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.