Cellivar

Yes, you absolutely can brick modules in ways that are not possible to recover, requiring installation of a new part instead. I don't want to mince words here, we are dealing with parts of the vehicle Ford never intended to be modified in the way we are modifying them. It is possible to permanently damage modules and your car. The safeties are off. It is dangerous to your wallet to do this. I had to buy three Parking Aid Modules because I screwed up one, got the wrong part for the second one, and the third finally worked to add automatic parallel park assist. The original one off my car and the other two are sitting in a box in the back of my garage reminding me to read part numbers correctly the first time before searching on fleabay. There are generally two types of 'programming' you can do with Forscan: AsBuilt config changes and module firmware updates. Modifying "AsBuilt" configuration flags is _usually_ safe. Save a backup of the original, make sure it's easy to find, then follow guide on the settings you can flip. I've written about those config settings here: https://github.com/Cellivar/ford-c-max/tree/main/systems/modules I've got links to sources where I get my information on those pages, and some of those have been myself , CR08, bookemdano, and others changing flags and seeing what happened. I say _usually_ safe here because some of those AsBuilt settings are actually one-time-change permanent flags. If you change some of them you can't put them back. If this happens to your Body Control Module or Powertrain Control Module those are expensive and complex to replace. And again, since Ford never intended anyone outside of Ford to touch these, those settings that can't be changed back are completely undocumented and have to be discovered by trial and error. The F150 folks doing this sort of thing have found a number of them in their Transmission Control Modules and, well, that's pretty annoying and expensive to replace. Module reprogramming is an entirely different beast. Ford provides very little external information about the different versions of firmware for modules, this is again pieced together through trial and error. We know things like "don't update the firmware of the IPC while it's in the car" because people have bricked their IPCs doing this. We know "don't update the BECM firmware on its own" because it turns out the BECM, DCDC module, and a few other things all need to be on a compatible-with-each-other firmware version. Which version is that for each module? That's right, trial and error. "Your car doesn't run until you try every combination" sorts of trial and error. And firmware module updates can take hours. All this to say: Nothing we're doing is 'safe to do', it's about making it 'safe-er to do'. Learn as much as you can ahead of time BEFORE you start messing around. There's a reason I started writing things down into my GitHub space. Have a backup plan in case everything goes horribly wrong. Backup config files. Backup module firmware versions. Backup your odometer reading. Backup everything so you can put it back in a hurry if you need to. If you can't live without your car working for a while wait for a better time to mess with things. Read all instructions and guides carefully before you do anything in them, making sure you understand them before you try them. Don't expect your dealer to bail you out, they don't know what we're doing and they often know less than you do. So long as you keep your head on straight, understand what you're doing before you do it, and have a backup plan in case what you're trying to do doesn't work, you will usually be okay. Usually. Good luck.

In keeping with the theme of "one stop shop of information" I in fact have a document for that: https://github.com/Cellivar/ford-c-max/tree/main/tools/forscan

@bookemdano I saw similar reports at the time and disconnected the Home Assistant integration. I haven't had any issues with my account since re-enabling the integration after the HA integration author tweaked the timing to be much slower. That integration pulls the full API details, and includes things like door lock status and window status. For giggles I signed up for a Ford Developer account to get access to the modern API details, turns out the charge profiles are well defined in there. As we've all speculated it's Ford dropping support for the older Energi platform vehicles and focusing only on the newer platforms. The biggest thing I wish I could get the car to do is stick to the charge times and be trustworthy enough about it to leave it plugged in all the time. It'll putter away doing some various battery maintenance things, including topping up the 12v battery, if it's plugged into a live outlet but outside the charging window. I've had such inconsistent results with that though so I use the scheduled times built into my charging cord.

I just got that notice too on my 2013 with the out-of-pocket modem update, this sucks. The phrasing of the message gives me pause, as we know that the API for the FordPass system can be accessed via different methods. I wonder if the features will continue to exist in the API and they're just ripping the functionality out of the app itself: https://github.com/itchannel/fordpass-ha I need to go poking through the Sync 3 interface to make sure it *is* actually possible to set these up in the car. From what I remember the configuration of some things was read-only in the vehicle. I've got SSH access to the Sync 3 module so it may be possible for me to set up some kind of wifi-based configuration sync thing too but would obviously not help anyone else in this thread.

The ACC module part number doesn't seem to be correct, maybe it's supposed to be BV6T-14B588-BF ?

