I have a 2002 F250 V10 crew cab 4x4 with 22,000 miles that has been garage kept under a cover in showroom condition. I took it out this weekend and my power door locks just stopped working. I took it to ford dealer where I purchased and they said they could not troubleshoot because they couldn't communicate with the security/diagnostic system. They said they have to replace that first (800.00)and then look at the door locks. That didn't sound right to me, so I just picked it up and will do some research. After waiting for 1 hr and 15 minutes until that found my truck and keys I left unhappy. As I left the dealer I look at the dash and I now have door ajar light that won't go out, and the outside cab light stays on and who knows what else is going on. No way to prove what happened or what they did, I just want to find a good honest ford mechanic that will treat my F250 like I treat it. Any ideas on the problem, or help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

The door ajar light and outside cab light staying is very common and easy to fix... the door ajar switch in the drivers side front door can get dirty over time and "stick." One easy way to fix it is to spray WD-40 in the latch assembly and open and shut the door a few times. That usually fixes it. If not, the switch needs to replaced but it is cheap and not hard to do.

 

There are tons of threads about Ford's defective door lock actuators from this era of truck. Do your door locks utterly fail to make any sounds when you push the lock button, or do the lock actuators seems weak and unable to fully lock/unlock the doors? If the latter condition, then you need to replace the actuators, or do the tin-foil mod, or use aftermarket lock operators (what I did).

 

First thing that comes to my mind is mice.. Little b@stards love chewing on wiring.. Look things over carefully under the hood. Check that fuses are all good and that you have power on both sides of them.

Sounds like a beautiful rig.. Shame it's got troubles now...

 

Here is a post about the info Steve was refering to. Its from the Superduty tech folder. there's a lot of good info in there.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/4...cks-fixed.html

 

Im with BigFoot

 

Update, I have no mice or rats, the garage is clean and has very little traffic. Anyway, I talked to some guys at work and one says did I disconnect the battery to reset the system? No? When I got home last night I disconnected the battery, waited 10 minutes, connected battery back and everything is working perfectly! Hard to believe ford dealership couldn't figure that out and was going to charge 800.00 to fix. Thanks for all the suggestions and help. I feel much better now!

 

Not hard to believe for me, most I have dealt with have what I call professional tunnel vision and do not have the mental capacity to think outside the box for intermittent or unusual situations. It is much easier for them to charge $$$ and replace things that may or may not fix the problem, and most customers blindly go along with it.

a few samples from my experiences:
On my 92 Suburban, dealer said the whole ABS system needed replacement ($ 1100+) because the code said so - actually it was a poor ground that momentarily threw a code over a harsh bump, a client of mine was a GMC zone rep who said it was a known issue.

On my wife's brand new 08 Town & Country (@only 300 miles) the dealer ended up replacing the entire transmission because they could not explain why it kept throwing codes when braking to stop lights. (they actually had to get a transmission pulled from the assembly plant because it was a brand new transmission for Chrysler and not available yet) Fortunately it was under warranty but involved about 2 months of wrangling with them and multiple rental cars.

On my 05 250 V10 (@ 42k miles), the dealer insisted I needed a new intake manifold ($1400+) because it was stumbling at idle. I googled the issue and asked them to check a TSB on it happening after prolonged loss of battery (it was parked with a dead battery for a month), and they treated me like an imbecile. I went home and fixed it myself in 20 minutes following google instructions.

 

Glad to hear you're on the road again!

While I don't know where you live, I have found that in the northern climates, mice will find a way in and you don't have to have a messy area for them to habitate. I have had numerous encounters over the years with mice building nests in some of the oddest locations. The most recent was inside the air filter box of a VW Cabriolet that we used as a Summer Only vehicle.. They were only found because the nest had turned into a small colony and they plugged up the air filter with little scraps of this and that.. The garage where that car was kept was tidy and sealed up pretty well. It was also kept heated to no colder than 45 degrees in the winter.