Had a lot of snow in the North East last week. Tried to use the remote start three times without any luck. Cleaned off the windshield and it worked. At best the remote is a weak system with very little range. Any suggestions on how to use it or make it work better?

 

How far away were you? I've been impressed with the range on mine with line-of-sight. I had to be within 20 yards of my 2004. I think the 2012 i've been able to remote start it from about 50yds, but not able to test with snow on the truck.

 

I can remote start mine in the elevator 2 floors before the parking garage. I can also remote start from my house when the truck is closed up in my shop 160' from the house. I of course open the garage door remotely right after I'm extremely impressed.

 

Mine works from nearly any populated area in the US and Canada.

Viper Smart Start.

 

Does it work everytime? I was looking at putting one of those in until I read some folks were having troubles with it only working about 75% of the time.

 

I've had one incident that it didn't work. No clue why. Just popped up an error message that it can't communicate with vehicle.

 

I use mine with snow on it all the time, but usually only about 100 feet away. 6 or 8 inches of snow has no problems with it starting....

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Gordon

 

Do the 6.7's have Rainsense?

We're the wipers maybe turned on that disables the remote start to prevent burning wiper blades against a dry windshield?

 

No Rainsense, but we do have a courtesy wipe...

 

I have the remote start and I don't think the amount of snow has anything to do with it. I live in Northern Ontario, Canada, and we get very cold temps and more snow than usual and snow doesn't affect it.

However, the OEM remote on this truck is not nearly as good as the aftermarket remote I had on my previous Chev. Not only for distance but for actually starting the truck. I have had several times when I thought I would have remote started the Ford truck only go get outside and find out it never started. I would really like to have an indicator on the remote FOB that shows the engine has started. My aftermarket would start the truck no matter how much concrete I had to go through and at a much greater distance. I could be in the arena watching a hockey game and a fair distance away and the aftermarket started my truck every time. My aftermarket was about $400 plus so not a cheap one. The OEM is a cheaper unit by Ford and that is why it starts sometimes and other times doesn't start the vehicle.

My next truck won't have the factory remote start and I will just add an aftermarket unit. My aftermarket remote start also had a cold start option set-up. Meaning you could set up the vehicle to start through the night at confirmed intervals to keep the engine warm. (I guess in case you didn't have, or couldn't connect your block heater??) The aftermarket was just superior by far to the OEM unit.

 

I hear you on that.

My 05 had an aftermarket remote start. I liked it because it would run for 25 minutes at a time.

Also the cold start option was nice. If it was -35 and nowhere to plug it in that night, it would start every 4 hours and run for 15 minutes. Never had to worry about it not starting.

That being said, my 2011 starts at -35c with no issues when not plugged in.

--
Gordon

 

I have the Ford remote start system on my truck and I found that I couldn't be in my bedroom and start the truck but other than that it worked fine. But...then thieves stole my wheels and some other items from my truck while it was parked in frot of my house so I purchased a Viper Alarm with a remote start included. The alarm has a shock sensor and I added 4 mercury switches to it as well, the Viper remote start is far superior to the Ford one in that I can remote start it from blocks away and the 2 way key fob lights up when it starts and gives warning beeps when it is about to shut off and when it does auto shutoff the lights flash and it has a distinctive shut off beep too. I really like it a lot.

Have a great weekend,

Randy

 

Ford makes a factory extender kit for a factory remote starter. It was either posted on This forum or one of the other ones ,check your dealer.