Okay well I installed it, got its mileage corrected, saw how it worked for two days of driving into work... and I'm strongly considering swapping back to the old one. The missing software information and changes to the animations and information display are leaving me with less indication of what my vehicle is actually doing. I'm going to document some more of the differences and then probably switch back this weekend. I got my money's worth out of the new IPC because I needed to swap the lens anyway. Very disappointed that it wasn't as plug-and-play as I had hoped. I wrote up a bunch of notes (and will be adding more images) about the differences in software here: https://github.com/Cellivar/ford-c-max/blob/main/systems/modules/IPC.md

A 2017 HM5T-10849-AC is sitting downstairs in a box for me, this weekend I'll be messing around with it. One of the things I want to try is updating the module firmware (on a bench, not in the car, of course) just to see what's what. @cr08 do you know if the mileage reprogramming has released for forscan yet? If you just have a beta build or something I'd appreciate it if you could send it my way.

Back when I first got my Energi I had issues charging it, especially when it was hot outside. After multiple trips to a dealership that didn't really have a clue they finally figured out the outside air intake duct was absolutely clogged with dogwood, preventing sufficient airflow to keep the battery from baking while charging. That's, generally, the only cleaning one should need to do. The general procedure idea: 1. Lift the passenger rear tire off the ground and remove it. 2. Remove the plastic wheel well liner 3. You should be able to see the air intake duct towards the back of the wheel well, it has a couple of screws holding it in. 4. Remove the screws holding it in, it should become loose. 5. Open the liftgate and remove the bottom plastic shroud around the battery. 6. Remove the passenger side plastic panel to reveal the blower fan. 7. Disassemble the blower fan and intake ducting. 8. Clean everything! 9. Put it all back together again. The Ford Shop Manual that you can get for cheap off eBay will have diagrams and instructions on how to do all of these things, I'd highly recommend the few dollars they charge for it.

I don't have official numbers, but the shop manual specifically talks about using an engine hoist to lift it in and out of the vehicle with chains. I suspect it's not a "two person lift" type of deal. The battery also does not come apart into pieces while inside the vehicle so you really need to put it in and take it out as a whole (very heavy) module. Good luck and be careful. If you haven't yet, I would strongly suggest buying the Ford Shop Manual off eBay for your vehicle and following the instructions in it. It will give you detailed diagrams about what cables to disconnect and in what order. Very cheap insurance to keep from breaking something.

I'll do you one way better. I've been writing up notes here. https://github.com/Cellivar/ford-c-max If you have any questions not answered in the docs already there, please open an issue and ask it. I'll do my best to add to the docs there with whatever you need. For any future travellers to this thread, the information from cr08's spreadsheet has been copied to my repository. Much more information has been copied there too. @bookemdano FYI as well, that might be relevant to your interests and you might have things to contribute ? @cr08 already found my shenanigans and added some details. I'm very open to adding as much as we can scrape together there in one spot so it's easier to find than digging through a bunch of slowly dying forums...

Consider me extremely curious of what you learn! Sometime next week I'm going to start a GitHub repository to just record everything I've learned so far and would welcome this sort of exploration. Please take notes as you go, especially if you can get part numbers.

Your posts made me curious so I did some digging into the wiring diagrams and other resources I have for my 2013 model. The difference between the SE and SEL trims on the 2013-2015 models mostly involved whether various modules or antennas were installed. Given the number of wires, modules, unknown configuration flags, adding OEM remote start seems like it'd be quite a challenge. And this is just for the difference between the 5-button and 3-button keyless entry remotes. Without the wiring diagram for the 2016+ models I'm unsure of what else they stripped off the car haha. C-Maxes were definitely a weird vehicle, that's for sure. If you would be willing to DM me your VIN I might be able to tell you some other interesting pieces of information about your vehicle if you're curious. I've been decoding the programmed differences between how our various vehicle versions were configured.

I was floored when I first figured out they offered any models with keys. Absolutely insane to me that they would spend time effort and money on adding an entirely new set of equipment for keys. It's not even like the 3-button remote is particularly fancy, it doesn't appear to offer nearly as much as the 5 button remote that SELs had. I'd be very interested to be a fly on the wall of that decision and why they thought it'd save them money.

You have a non-remote-start key in a base model (SE) C-Max. Unfortunately based on some research it doesn't look like there's a way to install factory remote start easily, you'd need to add several wires, antennas, and modify several modules. Ford didn't make it easy on post-facelift versions, alas. Earlier models came with either a 3 or 5 button remote, the latter of which had remote start. This was a standard feature on pre-facelift Energi models, which were all SEL trim. Because your vehicle isn't configured with the remote start feature FordPass is going to be the only way to start your car, and the system configuration won't let you change any of the remote start settings from within the car. As a sidenote you should avoid posting images of your key's bitting online, it's relatively easy to duplicate keys based on photos of them. Is there a key (not keyless) version of remote start? So far from what I've seen diving through VIN details a lot of the Hybrid models had a 3 button keyless entry remote without remote start, and that turned into a key without remote start for the post-facelift models. It was only the 5 button Intelligent Access Keys that had remote start, I think. Still researching this one. I went through the trouble when I did my Sync 3 retrofit in my 2013 Energi. Royal pain in the backside getting the wires routed properly through the dash, but the GPS signal is clear as a bell even in my basement garage. Hit me up on CyanLabs if you want photos and part numbers.

