Two Annoyances

[AlCan]

Despite my affection for Mondeos, there are a couple of things about them that annoy me. Does anyone know, can either of these be changed via OBC or other settings?

1. The Remote Locking Indicator Signals.

It seems to be a general thing that when you exit the car and lock the doors using a Single Press on the Remote, there is no visual indication that the doors have successfully locked. That is a PAIN. The only way to check is either Double Lock or physically pull the door handle, and, as I've just discovered via testing, even that doesn't prove the car is locked.

On the one I've tested, it's MUCH worse than that. In fact, to be sure, if you Single Lock, you'd need to check every individual door! You can leave any of the back three doors either wide open, ajar or on the first click of the catch, and the car will single "Lock". Pulling the front door handles only confirms that the front doors are locked. Not any of the others. So, if a lock motor dies or the lock gets stiff and the motor can't lock it, you'll get no indication. Considering the high standard of the car in so many other respects, this is substandard.

[That said, it may be an over-reaction to the situation I encountered a few years ago when it was impossible to lock a particular, small model Ford (can't remember which) if that battery was flat. That particular model had no interior manual locking buttons of any kind and just could not be locked in that situation.]

Try leaving a door ajar on a Toyota and the car won't lock at all. You don't get any lock motors running, nor any flashes. It completely ignores the command, so if you're paying any attention at all, you know something is up. And, if things are playing up, you can still lock it manually, albeit perhaps, with no Alarm.

Not so with the Mondeo. Only the front two doors have any lock feedback in Single Lock mode, and even that is not intelligently implemented. If you leave either front door open, all the doors will "Lock" then immediately Unlock. No indicator light action, just the sound. And if you're not paying attention, you could mistake that for Locked.

They flash once when you Unlock, and turn on the Park lights, and do a short double flash if you "Double Lock" the doors but this means it's extremely difficult to get into the car and open any doors at all, if you lose your keys at the beach.

To my mind, it's all backwards, almost the opposite of what Japanese cars do - single Flash on Lock, and Double Flash on Unlock. Maybe that's the same kind of issue as driving on the other side of the road and having the Wiper/Indicator controls reversed as well.

I could put up with that if there was some indication that the car was locked. I mean, you pretty soon figure out if the car didn't unlock, so if you had to lose one indication, that would be the one.

In fact, that's the one you shouldn't have anyway. If someone steals your keys (or finds them on the beach), it's dead easy to find your car as well, thanks to this handy car identifying feature.

So, I'd like to reprogram this feature to at least a Single Flash on Single Lock, and ideally, no flash on Unlock. Anyone know if it's possible?


2. The Headlight Switch

Again, this is poorly thought out, IMHO...

When you're on High Beam and another car suddenly pops up over a rise, you have to dive for the headlight stalk. (I often drive country roads at night.) That's okay, except for one thing.

The lights do not actually dip until you have pulled the stalk all the way towards you, and let it go back to its original position. This takes at least twice as long as the travel in just one direction (unless you "twang" your stalk and just let it fly back under the inherent spring tension, which may well have unexpected consequences).

I know this is worse for the opposing driver and doesn't really affect me so much, but I consider it poor driving and rude to blind other drivers any more than necessary. And I suppose, could lead to a nighttime head-on if the other driver is high on 'P' / meth and takes offence.

Technically, there is no problem with arranging the lights to dip the moment the dip switch contacts close on the back pull, instead of waiting for the contacts to close then open again, but that's not what happens. Why beats me.

Can this be reprogrammed as well?

[Mondaveo]

I've been thinking about this post a lot, which feels like it might be pointless since these are really design decisions that were made at the time the vehicle was being developed and mostly don't have consideration for the end user to change the behaviour. (Plus, old post...)

The switching action of the high beam stalk seems to me like it might be a result of the mechanical design of the switch. You might get a behaviour more to your liking if you could change or rewire the physical switch, but it seems to me that many manufacturers have decided it's an acceptable design (our Mazda has the same functionality, even though they have a different philosophy for the indicator lights for locking as you described). I sometimes will use a finger to hold the stalk at the first detent, so I can release it to quickly dip the lights for oncoming traffic, instead of pulling the stalk all the way through its motion.

