Cruise Control problems of the 2019 Ford Ranger

On Wednesday oct. 14, 2020 on a trip from gainesville, GA to pensacola, FL I experienced a problem with this vehicle that I would classify as potentially catastrophic. While driving on the interstate (I-85), I used the cruise control several times at speeds between 60 -70 mph. In montgomery, al, I exited off the interstate and stopped at a stop light. All of a sudden the acceleration increased where I had to put maximum pressure on the brakes to prevent the truck from crashing into passing traffic. I then moved the select shift from drive to neutral and then to park, which stopped the acceleration. The acceleration was so severe that the rear wheels were spinning. Again we experienced the same problem twice more on our way to pensacola at various stop lights. That day I had not yet determined that there may be an issue with the operation of cruise control. The next morning Thursday, oct. 15, I brought the truck into world Ford in pensacola, FL. For a diagnosis. The service technician took the truck out on the highway but was not able to duplicate the problem. When he used the diagnosis machine he detected a glitch in test a4 which indicated an intermittent inoperative brake lamp switch. He was not 100% sure the brake lamp switch was the cause of the problem but he changed the switch. He was very concerned of the potential seriousness of the situation. We never had another issue while in pensacola or on the way home, but I never turned the cruise control on, as my confidence level was still very low.

When trying to set the cruise control speed the vehicle will continue accelerating constantly. The truck will not set at the desired speed and will keep going faster and faster. The only way stop the increasing acceleration process is stepping on the brake, maybe turning the cruise control off. This happened every time I tried to set the cruise control speed with the bottom on the right side of the wheel. I replicated the issue twice in the parkway just to make sure this was not my fault. The first time this happened was totally unexpected, the car was new.

The truck will display a warning on the dash as well as make audible warnings saying that a camera in the grille is blocked or malfunctioning. Another warning that also happens a lot is something saying that a crash has been detected, it has loud chimes that go off as well as a flashing red display on dash. The pre collision warning also frequently alerts with visual and audible warnings. All of these will happen at any random time, and of all the couple dozen times these warnings have happened there hasn't been a single time that there was any traffic nearby, nor was there anything blocking any camera or sensor. The vehicle is barely more than a month old and has been back to the dealership a few times to fix body alignment issues and programming issues with the ecu, pcm and tcu. The service department told me that the pre collision system only works if you also have adaptive cruise control, which my truck does not. They said there is no way to fix the system to get it to stop giving false warnings unless they add the adaptive cruise control module and other components. However, the dealership is refusing to add the additional parts and also refusing to replace the vehicle with one that does. They told me Ford is aware of this issue, and admits that a false warning may activate the braking system on its own, which can cause an accident, but they stated that Ford will not pay correct the issue. This is a serious safety issue and Ford needs to issue a recall for their faulty, and dangerous, collision warning system. They need to install adaptive cruise control in vehicles without if that's all it would take to fix the issue and make vehicles safe to drive.