I've been working on this too and building a comprehensive spreadsheet, just in case any of the web resources disappear like web resources are prone to do. Based on ~15 different VINs I've been able to figure out several of the Central Configuration values that might be different for different model years. Let's see how well the forum will handle me pasting in my spreadsheet as raw text. The description is lifted off the FoCCCus website config decoder here: http://ford.xtlt.ru/ab/, major props to them! Let me know if I've missed anything that you might think is important, I found it hard to find VINs for earlier model packages that had just the Sony equipment package but not the autopark, so there's a few equipment package combinations that aren't in my table. I don't like spreading around raw VINs so I don't want to post my spreadsheet as-is in the public. Observed Differences Description Byte Values Notes Fuel Type 6 08, 03 03 = FHEV 08 = PHEV (Energi) Fuel tank volume 11 0D, 0B Same tank volume across all model years (53L), unclear differences. 0D = 2013 Energi, 2016+ All 0B = 2013-2015 FHEV (non-Energi) Headlights, type 14 02, 18 02 = Halogen 2013-15 18 = LED post-facelift DRL 16 03, 02, 0A, 05 Behavior for daytime running lights. 02 = Always dipped lights (standard) 03 = Always dipped except in position P 0A = Default for 2015 05 = Default for 2017 BLIS 37 01, 03 Post-facelift had BLIS as an option in the mirrors 01 = No BLIS 03 = With BLIS Unknown! 46 01, 0C Unknown setting, unrelated to equipment packages? 0C for 2015+ 01 for 2013 and 2014 models Unknown! 50 05, 01 Unknown setting, values clearly correspond as 05 = PHEV 01 = FHEV Tire circumference 51 04, 09 Should be 17" for all model years, unclear what the difference is. 04 on 2013 05 on 2014+ Parking assistance 59 02, 05 02 for rear only 05 for full auto park Frequency - Remote controls 63 01, 24 Not related to 3 vs 5 button remotes. Maybe rolling key? Maybe key vs keyless? 01 for 2013-2014 All 24 for 2015 non-IAK (not 5-button remote)? Roof type 66 01, 02 01 = less panoramic roof 02 = with panoramic roof Final drive ratio 71 66, 0D Should be same for all model years. 66 for 2013 0D for 2014+ Loudspeaker quantities 73 02, 09 02 for standard audio 09 for Sony package Suspension 74 01, 19 In theory nothing changed with 2015 01 for 2013, 2014 19 for 2015+ Integrated vehicle dynamic control 75 09, 06 Unknown effect 09 = 2013-2015 06 = 2016+ ? Park assist camera 99 01, 02 01 = less camera 02 = with camera Roof hatch 108 02, 01 01 = With panoramic roof 02 = Less panoramic roof In car entertainment 112 17, 18 Unclear how this affects things. 17 = Less Nav? Less Sony? 18 = With Nav? With Sony? Center speaker, dashboard 120 01, 02, 00 00 = 2016+ ? 01 = less Sony 02 = with Sony Bluetooth handsfree 157 08, 09 Unclear how this affects things. 08 = Less Nav? Less Sony? 09 = With Nav? With Sony? Self opening boot /tailgate 177 01, 03 01 = less powered liftgate, 03 = with powered liftgate Door remote control channel type 186 04, 02 02 = less Intelligent Access Key (3 button remote, key), 04 = with Intelligent Acess Key (IAK, 5 button remote) Wheel Speed Sensor Type 203 02, 01 Will throw DTC if set wrong for installed rear ABS sensors 02 = less autopark 01 = with autopark Battery 210 09, 00 Unclear how this affects things 09 for 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018 00 for 2015 Integrated Control Panel 214 09, 08 Unclear how this affects things. 09 = Less Nav? Less Sony? 08 = With Nav? With Sony? Aesthetic Lighting 216 03, 05, 01 03 = 2013-2015 (Hardware ambient lighting) 01 = 2017+ Less ambient lighting? 05 = 2017+ CAN ambient lighting? Remote Start 242 02, 01 01 less Intelligent Access Key (3 button remote) 02 with Intelligent Access Key (IAK, 5 button remote)