Selected to meet with Ford (2020 Aviator) Engineers - INPUT NEEDED

[albator]

I have been selected to meet in Houston One/one with Ford (for the Aviator only) Engineers. The purpose is to review my experience, issues, future suggestions etc. I am give 1.5 hour one/one time. So this will be a important meeting with no selling only riding in my Aviator and discussing as above.

I would like input from all of the Aviator owners on the above. Meeting is Feb 29th.

Steve

Ask them why we still don’t have EV versions of the Aviator?
Tesla has been making the model S EV since 2012. Why is Lincoln so late?

 

[Blue Diamond]

The surround camera is fantastic when reversing and I’ve found it also VERY helpful when pulling forward into a parking spot. However for pulling forward it doesn’t use the sensors to automatically turn on the camera. I have to manually turn it on when inching into a parking spot. I would like an option to enable the sensors at less than 3 mph, and a curb is detectable ahead, to automatically turn on the surround camera mode so that I can easily center my parking and avoid hitting the curb in front. My wife and I would love this feature.

 

[blwnsmoke]

The surround camera is fantastic when reversing and I’ve found it also VERY helpful when pulling forward into a parking spot. However for pulling forward it doesn’t use the sensors to automatically turn on the camera. I have to manually turn it on when inching into a parking spot. I would like an option to enable the sensors at less than 3 mph, and a curb is detectable ahead, to automatically turn on the surround camera mode so that I can easily center my parking and avoid hitting the curb in front. My wife and I would love this feature.

This would cause it to constantly turn on and off during bumper to bumper traffic.

An alternative that would work is for it to trigger on once the sensors start beeping in the front advising you that you are getting close to an object.

 

[Blue Diamond]

That’s why I said “and a curb is detectable ahead”.

 

[steweod]

How about a simple. Why did they go with the 10R60 instead of the 10R80? What is the difference between the two?

 

[blwnsmoke]

How about a simple. Why did they go with the 10R60 instead of the 10R80? What is the difference between the two?

10r80 has to handle more torque from the electric motor, hence the 80 instead of 60.

 

[steweod]

10r80 has to handle more torque from the electric motor, hence the 80 instead of 60.

The F150, Ranger, and Mustang all have 10R80s. Even the models that have less TQ than the 3.0 in the Aviator and ST. So why is the explorer/aviator different? Is all I am saying.

 

[Matt Rock]

1. The instrument cluster: When on entertainment the readout only includes the song, not the artist or additional information. There seems to be plenty of room to include this info.
2. The instrument cluster: More screen options should be available.
3. The seats need to go lower - with the foot pedals not moving more latitude is needed for taller people. The seats seem to be restricted on lowering.
4. The memory function needs to include all automated settings for the seats, entertainment and instrument panel layout.
5. Love this vehicle!
6. I personally feel like the “back paddle” items should be switched - cruise control move to right and lane keeping/ gap buttons on the right just so the volume up and speed up buttons are not so close together. Is there a way to change the functions via software?

 

[Cobra Jet]

Can we combine the (2) same exact threads?

 

[peterk9]

No, that would make it harder to pick out issues for the respective vehicles in order to present the issues their representatives.

Peter

 

[Zeeb]

2020 Aviator Grand Touring Reserve. I drove this home about 700 miles over two days. Followed and older style road through the mountains of Colorado near a number of ski resorts. Lots of winding roads and some braking, on the flat after I got off the mountain, the power steering seemed stiff more effort to turn the steering wheel.

It was also wandering around between the two sides of the road with the traffic minder with it turned on or off. It kept wandering out of the lanes on one side or the other and the lane minder function would report as "Cancelled" on the HUD. The steering was very sensitive and turning effort on the steering wheel was high. All you had to do was "touch" the steering wheel and it'd go the other side of the lane and not stop.

Now an old mechanic type would describe the handling as the toe in needed to be set tighter on the front end alignment. It also exhibited the wandering with the lane minder turned off.

It was worse the second day as I was mostly on Freeways and running about 15 MPH faster through similar terrain. The problem got worse descending those mountains at Freeway speeds the thing just would not stay where you put it and minor course corrections at the steering wheel resulted in too much movement of the front end steering. It was VERY annoying as well as tiring chasing the damn thing down the road trying to keep it in the center, or somewhere close, of the lane.

Took it to the dealer and they said that they were not aware of any issues and wanted to keep it for two days. I said okay but I need something to drive and please call me before they came over thinking that they were going to pick it up; they didn't.

Then while researching the issue, there is a note in the owner manual that because the steering is electric, the motor may overheat and cause these EXACT same conditions when driving in the type of terrain that I'd been driving. The ambient temperatures were either slightly below or above freezing. The solution according to the manual? Pull over shut it off and let the steering mechanism "cool off". What kind of BullShit is this from an eighty thousand plus car?

Suggest the Engineers fix there little problem with some baffling, cooling lines or whatever, the current situation is not acceptable.

 

[Blue Diamond]

Please let us know what kind of response is received on each of the suggestions. Thx!

 

[Texas Steve]

Im meeting with the Engineers tomorrow morning in Houston and will advise them of all the questions. Some of the questions I have tried to duplicate but could not, so Im not sure how they will address them as I am required to bring my car as well.

 

[Zeeb]

Im meeting with the Engineers tomorrow morning in Houston and will advise them of all the questions. Some of the questions I have tried to duplicate but could not, so Im not sure how they will address them as I am required to bring my car as well.

It was on a Saturday when I got home, took it over to the dealer on Monday and let one of the Service advisors drive it. It wasn't doing it, nor was it doing it today when I got it out on the Freeway. I think the key is what's in the manual about the steering mechanism getting hot when it has to work such as it would driving through the mountains of Colorado and Utah.

Page 309 of the manual talks about the steering becoming much harder during extended use, this is to keep the powers steering electric motor from over heating. Since it did this two days straight but only toward the end of the drive is when it happened. The second day, I drove it from Grand Junction, CO to St George, UT. It's all hills and the last 100 or so miles (it's about 400 miles from Grand Junction to St George) it was a total pain in the butt trying to keep the thing in one lane, the steering effort was quite high and was very touchy. it just would NOT stay where you put it in the lane and even tiny course corrections with the steering wheel resulted in the thing going from lane stripe all the way over to the other lane stripe.

It's a variable ratio steering and it's tied to a bunch of the computer systems, perhaps a fix might be in the computer programming that controls the variable rate?

Hope you come up with something, I'm so sick of hearing "could not duplicate"' that I could scream and that was with the Explorer. This Aviator has a bunch more computers than the Explorer.

Thanks for your time and offer to convey issues to the Engineer types.