So... Just learn from my idiocy.

I have two Diehard Platinum batteries after my factory batteries finally failed last fall. I wanted to try installing the v4.4 Sync update again, which still said "INSTALLING" after 3.5 hours with the engine running. I work from home, and had no plans to be driving, so I figured I would let it sit there with the key in the on position overnight without actually running the engine and give it plenty of time to finish. Well, I forgot about it until after it was too late.

Turns out the truck behaves very oddly when batteries go down, especially with the key in the on position. The lights, which I stupidly left in automatic mode, were still glowing (not shining, just enough juice to glow), and there's no way to turn them off. Manually turning the dial does nothing. Opening the door does nothing, neither turns on the interior lights, nor the dash display, nor turns off the lights. It's like the truck's computers had a seizure and locked up.

Now here's the fun part. You can't shift it into neutral. It won't unlock the shifter. Which means when I set it in Park with my nose up against a wall in my one-car garage, there's no way to get any other vehicle over to it to jumpstart it, and I can't roll it out to work on it.

In the end, I disconnected the battery terminals on both batteries (reconnecting them shortly after didn't reset whatever what stuck), grabbed the extension cord and battery tender/charger from my boat, and set it on one of the batteries overnight. It stayed on there for maybe about 8 hours before I switched it to the other battery this morning. This evening I'm going to hook them up and hope it starts.

I would've left the batteries hooked up so they're charging together at the same time, and I initially tried that for a few hours, but because the lights still wouldn't shut off and it wouldn't "reset" whatever was stuck just by disconnecting the batteries (I didn't think to try holding the positive and negative leads together for 30 seconds or so to ensure all capacitors were drained), the effectiveness of charging was minimized at best. So I said screw it and am slowly trickling back up each one in turn.

The good news is that charging up the one battery as far as it got overnight was enough to make the truck appear to start behaving like normal again. I'm hopeful that by this evening the batteries will have enough to at least allow me to roll it out and jumpstart it. I might even get lucky and have enough to turn this beast of an engine over. I've got a 60-mile drive ahead me anyway, which will help charge them up if I get it to start.

 

Who says we don't drive electric vehicles?

On my Porsche, if the battery goes dead you cannot get into the car: the windows roll up under the convertible top when you close the door. Touching the door handle drops them by about an inch so you can open the door. Closing the door rolls them up again. If the battery is dead, the window will not roll down and you cannot open the door. Now the coup de grace: the battery is in the front trunk. The only way to open the front trunk is a lever on the door sill which can only be accessed if the door it open. So you cannot open the door, and cannot open the trunk to get to the battery to charge it. Cool.

 

Since my "new" truck is a 2002, I don't understand why you can't shift into neutral. Is it some kind of shift by wire?

 

its an interlock thing.. the newer vehicles (GM did this starting in the 90's) require the brake pedal to be depressed when shifting between neutral/park to drive (R,D, L1,2,3) gears.. without the electric signal from the brake switch it will lock the gear selector so that it cant be accidentally shifted into gear.. in some vehicles you can actually hear the lock disengage when the pedals depressed.. from the sounds of it Ford's adopted this "safety" feature.. downside to this feature is that when the batteries run down theres sometimes not enough juice to trip the lock which can make it a pita to move the vehicle if its parked out in no mans land of a lot with the selector in park.. jump boxes can sometimes help feed enough juice to do so but were a few times we had to swap batteries out in the parking lots just to get them into the bays to work on them. .

 

Okee doke. Thank you for explaining. Sounds like a bit of overthinking by automakers.

 

np.. it was originally designed for those kids that got left in the cars by mommy and daddys while they ran into the stores for "a quick second".. theyd get out of their car seats and get into the drivers seats then put it in gear.. this feature was to prevent it.. their thinking was little kids (mainly 2-3 yr olds) couldnt reach the selectors and the brake pedals at the same time so they wouldnt be able to shift it into gear.

 

I just went through this after a botched fuel filter change (by the dealer) and was curious about this. I found this in my owner's manual, hope this helps everyone in the future!

 

Interesting, thank you for sharing! That could've proved helpful. Didn't realize it would've been right there in the manual. Nothing came up in a Google search I did, looking for info and help.

PS It would've been nice to just have a little access hole where you could use a standard Phillips head screwdriver or whatever to manually override the lock that would then fall back into the locked position next time it's shifted into park. Could've been such a simple temporary fix.

 

I completely agree with that, there could have been an external button on the underside of the column.

 

I believe this is now a Fed requirement, brought on by the infamous Audi 100 "unintended acceleration" media hype, which was later proven to be just media hype. But we stuck with the fallout.

 

A simple mechanical lock would've been SO MUCH BETTER. I step on the brake pedal, it pulls the lock out of the way, problem solved. No battery required.

I guess these trucks may simply never be able to sit out in a barn for a while like old ranch trucks tend to do. Couldn't even roll them out easily if the batteries are dead...

 

My wife's Odyssey is much easier to do. The gear shifter is on the dash and has a covered key hole next to it. Flip off the cover, put key into the lock, press brake, put truck into neutral, remove key and put into ignition. Crank vehicle with foot on the brake and shift to drive and go...

 

our Lincoln has the interlock in the console.

Not sure about the Taurus. need to look.

Everything is going keyless so they are moving the switch for the interlock all over the place.

I am usually good about reading these items in the manual just for this reason.

 

Our Fusion has the same thing with a covered slot to mechanically release it.

Rob

 

You can't leave them sit in a barn with the key on....