215: F-550 BCM Trouble

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Hey, what's going on?

Automotive World.

Welcome to another episode of the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.

My name is Sean Tipping and I'll be your host once again for today's episode.

Thank you so much for joining me Today on the show.

I am going to share a vehicle that kind of kicked my butt a little bit, but I did get to the other side of it.

Involves programming, and specifically programming of a body control module on a Ford Super Duty F-550.

Now, oddly enough, I had three of these within the last couple of weeks.

They were all F-550s and I'll explain how I came across three of these vehicles in a couple of weeks span, because I'm not geared towards heavy duty trucks that's not my specialty.

I don't see a ton of them and for everybody that's familiar, an F-550, if you're just to look at it from the outside, it's really not all that different than a one ton truck.

Obviously it's going to be rated for bigger hauling capacities and towing and stuff and these are flatbed style pickup trucks.

They're all work trucks really and these are for construction crews, road crews, things like that, but they're big work trucks, right.

As far as I'm concerned, though, I'm not doing the drive line, suspension and tires and brakes and stuff, so it's basically just a Super Duty Ford.

I kind of group them all together with the F-250 and up, but these are F-550s so I can't say that.

I know this applies to the smaller or lighter versions of the Super Duty, but these were all F-550s.

So the reason that I ended up with three of them is because the shop that I figured out the first one for and kind of struggled through it, to be honest, he then was in contact with a couple other shops who have been getting beat up on these things as well, sent my number over to them and then I ended up fixing those for them as well.

And that's part of business, right?

You figure out a solution, and that's not always an easy thing to do.

You've really got to push through and try.

Some things get beat up, fail, and then, if you get to the other side of it, you're able to create a solution, take care of a problem for a customer.

They're going to spread your number around like crazy.

It's the best kind of marketing, right?

Because I'm just doing my job.

Again, it's not always easy to get the car fixed, but I'm doing that part of my job and the marketing just takes care of itself.

So, anyways, I'll really focus in just on the first one, because that's where I learned the most, and then I'll touch on the other ones too.

There was one of the trucks that had an added component to it, which I'll bring up briefly, but it's really not critical to this.

Well, it might be if it was in your bay, but anyways, let's start with the first one.

This is an F550, shops replacing the BCO, and this is the fuse panel on the right-hand kick panel.

Really, really common to do these body control modules on the Ford pickup trucks, and almost all of the BCM body control modules are over in that right kick panel area, regardless of the year or the size.

They all seem to be over there, right.

Well, it's got all the fuses, but it's also a module also involved with the anti-theft, also involved with TPMS on the lighter versions.

It's not on these heavy duty versions, so that is one thing to note.

But the key data is going to be stored here remote keyless entry.

All of that stuff is going to be in there along with a ton of other functions on the vehicle.

But when you replace these things, it is a bit of a lengthy procedure to get all of the programming steps done and I'll mention most of them in this episode.

But do take a look at service information and read the tool prompts.

If you're using for IDS to do one of these things, it'll tell you pretty much everything you need to do.

But you need to read it and you need to do it or you're gonna have some issues afterwards.

Well, this shop actually has some programming capabilities and they attempted to program it themselves because they do some for programming.

They see a lot of Ford trucks and it makes sense for them to have IDS and a VCM-2, I think they have, but it makes sense for them to have it because they do so much of it right.

And so they attempted programming and they had done some Ford modules before, but they were having a lot of trouble with this one.

Now I don't know that they had done too many body control modules because they were a little underprepared on all the extra things that you're gonna need.

When somebody calls me about a body control module, of course first thing I wanna know, is it newer used?

Because that's gonna change how I might approach one of these things.

But I also wanna know on a lighter truck, do you have four working TPMS sensors?

Again, not a thing on these big F550s, but on the smaller trucks you have to have four working TPMS sensors.

That's part of the programming procedure.

On a new BCM, is adding four tire pressure sensors in with the learn procedure.

