New to me 2021 F-150 Lariat odometer issues - help?

[andrew11823]

I am located in Atlanta, GA and I purchased a 2021 SuperCrew F-150 2.7L Ecoboost Lariat from a Ford dealer in El Paso, IL with cross state delivery. This is a huge dealer that does hundreds of deliveries a month and not a mom and pop dealer. The truck had 27,500 miles at delivery. I love everything about the truck but after a few days, I realized something was awfully wrong.

After 200 miles of driving, it appears that for every 3 miles driven, it only counts approximately 1 mile. I approximated this with GPS. The odometer only went up about 65 miles post delivery.

The MPG counter also displays only 6MPG after a mix of city/highway driving which is crazy. At x3 which would be 18MPG that would be more accurate and matches what it's rated for.

I am really concerned at this point because potentially this truck could have 3 times as much mileage as displayed. I reached out to the IL dealer and they just said that it's under warranty and that I should take it to my nearby Ford dealer and that the discrepancy couldn't have started that early. I dropped the truck off on Monday and they said they are backed up and would need to be left with them for a week, which is absolutely ridiculous since I had an appt but that's a different story.

Has there been any similar issues on here with something like this? What kind of recourse do I have with the dealer in IL? I believe it is illegal to tamper with the odometer or to sell a vehicle with a tampered odometer. What steps should I take while I wait?

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[HammaMan]

What do the trip meters say? There's trip 1 and 2, see what's on them. Also post the VIN

Also contact the dealer in writing for accurate records vs phone, you can start by restating phone call details in email and ask for clarity.

 

[andrew11823]

What do the trip meters say? There's trip 1 and 2, see what's on them. Also post the VIN

Also contact the dealer in writing for accurate records vs phone, you can start by restating phone call details in email and ask for clarity.

I no longer have access to that information as the truck is with the dealer now but that is a great idea. Thanks I will make sure to ask them when my local dealer calls me with the diagnosis.

VIN: 1FTEW1EP7MFB56099

I have been communicating with the sales manager over text so I do have text evidence that I discovered this issue early but no evidence that they knew about this issue at time of sale. Not sure what to do at this point other than to wait for the diagnosis and see the trip info. Not sure what legal action I can take either if it turns out the Odo has been tampered with a long time ago. Not impressed with Ford service wait time etc. either. My past cars have been Volvo, and BMW and they've always honored appointment times.

 

[HammaMan]

(@rugedraw can you check 1FTEW1EP7MFB56099 APIM version history, thanks)

May 26 when connected up it reported mileage of 27,499

On May 30th they performed a TSB for RBA
On June 1st they did some more FSA/TSB work including a couple software updates

14-SEP it had gained a couple miles and had the rear BLISS radars PMI'd along with the cruise radar. They also aligned the lane centering and 360 cams.

In summary they've done a few software updates and its initial mileage was recorded before they started off on their update spree. Which based on the results, is laughable as you've still got loads of updates (see below) including additional versions of updates they supposedly did. This appears to be one of those trucks that were lost in update purgatory (my speculation). I suspect the dealer may do some of these updates to try and resolve the issue while ignoring others. Not all is lost though, I know someone an hr north of you that has the means to rectify the other updates. Depending on how far back some of the updates are (APIM), the dealer would try to get $800+ out of you to do them (get as many free updates as possible, pay for none) as it could take many hours if it's as old as suspected. Someone w/ the other software can check your status (pinged someone above).

I suspect since they were playing with the BMS resetting, they didn't have it connected to power and it went to sleep mid-update (shitty work ethic). That's my theory as to how things were botched. It was probably the IPMA update where the truck's batt died and screwed it all up. It's fixable, just looks like the dealer's service dept is incompetent (the one you got it from). Letting the battery die in updates due to not connecting to power is unacceptable, especially with this prompt..

 

[andrew11823]

had 27,500 miles at delive

(@rugedraw can you check 1FTEW1EP7MFB56099 APIM version history, thanks)

May 26 when connected up it reported mileage of 27,499

On May 30th they performed a TSB for RBA
On June 1st they did some more FSA/TSB work including a couple software updates

14-SEP it had gained a couple miles and had the rear BLISS radars PMI'd along with the cruise radar. They also aligned the lane centering and 360 cams.

In summary they've done a few software updates and its initial mileage was recorded before they started off on their update spree. Which based on the results, is laughable as you've still got loads of updates (see below) including additional versions of updates they supposedly did. This appears to be one of those trucks that were lost in update purgatory (my speculation). I suspect the dealer may do some of these updates to try and resolve the issue while ignoring others. Not all is lost though, I know someone an hr north of you that has the means to rectify the other updates. Depending on how far back some of the updates are (APIM), the dealer would try to get $800+ out of you to do them (get as many free updates as possible, pay for none) as it could take many hours if it's as old as suspected. Someone w/ the other software can check your status (pinged someone above).

