2015 Explorer won't start

[VincentJenkins]

I'm having a problem where my car won't start. I have full power and I have changed the starter relay and checked the fuse. I have also jumped the pins under the starter relay and the starter immediately starts. My car will not lock and if I press the key. I've chanced the battery. What else can I try?

 

[J_C]

Does it have the intelligent access, keyless start? If so I'd wonder if your keyfob is the problem, I mean if the battery you changed is the one in it, then I'd wonder if it's not being recognized, would use a scan tool to see if trouble code(s) are present.

 

[mguy13sport]

I'm guessing the key fob is not programmed or lost its signal with the PCM. Use ForScan to check DTC

 

[VincentJenkins]

I'm guessing the key fob is not programmed or lost its signal with the PCM. Use ForScan to check DTC

I checked with my code scanner. Not getting anything other than a rich intake issue I already had.

 

[J_C]

If the code scanner is only capable of OBD2 code set, it won't read something like this which would be a Ford manufacturer-specific code. If you can't read Ford specific codes, going forward it could be a good investment to get a scan tool that can, including realtime data. If yours can do these things, then just ignore the rest of this post.

I'd try a BAFX dongle from Amazon along with Forscan app... because that's what I have

However it's canbus so many of the less expensive (~$10) ELM327 based dongles will probably work too, but I'd want to find an amazon review stating it does, or I'd look on Forscan's forum to see what's been tested. I know the BAFX works with Forscan, just don't know if there's a code it will see.

 

[Sniper19672]

I'm having a problem where my car won't start. I have full power and I have changed the starter relay and checked the fuse. I have also jumped the pins under the starter relay and the starter immediately starts. My car will not lock and if I press the key. I've chanced the battery. What else can I try?

Are you saying that it will crank and not start or are you saying that it will not crank? If you are hitting the start button and nothing happens, the first thing I would do is disable the MyKey function and then disconnect the positive battery cable and run a jumper from the cable(make sure it is not touching the positive post) to the negative battery terminal for 5 or 10 minutes. This will do a pcm hard reset. Remove the jumper, put the positive cable back on the battery and see what happens. Another possibility is battery in the proximity key. They will have memory farts. I found that if you have 3 of the proximity keys programmed, if the battery needs to be replace in one, you can replace the battery and use the other two to reprogram it.

 

[J_C]

^ It seems unlikely that it would be necessary to short the battery cables together at all, just disconnect the positive, wait a minute then reconnect.

 

[Sniper19672]

^ It seems unlikely that it would be necessary to short the battery cables together at all, just disconnect the positive, wait a minute then reconnect.

KAM

 

[J_C]

^ Keep Alive Memory?

Have you tried just disconnecting the positive terminal for a minute?

 

[Sniper19672]

^ Keep Alive Memory?

Have you tried just disconnecting the positive terminal for a minute?

I do. If you are doing any electrical work that could possibly cause a short to ground, it's always a good idea. But the KAM module will maintain the pcm settings. If you ground the positive cable it will drain the residual charge that the KAM module uses in most cases. Just disconnecting the positive cable keeps it getting power but doesn't stop it from keeping it.

 

[J_C]

^ Any sources for this info? I do not believe that is true.

Have you tried just disconnecting the positive terminal for a minute, to clear the KAM? That should work fine, no need to be shorting cables together.

It has to have power to maintain the settings and merely disconnecting the cable should do that, and if it does it is a worse idea to short the cables together because this could cause a surge current by so quickly draining the capacitors instead of letting them drain from passive exhaustion below the voltage the volatile RAM needs for storage.

 

[Sniper19672]

^ Any sources for this info? I do not believe that is true.

Have you tried just disconnecting the positive terminal for a minute, to clear the KAM? That should work fine, no need to be shorting cables together.

It has to have power to maintain the settings and merely disconnecting the cable should do that, and if it does it is a worse idea to short the cables together because this could cause a surge current by so quickly draining the capacitors instead of letting them drain from passive exhaustion below the voltage the volatile RAM needs for storage.

Passive exhaustion? That sounds interesting. Please explain how you passively exhaust a solid state capacitor.

