Hey I know a few guys here were asking for any/all details regarding the most recent flavor of the LCM recall - 15S39. For those of you who don't know I am a tech at a Ford dealer.
I had a beautiful blue Marauder roll in today for the recall to be done and I thought I would take the opportunity to document the process and explain a little as I go.
Please just use this information for your own knowledge and try not to take it out on your dealership's employees'. This recall does not pay your technician enough time to do this job and I can tell you not many techs want to get under your dash and cut up your wiring. Your advisors and techs are just trying to do their job and you being a Nazi to either is not something that will help your situation.
So background; the previous recall 14N01 was a customer satisfaction warranty extension. This type of recall is issued when there are widespread failures of a certain part after the factory warranty has ended. Ford is extending the warranty on the specific part only to keep customers happy, these types of recalls are usually not safety related. Ford will pay to repair your vehicle ONLY IF IT HAS FAILED. If your vehicle was serviced under the 14N01 and you had your LCM replaced under the warranty extension your vehicle will not be eligible for the new 15S39 which now replaces the 14N01 which is no longer active. If this is the case consider yourself lucky, most of the LCMs used in the 14N01 had much higher quality relays and should last the remainder of the vehicles life.
The new recall 15S39 is a safety recall. This type of recall is a result of crashes or other safety related issues that have been documented as a result of the failed part - in this case if your headlights were to fail it would increase your chances of getting in a collision when driving at night. This type of recall, a repair is performed to every vehicle to either correct or prevent the failure, and is performed on every vehicle. Ford found it too costly to replace every LCM in every 03-05 Panther, so they developed this bypass kit to reduce parts costs, even though it more that doubles labor costs associated with installation.
Anyway, lets get started.
Open up my box and here is what's inside the 3W7Z-13C788-A LCM bypass module kit:
The kit comes with a non-serviceable relay "module" with two harness' covered in convolute and with non-insulated butt connectors already installed and includes heat shrink tubing and zip ties. Pretty typical for this sort of repair from Ford.
The kit's harness have identical colored circuits on both sides, with the exception that one side has only 5 wires and the other 6. The relay module is to be spliced in-line to the connectors going to the LCM, with the 6 circuit side being sliced on the harness side, and the 5 circuit side being spliced towards the connectors of the LCM. The colors match the circuits they are to be spliced too so this should be pretty easy to not screw up.
To start I have removed the covers under the steering column, the charcoal colored panel directly under the column does not need to be removed, I just did for clarity. I removed the LCM from the vehicle for maximum access - as most of you know that does not require the pedal assembly to be removed, even if that is what the book says.
The 6 circuits needed span all three LCM connectors, the black connector has 4 of the circuits and the two grey connectors each have one circuit each to be spliced.
So all three of the pigtails need to be accessed, and I needed to cut open the electrical tap that protects them, up to the main harness, so I can access individual wires to be cut and spliced into the relay kit. Using the proper tool can prevent damage to the wires that a box cutter or scissors could do.
Each of the circuits to be modified need to have their individual wires isolated and cut, and yes by this point the battery is disconnected and your precious radio presets and clock have been reset - deal with it.
I had a beautiful blue Marauder roll in today for the recall to be done and I thought I would take the opportunity to document the process and explain a little as I go.
Please just use this information for your own knowledge and try not to take it out on your dealership's employees'. This recall does not pay your technician enough time to do this job and I can tell you not many techs want to get under your dash and cut up your wiring. Your advisors and techs are just trying to do their job and you being a Nazi to either is not something that will help your situation.
So background; the previous recall 14N01 was a customer satisfaction warranty extension. This type of recall is issued when there are widespread failures of a certain part after the factory warranty has ended. Ford is extending the warranty on the specific part only to keep customers happy, these types of recalls are usually not safety related. Ford will pay to repair your vehicle ONLY IF IT HAS FAILED. If your vehicle was serviced under the 14N01 and you had your LCM replaced under the warranty extension your vehicle will not be eligible for the new 15S39 which now replaces the 14N01 which is no longer active. If this is the case consider yourself lucky, most of the LCMs used in the 14N01 had much higher quality relays and should last the remainder of the vehicles life.
The new recall 15S39 is a safety recall. This type of recall is a result of crashes or other safety related issues that have been documented as a result of the failed part - in this case if your headlights were to fail it would increase your chances of getting in a collision when driving at night. This type of recall, a repair is performed to every vehicle to either correct or prevent the failure, and is performed on every vehicle. Ford found it too costly to replace every LCM in every 03-05 Panther, so they developed this bypass kit to reduce parts costs, even though it more that doubles labor costs associated with installation.
Anyway, lets get started.
Open up my box and here is what's inside the 3W7Z-13C788-A LCM bypass module kit:
The kit comes with a non-serviceable relay "module" with two harness' covered in convolute and with non-insulated butt connectors already installed and includes heat shrink tubing and zip ties. Pretty typical for this sort of repair from Ford.
The kit's harness have identical colored circuits on both sides, with the exception that one side has only 5 wires and the other 6. The relay module is to be spliced in-line to the connectors going to the LCM, with the 6 circuit side being sliced on the harness side, and the 5 circuit side being spliced towards the connectors of the LCM. The colors match the circuits they are to be spliced too so this should be pretty easy to not screw up.
To start I have removed the covers under the steering column, the charcoal colored panel directly under the column does not need to be removed, I just did for clarity. I removed the LCM from the vehicle for maximum access - as most of you know that does not require the pedal assembly to be removed, even if that is what the book says.
The 6 circuits needed span all three LCM connectors, the black connector has 4 of the circuits and the two grey connectors each have one circuit each to be spliced.
So all three of the pigtails need to be accessed, and I needed to cut open the electrical tap that protects them, up to the main harness, so I can access individual wires to be cut and spliced into the relay kit. Using the proper tool can prevent damage to the wires that a box cutter or scissors could do.
Each of the circuits to be modified need to have their individual wires isolated and cut, and yes by this point the battery is disconnected and your precious radio presets and clock have been reset - deal with it.
