Radio won’t turn off and hands-free doesn’t work

[mosscat]

I have a weird issue with my 2013 Ford C-Max. I park the car and turn off the car. When I open the door, the radio does not go off and none of the audio controls work. When I turn the car back on, none of the audio controls work and the hands-free voice activation doesn’t work. It’s happened 4 times. Each time I take it to the dealer. The first 2 times, they disconnected the battery and it started working properly. But each time it happened again after about 2 months. The third time they thought it was the radio so I paid $700 for a new radio. It happened again 2 months later.

 

Right now they have no clue what’s wrong with it. They contacted Ford engineers but they are telling them to do stuff that they’ve already tried.

 

Any ideas from this group would be greatly appreciated.

 

Marilyn

[icanhazc-max]

Known issue. Search the forum. Temporarily resolved by pulling a fuse. Sorry your dealer fleeced you.

[fbov]

+1

It really is known, with work around but no fix. 

Frank

[Bill-N]

Learn how to pull the fuse.  Otherwise you'll be faced with a dead battery and inoperative car.  I know, it's a bummer, but at least there is a work-around.

[mosscat]

Do you know which fuse needs to be pulled? Is there a video that might show me how to do it?

[plus 3 golfer]

Need flashlight, needle nose pliers to make it easier to pull fuse out and put back in.  Open passenger door and push seat back.  Look beneath the glove box for a flexible panel with two push pin connectors holding it in place.  Pull push pins off and remove panel.  Might want to leave it off in case one has to access again.  Use fingers or needle nose pliers to pull the blue fuse #79 circled in red on the attachment.  Wait 30 seconds or so and put back in. 

 

[homestead]

Here is a photo of the fuse panel.

 

[James]

I have had the same problem 3 times with the radio not turning off which drains the battery.  Now Ford is replacing the radio which is under my extended waranty.  Will this fix the problem?

Radio is now out of stock and may take 3 months to get one.  

Edited February 16, 2020 by James

[bigqueue]

On 2/16/2020 at 4:42 PM, James said:

I have had the same problem 3 times with the radio not turning off which drains the battery.  Now Ford is replacing the radio which is under my extended waranty.  Will this fix the problem?

Radio is now out of stock and may take 3 months to get one.  

 

This is the dumbest thing I have heard.....I had a radio / SYNC problem where something went catatonic and at first Bluetooth radio seemed to be dead, (that took the car battery being unplugged because fuse 97 didn't cut it) and then a day later, SYNC did not work, and at least the Fuse 97 fixed that.

 

This is all very important considering how important it is to keep the 12V battery up to charge.

 

People have asked why Ford no longer makes the car....there are a lot of dumb things like this that seem to exist, and maybe word gets around. (Who wants to be nickle and dime'd by their dealer)

[mosscat]

My dealership finally thinks they fixed this issue. This is what they did:

 

Ultimately we found a short to ground in the wiring on the passenger side of the vehicle under the scuff plate.  Our theory is that this bad ground was backfeeding electricity into the center speaker and then through the APIM module.  We repaired the ground and have not been able to duplicate the concern since the fix.