If you don't do that, you'll have a configuration code and in a lot of the cases you'll have a dome light that blinks until the end of eternity.

Right, that's part of the new BCM setup and if you don't do it, if it never sees four sensors, it'll just keep on blinking the dome light inside the vehicle and obviously customers don't want that.

So you gotta get tire pressure sensors in there.

You also have to get two keys trained into this.

So then I asked the shop do you have two functional keys?

And it seems like everybody's only got one key for a vehicle, or at least there's only one present at the vehicle, and they've gotta try to get the other one.

And they only had one key for this, of course, and that was it.

They didn't have another one to get from the customer, it was just one key.

So I mean they were gonna be blocked with that anyways, because you have to have two keys to move along with the anti-theft PATS procedure to get these things up and running.

But anyways, they were having some trouble with it and they just wanted to know okay, can you come out and help us out with this thing?

Sure, I'll come out and try.

So one of the tools that I have and I mentioned on the podcast before four Ford BCMs is IO Terminal and I have found, doing Ford BCMs, that IO Terminal is a great, fantastic tool when it works, because it'll be a one for one clone on these BCMs right and you can do this on a bench, some of them you could even do while it's plugged into the car or the truck and you read

, copy paste and I will say, for anything you're doing, read the donor or read the original Virgin file if it's a brand new module.

But there's the kicker with these things I've found and this isn't 100% true, there are exceptions to this, even in my own experience but as a rule of thumb for me in my day-to-day business, if I'm going used which of course the old BCM is gonna be used to used, right, so the shop is taking out a BCM out of the truck and they bought a used one from a junkyard and they're putting that in.

That cloning the BCMs works almost all the time.

There are even exceptions to that, but I've had very good luck with cloning BCMs when they are used modules.

When it is a new BCM now I have had some where they clone over, just fine and there's no issues.

But more often than not when it is a brand new BCM, the cloning procedure does not work, or the only halfway work, all right, and so if I see a new Ford BCM and I've got to use one that they've taken out of there.

I don't even bother with the cloning process.

There's somewhere I've been successful by just transferring over the EEPROM data, which is the VIN and the security, and that saves you the PATS anti-theft procedure.

You know the 10 minute wait and the parameter reset and the keys, but that even that doesn't always work and I've ended up causing a lot of problems by trying to clone over a module to a new BCM and I don't know if it's something where they're changing the processor in the BCM from the old version to the new version.

Is it a different part number in some cases?

Obviously, I should be paying attention to that when I'm cloning the module over.

But as a rule of thumb for me, if it's a brand new BCM on any of these fours, that's not even just the super duty, this is any forward with a BCM, even if IOTerminal covers it.

I'm going to do the forward factory procedure with IDS and a BCM too.

It takes longer, but it's a lot less time than if you screw it up trying to clone it, which I've done.

So I have experience to know that just doing it the factory way is a better way to do it in most cases.

Anyways, this was a new BCM.

So that's what I did, and they had already attempted some programming as well.

But here's what you're going to start with.

On one of these BCMs, you're first going to do what's called a PMI programmable module installation, which if you've done any forward programming, you're probably familiar with that.

But that is just the basic programming procedure that you start with for a replacement module.

Now it will ask you to start with the original plugged in and it will inhale some data into IDS, and then you plug in the new one and then it's going to exhale that into the new module.

That's the idea of a PMI and there's some ways that you can bypass that.

In some cases you want to, but I found, in the case of a BCM a body control module it's very helpful to get all the configuration information and things like that off of the original and then punch it into the new one.

Okay, cool, so I'll go ahead and I'll do the PMI process.

Cool.

Now, after the fact of doing that PMI process, it's going to give you a whole list of things that you need to do, the ANIFF being one of the important ones.

There's a 10 minute wait that you have to just sit there and wait for the tool to bypass or not bypass to access the security on the vehicle, and then you can do things like add two keys, which you're going to need to do.

