On March 22, I pulled my E-450 chassis on my Entegra Esteem 27u out of storage. Storage was indoors with the heat maintained at 55 degrees all winter.
The chassis battery was dead and I had to use the alternate battery button connected to the house batteries to start the engine. Once the engine was running, my instrument cluster glowed with the Brake light, ABS light, and Electronic Stability Control light. The display also scrolled through messages saying «Service Advance Trac» and «Hill Start Assist.»
Since the brakes worked just fine after testing them outside in the parking lot, I drove her an hour home. On the highway, I tried to turn on the cruise control only to find out it would not work.
Eventually, I got her home and parked her in my outdoor storage lot by my house.
I called three local Ford dealers and Ford Motorhome. No one knew anything and could not help even after I gave them the Ford TSB SSM 49349 that I found from March 2021 that matched the description of my problem.
I got one dealer to make an appointment with me and who was willing to look at it tomorrow (March 29). However, I went to my Esteem today to make sure she would start and she started immediately. In addition, my cluster panel had no lights glowing. So I took her out on the road and tried the cruise control. Good news — the cruise control worked just fine.
Once home, I called Ford Motorhome again. Nothing. They just tell me the same thing every time I call, which is to take to a dealer. (Does anyone know why Ford Motorhome exists? — That is a rhetorical question.)
I called the dealer with whom I have an appointment. I explained what happened. They said they could not explain why everything works now. We cancelled my appointment since there was no need to have them look at it. They said there is no memory when the warning lights glow unless it’s the check engine light.
Here are my questions: I know this has been a problem with many other E-450 chassis owners and F-53 chassis owners over the last two years. Has anyone had a Ford dealer find a solution to the problem and fix the problem? If so, what was the fix?
The TSB says Ford engineering is working on it. But when I told this to four different people from Ford, all of them said they knew nothing about it and their computers don’t show anything either.