The indicator signals for locking might be software-defined, and you could almost certainly change their behaviour if you could change the code (like the CoversMod that adds extra functionality to the Convers+ HMI). I don't know if any pre-built options are exposed that you can modify through the OBD interface, though. (I believe you can change or enable certain pre-provided options with FORScan, but I only have the Lite version which apparently doesn't have that capability.)

I never really noticed the lack of indicator signal when locking, because I have a Titanium with the automatic power folding mirrors, so I can see when the car is locked by the position of the mirrors. I did once get caught out with locking the car by the key fob with a back door open, but I generally now lock the car using the button on the door handles or bootlid (proximity key), which will not lock the car if any door is open.

I can see that if you don't have the buttons for proximity key or power folding mirrors, then the car does lack in information capacity about locking. I did come across something that might help. I was looking for replacements for the mirror-mounted indicators, as my lenses are cracked and allow moisture inside them. I found you can get aftermarket replacements that do the dynamic scrolling style of indicator light, and there's also ones like these which have an extra pigtail wire to activate a blue illumination feature. The instructions (below) aren't the clearest, but I think they're saying if you wired them to the door power, you will get a blue light flash when you lock the car.

1. The yellow turn signal is plug and play install, very easy and convenient. For the blue light function, your first choice is to connect with the puddle light power if you have. Or you connect with the side mirror flip power. If you don't have all these two function, then you have to open the door panel to connect with the positive to get power, it is a little bit complicated. Anyway, you can just use tape to pack it and let it be or cut the green wires off, use the yellow turn signal only.

2. About dynamic blue effect, its when you lock or unlock the car, it firstly show yellow, then it slowly turn blue until full in the bar. This effect continues 10-15secs. When you turn left or right, it shows yellow, then it has 10secs blue steering extended time for safety.

Personally, one of my biggest annoyances with the Mondeo is that the volume increments on the Sony sound system seem too coarse. Volume 4 seems usually a bit too quiet when I'm driving, but 5 usually feels too loud. And the entire range above 6 is completely useless (unless my Bluetooth source has its broadcasting volume very low).

[AlCan]

Hi Mondaveo,

Many thanks for your detailed and well & long thought-out reply. Those after-market mirror inserts(?) look like a good idea, though I'm not sure I'll go that far until my lenses crack too. But it has given me an idea which may work, if I'm still bothered to do it. (At the moment, I've given up being annoyed about the locking deficiency and usually just pull the rear door handle(s) if I'm parking in a less appealing area.) But the idea - wiring an LED to the lock circuit is good, but it probably doesn't really do what I want on its own - as the circuit might be activated, but a motor might still not operate. I think the PATS system should take care of all that, but evidently doesn't. Nothing's perfect, right!?

It would be nice if there was a firmware upgrade that took care of it, but that seems pretty unlikely. And, I can see that generally, these great cars are "on the skids" and under various political (PC) pressures to be eliminated. Prices over here seem to drop every week. (Last week helped a mate buy one (2012 Zetec wagon, 200K's) for $600, still driveable! Such a deal!)

They have drummed up the "transmission issues" to be big and scary, but I think that's quite overblown, having just rescued my own Black '13 (LX) Wagon from sudden "Total Transmission Failure". (Only had 2nd & Reverse, rough clutch and Limp mode...) Total Cost: about 3 or 4 days work [my first time...] plus 6-odd litres of DCT Fluid and two trans filters. And a few new tools...

I have a salutary story to tell about that, which I think puts this clearly into perspective, but will have to make that another post. (In Summary, I think a Fork Learn triggered it, so beware!)

Anyway, since I fixed it almost a month ago, I've done nearly 3,000km without any real trouble, and most of that towing a trailer. It's far better when fully warmed up, and I have marveled at the smoothness of changes through the higher gears, even under load, even in Cruise control. Like, it will sneak through changes that you can't even detect by feel, that you really have to watch the rev counter to detect. The transmissions themselves seem to be very strong, but the clutches and the fluid filtration defects let them down.