So again, you need two functional keys for this vehicle.

You're going to have to do a parameter reset, which is the handshake between the BCM and the PCM, right?

So there's two different security functions that you need to do.

One thing I would suggest on this truck in particular and this may not be true of every Ford's but do the parameter reset first, because when you do the keys, there are key cycles and you can lose connection or lose access to the security and have to wait 10 minutes again.

So I found the parameter reset do that first, and it does say, hey, you need to do a key cycle for this to take effect, but then do the keys and you're going to do your key cycles at that point and then you won't have to wait another 10 minutes.

I don't know if that's true on every single Ford.

I have a feeling some of them are different.

I may do a lot of Fords, but that was the order that I did it in on this F550 to save me a little bit of time.

So, parameter reset, you need two functional keys.

You need to learn the keys.

Now, in addition to that, in addition to the two keys, it needs to see two functional remotes programmed into the BCM as well.

So this is the key fobs, the remote keyless entry and these particular keys have the remotes built onto the heads and again it wants to see two of these remotes.

Now, something I found out here on these trucks the OE factory key that has the remote built into it will automatically learn the remote when you learn the key Right.

So you do the key programming process, the BCM will automatically learn the integrated remote for that key.

You don't have to do anything else.

But the aftermarket keys are at least the ones that I'm using do not learn automatically.

The key portion, the anti-theft start, the vehicle portion will learn when you do this, but the remote portion won't and the BCM will be unhappy about it.

They'll say configuration error or something about PATS key, not enough remotes learned in the BCM, and that code will stay there until you train it in.

And actually I think it was blinking the dome light for this as well.

It wanted to see two remotes and I was a little confused because the first one learned and the second one didn't.

But what I had to do is the manual process for these Ford remotes to teach them, in which, again, the anti-theft portion of the keys already locked into the vehicle, but I had to cycle the ignition, I think.

You unlock the door, then you cycle the ignition eight times, ending in on you'll hear the door lock cycle and then you hit either the lock or the unlock on the keys and that's gonna learn the remotes of the vehicle.

Now, when you do this, you need to have all of the remotes present.

So if you ever decide I'm gonna add a remote to a Ford, make sure they're all there, because once you do this eight key cycles, it erases all the remotes and you need all of them present.

Or I should say whatever is present at that time.

That's what's being learned in there.

Whatever is not present for remotes, that's not going to be in there anymore.

So if the customer has one at home, they need to be aware that hey, that's not gonna work for this vehicle anymore.

You're gonna have to do the process with all of the remotes present.

But in this case they only had the one key, but the car needs to see two keys and two remotes programmed into that BCM.

So eventually I get to that point.

I cycle the thing.

I get the remote learned in.

Okay, it's happy with that.

I got two functional keys.

There's a couple other procedures that you go through with the BCM outlined in service procedure.

These weren't big deals.

There's I think it's CEI lock configuration, I think that was it.

There was other options in IDS but nothing that applied to this truck and that was basically the process for getting this BCM in.

Now the truck does start and run at this point.

But I have some codes in the vehicle.

There's code in the TCM, a P1635, axle ratio air, and a code in the RCM, which is the airbag module, for configuration air.

I try clearing these and these won't go away.

I do some research within service information and both of these codes are basically pertaining to the airbag control module and the TCM not being satisfied with information from the body control module and the one that I just programmed, right, and they're both kind of pertaining to configuration errors.

Right, the TCM's unhappy about the axle ratio that's stored in the BCM and the RCM doesn't really outline what data it's upset about, but that there's some sort of configuration error with the data from the body control module.

Okay, so I need to go back to my body control module and see what happened or what I missed along the way.

Is there another configuration process?

I didn't see any in there.

But one of the other things that I didn't do here that I know that I can do and it's easy, it's a low cost move just to try this to see what would happen is you have a method of programming forward modules in addition to the PMI, which is as built, and sometimes on modules I'll have to run an as built in addition to or sometimes even in place of a PMI.

