift interlock access slot" hidden in the center console. With the engine off, it didn't matter how we pressed this button, we were NEVER able to shift from Park to Neutral. Nor were we able to get the associated indicator lights to flash on the display.
As a last ditch effort, I tried depressing the button in the slot and trying to start the car simultaneously and, despite having tried to start numerous times/methods before and failing, the vehicle started, after a series of kinds strange steps. I can't remember them all, but it was definitely not a normal start. The one thing about it I do recall is that a message like "drive mode not available" flashed on the screen.
The other peculiar thing was when I turned the car off after this strange start. It also was a peculiar shut-off experience, most notably the parking brake automatically engaged when the engine shut off.
In any case, after finally getting the car pulled onto the flatbed for towing, we noticed a flow of fuel had dripped down from the underside of the vehicle and made a small stream of fuel down to the back of the tow bed. Obviously quite concerning given the series of events that led up to this.
Anyone experience anything similar to any of these events and arrive at a conclusive diagnosis and fix for any/all of it? I always like to have additional thoughts/questions to throw at the dealer in case they come back to me with the patented "there's no error codes, can't reproduce, it's 'normal'" lines. Can't imagine they'd feed me those lines on this one, but you never know.