Regarding the Dip Switch - Yes, as you mention, I discern now (didn't earlier) that there is a detent in the switch movement, and that that is as far as you need to go when dipping, but in a hurry, who's going to get that right every time? I still think it's a crummy design but again, haven't worried too much more about it. Just remembering which side is the correct one after driving a Japanese car around town is a big enough challenge! It's a crazy world we live in. When I'm not so busy, I might have a play with it, though it won't help me. Road manners, like everything else, seem to be getting worse, and I hate people who go back to High Beam before they are even past...

Anyway, I'm planning to keep a couple of MC TDCi Mondeos on the road for as long as I can. Despite the time involved, I love them enough to do it, though I have been truly spoiled by our Toyotas. Learning all about them (The Mondys) keeps the grey matter firing, and in general, they are not so technical and difficult to get info on that it's possible. Unlike the Korean-made nightmares... A friend has one, and I never stop hearing about it. The latest, the engine suddenly went into limp mode right in front of a truck and trailer, and required a Stop and Restart to bring it back. Reason still unknown, but has to be handled by the stealer as there seems to be no data out there.

On another topic, very interested in your hail damage. Have you posted any photos or commentary anywhere? Would love to know more.

[AlCan]

P.S. Regarding the Volume Increments - have noticed that too but can't help as we have different Audio systems, and I haven't done any research anyway! There may be a way to scale this, but I dunno. If I find anything, will post.

[NZ XR6]

Ah, the central locking... I'll keep my reply brief at this stage. The lack of visible feedback is a pain, but you can tell by the sound. If everything locks, there is a definite clunk, but you will hear a double sound if a door isn't closed, for example. I always deadlock mine if I'm leaving it somewhere dodgy.

My frustration is the windows. What were they thinking to let you deadlock the car with a window fully open, which I have done more than once. You either have to check all of the windows, or hold the lock button down to close them all. The global opening and closing of the windows is a great feature, by the way but is a whole other story.

Sent from my SM-S938B using Tapatalk

[AlCan]

Originally Posted by NZ XR6

Ah, the central locking... I'll keep my reply brief at this stage. The lack of visible feedback is a pain, but you can tell by the sound. If everything locks, there is a definite clunk, but you will hear a double sound if a door isn't closed, for example. I always deadlock mine if I'm leaving it somewhere dodgy.My frustration is the windows. What were they thinking to let you deadlock the car with a window fully open, which I have done more than once. You either have to check all of the windows, or hold the lock button down to close them all. The global opening and closing of the windows is a great feature, by the way but is a whole other story.

Hi NZ XR6,

You've got an MB Wagon? Maybe there are some differences, as I can definitely Single Lock my MC with the back door wide open. All the other doors lock, and the Red [i] starts flashing, I think as normal, but the door can stay open. Then, if I close the door, can hear the lock motor operate, and the door is locked.

Maybe it was designed for an impatient driver with a carload of people all getting out, or stuff taking time to unload out of the back, so the front can be locked, and the back will still lock when everything is out. Unless somebody doesn't close a door properly...

But Yeah, Exactly! Deadlocking with the windows open. Hadn't come across that, will keep it in mind. I guess that went into the "No Design Budget Left" basket, along with a vacuum (pump) performance sensor and a few other things. I guess it's quite a bit of added work (and sensors?) to determine that all the windows are fully closed, though, I have to say, the Global Auto-Open & Auto-Close system includes full-travel trips (to turn off the motors), so somewhere in the system, something knows (or knew) that the windows were at full-travel. Actually, that's probably not true, maybe all it knows is that the windows hit a stop, which could have been a piece of wood to stop a window before it closed.

Yeah, the only time I've used Global Opening of the windows is when I happen to by "sitting" on the key by accident. E.g. Key in pocket, squatting down to check tyre pressures...