But pause there for a moment.

There are a lot of control modules where you have to do a PMI, so I don't want you to think it's an either or right.

There are some modules where you can get by with just as built data, which is essentially coding of the module.

But there are a lot of modules where the PMI programmable module installation has to be done and then you might have to do as built on top of it.

But you can't just do as built, and these BCMs are one of those.

If you don't do the PMI and you just try to do as built, it's gonna have errors in there.

It's not gonna function the way it's supposed to.

There are additional processes that are happening when you do the PMI that don't happen during the as built, even though when you're doing it in the tool they kind of just look both like programming of a module.

They're two separate things.

I'd say the PMI is more like a traditional programming of a control module flashing, if you will, a control module whereas the as build is coding and if we'll all get to it, the as build is actually just lines of code, essentially that we're plugging into the module.

But anyways, sometimes I have to do this in addition to a PMI and I didn't at this point.

So I'm like well, we'll give it a try here.

So I do the as built and it pulls it from Ford's server and this is important to note that you can access the coding for any Ford vehicle that you have the VIN number for at MotorCraftServicecom under the free resources and module as built.

You put in the VIN and you can physically see the coding for all the modules for that VIN.

And hopefully it's right, we'll get to that on this one I do the as built and I get the same issue again Tire axle, or I think it was axle ratio error in the TCM and a configuration error in the RCM.

And there's lights on here too for this thing, and I imagine if we drove it we would have had an issue with the axle ratio as well.

But this needs to be fixed because obviously the programming didn't go the way that I thought it would.

So I'm wondering about the configuration of this module.

I mean, the codes are pointing me towards that.

Again, I don't know exactly what I'm missing on the RCM, but I do know what exactly the TCM is upset about.

The code outlines the 1635 that is upset about the axle ratio that is within the BCM.

And I'll just say this it doesn't say that in the code, in the scan tool, you have to read service information and see that this code pertains the BCM data, and a lot of texts miss that sort of thing.

If you actually take the time to pull the code, go to service information, read about it, it'll tell you exactly what you need to do, or at least the direction, or at least the module that's sending data that it doesn't like.

And that's what I found here.

But if you're just looking at the scan tool, you might not even know that it has anything to do with the BCM, and maybe you do because you just programmed it, but maybe this came from another shop and you didn't realize all the steps that had happened to get to this point.

Well, now you're digging into the TCM and looking at things that are completely unrelated, but the code is pointing me towards a configuration issue.

Now here's what I can do.

I have another program again that I've mentioned on the show before.

It's called 4Scan.

It's the most hilarious name for a scan tool platform ever, but it's also a really, really helpful tool when programming fords.

I would say it's saved my bacon many times when trying to remedy an issue with a ford programming, particularly when the Aspil data is giving me hassles, like I am kind of expecting it to be the case here Now.

4scan has a lot of capabilities.

There's a lot of things it won't do right.

You can't do PMIs with 4Scan, meaning it can't be your soul means to take care of fords.

It won't be enough, but I think it's a pretty necessary secondary system to have to finish some of these four jobs that are difficult with IDS.

So one of the things that you can do with 4Scan is, you can not only view the Aspil data and you can do this with IDS too but it's gonna translate the coding in the Asbuilt data to English for you to read so you understand, because I don't understand what 0a6f means.

Right, that's a line of code for Ford in Hacks that I don't know what that correlates to, but the programmers, the people that made forescan, have programmed that into the scan to platform where you can actually see what that translates to.

And one of those lines of code translates to the axle ratio and one of those lines of code Translates to the tire size of the vehicle.

And then there's things like turn signals and tire pressure sensors and Headlamps and all the other features that the BCM runs.

But the two things that I'm looking at right now because I know I have a code in the TCM, I know it's an up happy with the BCM I want to see what are the tire size and the actual ratio stored within the BCM and I can do this.

