Table 1 shows one common vehicle speed control related problems of the 2022 Ford F-350.
| Problem Category | Number of Problems |
|---|---|
| Vehicle Speed Control problems |
Charging system fault. Caused multiple error messages like forward camera not available, collision avoidance not available. Then radio goes black and reboots. Several cycles later the dash board goes dark. No speed or rpm anything visible for 5-10 secs, and on some reboots this dark dash lasted 30 seconds. Thankfully while traveling at midnight the head lights and tail lights remain on, just no interior lights during these reboots. New batteries made no difference.
This is not a failed component, the issue is a design interaction issue. This truck when it gets stuck as it unfortunately very easily does even on wet grass goes into a traction control mode where the throttle is very damped but the issue is not only is the opening very dampened the closing is also very damped. This is made significantly worse by the fact that traction control cannot actually be disabled. There is a switch and it indicates it is disabled but the functionality remains the same. This combination means whenever you're working to get the truck unstuck, like yesterday when it was on wet grass you have to expect that the vehicle will suddenly accelerate as soon as it finds traction. Normally you can counteract this by expecting to apply significant brakes as soon as it finds traction but if the front wheels are still on a slippery surface the abs system will lose it's mind and essentially disable brakes as the vehicle accelerates violently backwards with the new found traction. This combination of software decisions makes it so you can very easily replicate an unintended acceleration scenario where the vehicle jumps back a solid 20' when this happens, not respecting any brake input given by the driver and certainly not respecting that the throttle was released long ago. The throttle closing should not be damped when traction control is running and the abs system should not be behaving the way it does. I understand getting the vehicle unstuck from wet grass is not normal operation but that's what the traction control disable button should be for and Ford makes that button useless also. When taken together, all these engineering decisions make for a very unsafe situation that has zero reason to exist. I've attached pictures that show the overview of the situation as well as the characteristic abs marks showing that it was disabling brakes.
The fan clutch assembly failed and as a result the drive mode would not change from tow/haul mode to any of the other 4 drive modes. Accelerations and decelerations were negatively affected as a result creating safety hazards when driving. The engine was always responding as if a trailer were attached and subsequently accelerations were difficult and decelerations consistently utilized the trailer engine braking system, similar to semi-trucks utilizing the jake-braking systems, this is a significant safety issue and needs to have a recall issued for the replacement of these fan clutch assemblies.
While driving with the cruise set I wanted to reduce speed and hit the minus speed button on the cruise control which caused the vehicle to speed up which made me hit it quickly a couple more times to slow it down and it responded by speeding up more and led me to slam on the brakes. Luckily no one was in front of me so I didn’t rear end them when it sped up and no one was behind me that could have rear ended me when I slammed on the brakes.