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Lost control of throttle after MFT update.

MikeFreas

Well-Known Member
Joined
June 23, 2011
Messages
301
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City, State
VA Beach VA
Year, Model & Trim Level
2012
Lost control of throttle. AWD "off"

Decided to finally install the new MFT update today. We had several errands to run so I figured it would be a good time to do it. Started the truck, inserted the USB, and the update started. As per Fords site I started on my trip while Sync did its thing.

About 10 minutes from the house, after stopping at a light, we heard a sound, felt a lurch, then lost power to the wheels. This was accompanied by a "AWD off" message and a picture of a wrench.

The truck was running really rough at about 1k RPM and I had no control of the throttle. None. As the update was not done I could not shut the truck off so we sat on the side of the road for a good 20 min until I felt safe getting it to the 7/11 near by. I shifted to D and had to idle (still no throttle) down the road to the store. We waited a few more minuted for the update to complete. After it finished I shut the truck off and restarted. The restart took quite some time so I shut it off again and restarted. This time it was normal and the truck ran fine.

About 20 minutes later, after a few stops which we left it running, it did the same thing but this time we were moving about 20 mph. Heard a sound, felt a lurch, and then loss of throttle and power to the wheels. Restarting the truck fixed it but now we had a check engine light.

After a few more stops the check engine light went out. While it was on we sent a vehicle health report. Not sure if it will capture anything.

Anyone had this problem? Truck is a 2012 limited.
 



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MFT update has nothing to do with your engine issue.
 






What did your health report say ?
 












MFT update has nothing to do with your engine issue.

That is possible but considering the truck has almost 36k on it and I never had any issues before this is seems highly suspect.
 












That is possible but considering the truck has almost 36k on it and I never had any issues before this is seems highly suspect.

I'd agree with the others in general, but after reading this: http://arstechnica.com/security/201...-speed-by-hacking-its-computers-a-new-how-to/ I can see how it could be possible.

The point is not that you got hacked. The point is that, since I believe MFT is on the CAN BUS, it does have access to those systems, and as the article points out, they don't seem too robust.

I recall reading in their research paper that they could completely disable certain systems through a Denial of Service attack on the CAN BUS. Perhaps the update got stuck in some state that was effectively DOS'ing the CAN Bus, which prevented any throttle commands from reaching the engine.

Again, doubtful, but not impossible.
 






If MFT is on the CAN bus and if, for some reason, it started flooding the bus with CAN messages, then it may have caused the engine computer to reset. I've seen similar behaviour in my line of work.
 






After two more shut downs my wife had enough so I started driving the truck. First day I took it to work, not even a block from the house, it shut off again. I ran and sent a health report. Later that day I called the dealer to get a appt.

Truck went into the dealer on Friday. Got a call that afternoon reporting the throttle body was bad and that they had to order the parts. It should be done today.

Having the throttle body fail in the closed position makes sense and it was one of the things the report said may be bad.

Updated the title of the thread.
 






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