Right, I can view the actual coding, but I can view the English.

For me who doesn't understand hexadecimal, what is programmed into this module?

Now, keep in mind, I just went through the factory procedure of doing a PMI and doing as built data.

It pulled it from full Ford's server right.

It made me connect to the internet of my tool and pulled data from Ford server and it punched it into the module.

And I did this.

I actually went to MotorcraftServicecom, I Physically looked at the coding, right.

You can look at it, you can copy it and write it down and then put it in a module if you want to.

And then I looked at the Coding that's in the module to make sure it matches and it did so.

I know that I got the data from Ford server accurately what they had stored in the server and it's in my module right now.

But if I go to the Translated to English portion of the as built and I read it, the tire size says corrupt or Unprogrammed data.

And Then I look at the axle ratio and it says the same thing corrupt or incorrect data.

So the coding that's in there and there is coding which matches what's in Ford service information According to this BCM and according to 4 scan, the data that's in there is not correct.

Now another cool thing you can do here with 4 scan is, when you're to this point, the configuration as built portion.

Now I can type in whatever line of code I want if I know the coding and sometimes you do have to know that.

I actually had a Episode a while back on a Lincoln navigator where I had to find the actual coding for a non-air suspension instrument cluster and type it in, because 4 scan doesn't translate every car and every module for you.

In this case I was lucky it did and if I knew the line of code I could type it in.

But 4 scan has another screen where on that English written out, you know, in corrupt or invalid data, I can click on it and I can pick an option and it'll write the code for me.

And I did that.

So I clicked on it and I get to see all of my axle ratios available for this truck.

Now I don't know what the axle ratio is off the top of my head and I don't want to go crawling around underneath this big stupid truck.

So I'm gonna use my resources online to figure out what the axle ratio is based off the fin Punch that in it's a 488, and then I can easily find the tire size which is in the door placard and you can match it up to the tires that are on there.

I can pick that and then you can write it and it's that simple.

And once you have the data, this is a 15 second process.

It goes through extremely quickly right to the coding.

Now my TCM code is gone.

I don't have that anymore.

It's satisfied with the axle ratio and satisfied with the tire size.

I don't know if it was looking at both, but both of those fields were labeled as incorrect From the data that was pulled off a Ford server.

Okay, so I do still have an airbag code in this thing and the RCM has a code for configuration.

I looked through the list of configurable parameters and I couldn't find anything that stood out to me as something that would make the airbag unsatisfied.

But I'm sure there is something I was looking for, like maybe seat belt configuration or something, and it might have just been the fact that it's an F550 and the restraint system is going to be different than a lighter version truck, which is what I'm kind of guessing the data that they have in Ford's server might be based off of.

It's obviously wrong.

I don't know what it's for, but it's not for this F550.

So what do I do here?

I don't know which parameter to change.

I don't know exactly what the RCM is upset about.

Here's the other thing you can do with 4Scan.

This is a little bit of messing around, but I got to the point where this is my only option.

I plugged in the old BCM.

You can read and save the coding in the module, the as-built data, and then you can save it as file.

You can go back to the new one or whichever module you want and you can load it that way, which this is what I did.

So I read the coding from the old module, I connected it to the new one, I just punched all of it in and then everybody was happy.

There wasn't any codes.

And I looked through the as-built again.

I didn't see what specifically changed.

But to be honest, I didn't go by line by line.

At this point.

I had spent a lot of time.

I'm summing this up in a half hour for you, but it took me much longer than that to sort through this and get it right.

But after that we were good and we got this thing on the road and the shop was very happy and they're like man, we've been messing with this thing for a long time trying to get this and I don't even know if they got to the obstacle point that I did.

But they would have had a tough time trying to do this on their own.

With just IDS and one key you wouldn't have gotten very far with it.

But having the as-built data to pull off the old one was really important here, because the data in forward server is wrong.