 

[VincentJenkins]

Does it have the intelligent access, keyless start? If so I'd wonder if your keyfob is the problem, I mean if the battery you changed is the one in it, then I'd wonder if it's not being recognized, would use a scan tool to see if

Are you saying that it will crank and not start or are you saying that it will not crank? If you are hitting the start button and nothing happens, the first thing I would do is disable the MyKey function and then disconnect the positive battery cable and run a jumper from the cable(make sure it is not touching the positive post) to the negative battery terminal for 5 or 10 minutes. This will do a pcm hard reset. Remove the jumper, put the positive cable back on the battery and see what happens. Another possibility is battery in the proximity key. They will have memory farts. I found that if you have 3 of the proximity keys programmed, if the battery needs to be replace in one, you can replace the battery and use the other two to reprogram it.

When I put the key and the lights on the dash come up but there is no crank. I have removed the the starter relay and jumped the 2 terminals.. When I do that the starter immediately engages. It seems to me this must be something having to do with the key. Somebody earlier said that I need to get a better scanner that will give me more than just codes but instead can read whether or not It's recognizing the key when I put it in. I'm going to try that 1st. I put a new battery in the key and nothing has changed.

 

[ProjectSHO89]

I put a new battery in the key and nothing has changed.

Unless you have a hardware store clone key or an IA fob, the battery in the fob has nothing to do with whether or not the key will start the engine, it's just for the remote transmitter. If the key was the issue, the cluster would give you a "Starting System Fault" or like error message indicating that PATS did not prove out. Are you seeing that or not?

We need to know if you have the push-button start (IA) or the 3 or 4 button key fob (IKT) key. There are differences in how the system behaves.

When you jumped the pins on the starter relay, did it just crank the starter or did the engine actually start?

As an aside, based on a number of the posts in this thread, a rabbit trail... Don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings but this will...

If anyone every tells you to remove the POSITIVE cable first from a battery in a negative ground vehicle, that individual should be ignored for safety reasons. There is a very good reason that the NEGATIVE cable is to be disconnected first and reconnected last. Anyone who doesn't know the reason needs to go learn the reason (and not the hard way) before ever commenting on this subject again. In any event, resetting KAM is irrelevant on a vehicle that won't even start.

 

[J_C]

Passive exhaustion? That sounds interesting. Please explain how you passively exhaust a solid state capacitor.

Exactly as already stated, you simply pull the power input to the circuit, then the components that were using the power that the cap was filtering, continue to consume power, draining the cap. It gets lower and lower in voltage until too low to sustain the threshold the volatile memory needs.

Test it yourself. Disconnect the battery terminals, put a multimeter on the cables, and you will see the voltage drop, pretty quickly, maybe even too quickly to try to time it without an oscilloscope (or multimeter capable of) logging it.

 

[Sniper19672]

Good luck figuring out the no start condition. I just went through this very problem 3 days ago. My sport is back to normal, also 3 days ago. I love challenging electrical problems. In fact, that along with failure analysis was my specialty as a Caterpillar certified master technician. Now that I've retired, as a hobby kinda, I build computer systems for recording studios so that musicians have hardware and software that can communicate in DAW's. Sorry, I couldn't help.

 

[mguy13sport]

OBDLink MX is a good OBD2 BT adapter that works good with ForScan. I got the $5 ForScan Lite app on my Android phone and its worth the convenience. The laptop version has better data logging capabilities. In any case ForScan is a good investment if you plan on keeping the car / staying with Ford/Lincoln.

 

[peterk9]

I checked with my code scanner. Not getting anything other than a rich intake issue I already had.

Welcome to the Forum.
I think you have a Limited but not sure looking at your margin profile. If you push the ignition button once to put it into accessory mode, do you have dash lights etec? Just wondering if you have a bad ignition switch.

Peter

 

[Doug57]

I had the same problem it turned out to be the starter switch. If it's a keyed ignition try turning the key to start and press hard and see if it starts.

 

[spetersen]

I had a similar issue with my Sonata, The fob battery died, and the replacement was cheap, and didn't work, replaced again with another brand of battery and all was good. Do you have a second fob to try?