Message Center - Attention sticker on back

[jonmaurer]

99 Limited, 120K miles.

My message center display started intermittently dying on me a couple of years ago, completely giving up the ghost or simply displaying Klingon characters about 9 months or so ago. I learned to live with it

Last weekend, while removing the tailgate from a mid-90's Bronco for a friends truck at the salvage yard, I spied a late 90'd Eddie Bauer and removed its message center. Since the salvage yard only wanted $15 for it, and offered a 7-day return policy anyway, I took it home and installed it.

It appears to be a couple of revisions back from the original equipment (it's F87F-10D898-AA rather than F87F-10D898-AC) but it worked! Well, kind-of.
The display color is a bit more blue than the green of the original but I can live with that. The system test shows a lamp outage error even though I can't find any outages that it would be monitoring (unless it's sensitive enough to be able to detect the EATC lamp outage I have? -- See other post earlier today). The miles to empty display and the gas used displays work ok, but the average miles per gallon, etc. displays all read zero and haven't changed.

I noted that on both units there is an loud orange sticker that says: "ATTENTION: before replacing this unit, in the US call 1-800-461-6945. In Canada call ......." I'm sure it won't surprise anybody that this toll-free number is no longer in service. I'm thinking maybe it used to tell you that you had to perform some kind of reset to enable all the Message Center functions. I would appreciate any insights anybody has on this please.

Cheers,

Jon

 

[Heavymentill]

You have picked up a 95-97 message center. They did away with the lamp out module after these years also changed to green lights. Check out this link message center install I think it tells all the differences.

 

[VDub2625]

It can't be modified. That number is probably so Ford can tell you which part numbers work, or how badly raped you're going to get when replacing it through them.

You want a '98+ message center. You can probably sell the one you have for a decent amount to cover the cost of another one on eBay. The reason the MPGs don't work is because in 1998, Ford changed the vehicle speed sensor, and the message center you have dosen't understand the newer type of sensor. Also, like mentioned above, the lights out feature was done away with in '98 (it only monitored headlights, tail lights, and brake lights anyway).