Now, come to find out later in the week, it's not just that truck that has issues with the F550 server data for as-built.

There was another shop doing the same thing and they actually have programming capabilities too, and they were unable to figure this out and they got a lot further than the other shop.

They got to the point where they're doing PMIs and as-built and they cannot get these configuration codes to go.

So again, my number gets passed around.

Hey, john, figure these things out, okay.

So I come out to the other one Now.

This one was a much screwier situation because the shop had attempted to do some transfers of data and I think the data, the as-built, was actually changed in the original module because the acceleration of the tire size in the original didn't match the actual truck.

So I don't know where or how that happened exactly, but it benefited me that I had just been through one, and so I had some data from the other truck which very closely matched this truck, and I was able to transfer over what I needed from that to make this one work.

We did have an issue with this thing that we couldn't get past.

We got the configuration codes, we got the key stuff done, we got it drivable, but there was still a configuration code in the BCM saying initial configuration, not complete.

The reason being is we could not do a PMI on this one.

All right, and I don't mean to add more confusion to this, but this is what I went through this week.

This was a new BCM from Ford when I went to do the PMI, and when they did the PMI, ids just kicks you back and says this is the wrong part number for this truck.

And they called and they're like hey, did you sell us the wrong part number?

They're like Nope, this is what supersedes it.

They're like we do have a stop sale on these things though, so I don't know exactly how they got this one, but apparently this part number that is different from the old BCM is a super session of that part number, but IDS, they sure didn't think so.

It kept kicking us back and so they were deciding whether they were going to drive it or not.

But they had the blinking dome light problem.

Because of this initial configuration not complete, we did the remotes and we did the ASP bill.

We made sure it wasn't like a tire pressure thing that was keeping us with the dome light.

It was this code because I couldn't run a PMI on it.

I've seen configuration codes in modules before that haven't had a PMI done.

They'll be in there until you do the PMI.

It's part of the initial configuration.

What they elected to do was they ended up finding a used one and we made that one work.

I won't go through the whole story on that because it's not very exciting.

I made the used one work and we got through that one.

Then I had a third one about a week later.

Same situation.

That one went pretty smooth and I knew exactly what to do because it made no sense.

On all this stuff Of 4Scan, this would have been a pretty difficult one to complete.

Talking with the guys at one of these shops who talked to the technicians at Ford, I guess that's what they're doing too.

We're not alone in the fact that Ford's server data is wrong in a lot of cases they're using 4Scan in these situations at the Ford dealer to fix some of these vehicles.

Should I take the time and find a contact within Ford to say, hey, maybe you should fix this?

I probably should.

I don't have a whole lot of time and that's why I haven't done that.

Hey, maybe you work for Ford.

You know somebody.

You listeners of the podcast Hook me up, give me a contact.

I would love to share all of the information on this one with somebody so that they can fix this.

Unfortunately, I've run into this a lot on Ford's instrument clusters, abs modules.

The data in Ford's server is just incorrect.

Who knows exactly why it was entered wrong.

It was forgotten.

It happened during COVID.

I don't know, but it is wrong 100%.

It'd be nice if it was right, it'd be nice if it was easy.

But at the same time, this opens up an opportunity for someone who's willing to get the tooling, learn how to fix these things.

You can be the guy or girl that takes care of the problem.

You are able to come in and make it happen For me in my line of work.

That's what it's all about.

I don't know.

I almost kind of like problems like these when they pop up, because it gives me a chance to work through something and offer a service that maybe not everybody else can do.

Maybe you can do it now.

Maybe this inspires you to go find some additional tooling to have some work arounds when the factory OE procedures don't work the way they're supposed to.

I hope you found that interesting.

I hope that it wasn't too boring and technical, but that is the process.

If you want to make one of these new F550 BCMs work on a Ford, that's all I've got for you.

Thank you for listening.

Let's all get out there and start fixing the world, one car at a time.

Ford Super

Lucid Air

Lincoln Navigator

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