Factory Remote Start doesnt work in Cold weather (below 40F) | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Factory Remote Start doesnt work in Cold weather (below 40F)

ford2016

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Year, Model & Trim Level
2016 Ford Explorer Sport
I have a 2016 Ford Explorer Sport with Factory installed Remote Start. It seems that when the temperature is below 40 the remote start doesnt work. I hit the lock button and start button twice. The front lights go on, the starter tries to kick over engine but I noticed its a short try. In warmer weather, it seems the starter tries longer to start the engine.

Brought to dealer but it was warm of course and worked fine. No diagnostic codes came up.

Anybody come across this?

Thanks!
Joe
 



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While it's been an unusually warm winter here in my region (felt like spring today with above 0deg temps), we've had several straight weeks of sub zero and my Sport starts every single time when autostarting.
 






I have a 2016 Ford Explorer Sport with Factory installed Remote Start. It seems that when the temperature is below 40 the remote start doesnt work. I hit the lock button and start button twice. The front lights go on, the starter tries to kick over engine but I noticed its a short try. In warmer weather, it seems the starter tries longer to start the engine.

Brought to dealer but it was warm of course and worked fine. No diagnostic codes came up.

Anybody come across this?

Thanks!
Joe
Welcome to the Forum Joe.:wavey:
I've never had an issue with my vehicles not remote starting in cold weather. BTW we don't consider 40 F as being cold here. Have used remote start this Winter at -4 F temps.
It would also be helpful for future posts if you added "Sport" to your profile so it shows in the margin. Thanks.

Peter
 






WOW glad I read that again. I read the title the first time as 40 Below. Thus read the first post as remote start not working at -40F. ANd I thought to myself, well duh Of course it doesn't work at -40F it's too damn cold the tires are frozen solid and your fuel is probably got an ice block in it.

below 40F - yes our remote start as kicked over just fine at 20F in the last week or whenever that was.


What I bet you did - is hit the remote start button more than 2 times. IE the double press thing is a bit of a pain IMO. But, I could see where you might press it twice and accidentally have nudged it a 3rd time.

Upon the computer beginning the cycle to start the car - any press of the start button will shut it down. just like once started - if you press the start button on the remote - the engine shuts off quickly.

This is what I suspect happened - and with distance and timing the car began the cycle - and midway got the additionally signal - and shut down.

I'm also assuming from your post the car started and ran fine after this event.
 






WOW glad I read that again. I read the title the first time as 40 Below. Thus read the first post as remote start not working at -40F. ANd I thought to myself, well duh Of course it doesn't work at -40F it's too damn cold the tires are frozen solid and your fuel is probably got an ice block in it.

below 40F - yes our remote start as kicked over just fine at 20F in the last week or whenever that was.


What I bet you did - is hit the remote start button more than 2 times. IE the double press thing is a bit of a pain IMO. But, I could see where you might press it twice and accidentally have nudged it a 3rd time.

Upon the computer beginning the cycle to start the car - any press of the start button will shut it down. just like once started - if you press the start button on the remote - the engine shuts off quickly.


This is what I suspect happened - and with distance and timing the car began the cycle - and midway got the additionally signal - and shut down.

I'm also assuming from your post the car started and ran fine after this event.

I've done that before so I would agree that's a likely cause.
 






You need Forscan lite and a Bluetooth reader so you can read the dtc from the body control module immediately after a failed remote start.

Ford won't listen to your code, but at least you will have something to search on. You might even get lucky and the dtc description will point you in the right direction. So you can get Ford to duplicate the situation.

There are many safety related reasons why a remote start will abort. I couldn't begin to guess which one, if any is causing your issue.
 






My 13 does the same thing. Wont start, but the threshold for mine is around 15-20 degrees (you know...when you need it most!)
 






might it be a key fob issue?

I don't know. So far my 16 hasn't hiccuped on a remote start. It's not been below 30 here for a few days but it seems to work well.

My other car is a holden commodore SSR. It happens to have a minor issue when cold and more often than not it's because my fingers end up holding the button on the remote too long and it sticks. It's a press and hold remote start logic - not the double tap that the Ford uses.
 






I would suspect the battery in the vehicle being bad.
 






My 2015 Limited starts all the time with the remote start. Recently had 0 degree F weather with wind chills of -15 F. Had no problems starting with the remote start.
 






any update on this - has it continued?

this weekend it was 20F or so around our area. Remoted started after overnight in the wind - just dandy.

not an Ecoboost mill though. but either way
 






any update on this - has it continued?

this weekend it was 20F or so around our area. Remoted started after overnight in the wind - just dandy.

not an Ecoboost mill though. but either way

On mine, what.m I did notice is in the extreme temps we had recently (-3 real temp, -15 to -25 w/windchill) the distance I was able to remote start from was severely impacted. I had to be much closer to the truck to start it with remote start than usual. It did start ok, and the heated seats were toasty warm.

Distance seemed to be the only thing that was a difference.
 






On mine, what.m I did notice is in the extreme temps we had recently (-3 real temp, -15 to -25 w/windchill) the distance I was able to remote start from was severely impacted. I had to be much closer to the truck to start it with remote start than usual. It did start ok, and the heated seats were toasty warm.

Distance seemed to be the only thing that was a difference.

was it raining or snowing at the time.

that would have an effect on the RF signal. Although cold on the transmitter side might have had less battery voltage to work with too.

first things I thought of.
 






was it raining or snowing at the time.

that would have an effect on the RF signal. Although cold on the transmitter side might have had less battery voltage to work with too.

first things I thought of.

No, napalm, no rain or snow (fortunately!) just bone chilling cold. I figured it had something to do with the cold, which is why I didn't think it a big deal. Just something I noticed.

We haven't had these temps in my area for literally 100 years (we broke a record set in 1916) so I figured strange things would happen. But both my Ex and CVPI started right up!
 






Mine does the same thing as the OP. It happens very frequently.
 






I used to experience a similar thing with my 14 Sport. However, it was operator error. Now, I push the buttons slowly with a slight pause. Sometimes, I have to press start 3 times before it starts. But I make sure that each press of the button is deliberate and singular.
 






I've never had an issue remote starting in cold weather. One thing I have noticed since changing vehicles is that the remote start in the MKT works better than the one in the 2011 Ex I had. I'm guessing the systems are likely the same. The key fobs are. With the Ex, it took several attempts to finally get it work while the using the same procedure with the MKT results in starts in 99% of the time (only 1 failure).

Peter
 






Don't know what year ford moved to the 2way fobs.

but I notice the 2016 has a 2 way comms for the fob. IE there's a LED on it that will blink red if the start of the door lock's don't acknowledge back. IE it pulses out - car receives - is supposed to pulse back. based on the return the light is either red, or green.
 









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I'm in the frozen North. One morning it was so cold it didn't recognize the key fob. Started on first try. Had to insert the key in the center console for it to actually start. Once it warmed up.... There were no problems
 






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