I suspect since they were playing with the BMS resetting, they didn't have it connected to power and it went to sleep mid-update (shitty work ethic). That's my theory as to how things were botched. It was probably the IPMA update where the truck's batt died and screwed it all up. It's fixable, just looks like the dealer's service dept is incompetent (the one you got it from). Letting the battery die in updates due to not connecting to power is unacceptable, especially with this prompt..

Holy crap internet stranger, thank you so much for looking into this with so much detail. I could hug you if I could. So it sounds like the truck did actually have 27,500 miles until they started a bunch of updates where one was botched and it started this discrepancy. If that's the case, that is such a sigh of relief. I would hate to be scammed this way.

I know maybe one of the reasons they might have done some updates is they actually replaced the rear bumper before delivering the vehicle to me. I was told there was a dent that needed the bumper to be replaced, not sure if that info is helpful or not. Yeah hell no, I'm not paying for any updates, unless the dealer in IL wants to reimburse me. Though this truck is under warranty so it sounds like it should be covered?

Kind of funny, but what if I forego any fixes and drive it 100,000 miles and have the odometer only go up 33k haha, it'll help my resale value. JK I plan on driving till the wheels fall off..

 

[rugedraw]

This truck is on Sync 22294 and got OTA's in May and June of this year before the dealer touched it. Based on vehicle history, this was not a truck that got stuck in OTA limbo as there is no indication of an APIM replacement or manual APIM updates done at any time. It has a build date of 4/27/2021, which is very early job 1 build that seems to have updated itself on its own for the most part.

The IPMA update they did on 6/1 was successful. They started at 12:51pm and it finished at 3:32pm, so a bit under 3 hours which makes sense since they use a VCM and not a Mongoose, so it writes faster. This truck got the 3.x.x updates around the time that Ford started pushing those updates out and skipping over trucks missing the 2.x.x updates, which would explain why he still is showing IPMA updates after they updated his IPMA.

As far as whatever they did on 9/14, the tech notes are not in PTS yet so I have no way of seeing what they were trying to accomplish on that day. PTS is not showing any DTC's since he got it a few days ago relevant to the issue. On that day, they PMI'd some module that is not specified in vehicle history and performed an IPMA calibration procedure after which says was complete in 3 minutes which seems fast, but not impossible. It seems like the replaced the IMPA, but can't say for sure until PTS reflects whatever they did.

With all of that said, the mileage is displayed on the IPC, so the I'd say the IPMA has nothing to do with this. I'd have to pull the as-build data and make sure the BCM has the right values for the 3.55 gears his truck supposed to have. However, if those values were off, it means he would be driving at 60 mph and hi speedo is saying he is going 20 mph in order for the truck to be recording 1/3 of the miles he is driving, so that can't be it.

 

[HammaMan]

As far as whatever they did on 9/14, the tech notes are not in PTS yet so I have no way of seeing what they were trying to accomplish on that day. PTS is not showing any DTC's since he got it a few days ago relevant to the issue. On that day, they PMI'd some module that is not specified in vehicle history and performed an IPMA calibration procedure after which says was complete in 3 minutes which seems fast, but not impossible. It seems like the replaced the IMPA, but can't say for sure until PTS reflects whatever they did.

Appreciate it. He said they replaced the damaged bumper resulting in 9/14's efforts. A bit strange to suddenly have speedo be that far off. Possibly could have taken off larger wheels and tires and someone messed up programming stock size? Not sure it'd even take such values but would make sense.

 

[rugedraw]

Appreciate it. He said they replaced the damaged bumper resulting in 9/14's efforts. A bit strange to suddenly have speedo be that far off. Possibly could have taken off larger wheels and tires and someone messed up programming stock size? Not sure it'd even take such values but would make sense.

OP right now:

Yea, but the rear camera is on the tailgate; not the bumper. Even then, why replace and PMI the IMPA? It should have been the CMR if anything.

When I swapped out wheel/tire combo out, it threw my speedo off by 2 mph at highway speeds. This is a 67% discrepancy. lol

 

[Aim64]

I am located in Atlanta, GA and I purchased a 2021 SuperCrew F-150 2.7L Ecoboost Lariat from a Ford dealer in El Paso, IL with cross state delivery. This is a huge dealer that does hundreds of deliveries a month and not a mom and pop dealer. The truck had 27,500 miles at delivery. I love everything about the truck but after a few days, I realized something was awfully wrong.

After 200 miles of driving, it appears that for every 3 miles driven, it only counts approximately 1 mile. I approximated this with GPS. The odometer only went up about 65 miles post delivery.

The MPG counter also displays only 6MPG after a mix of city/highway driving which is crazy. At x3 which would be 18MPG that would be more accurate and matches what it's rated for.

I am really concerned at this point because potentially this truck could have 3 times as much mileage as displayed. I reached out to the IL dealer and they just said that it's under warranty and that I should take it to my nearby Ford dealer and that the discrepancy couldn't have started that early. I dropped the truck off on Monday and they said they are backed up and would need to be left with them for a week, which is absolutely ridiculous since I had an appt but that's a different story.

Has there been any similar issues on here with something like this? What kind of recourse do I have with the dealer in IL? I believe it is illegal to tamper with the odometer or to sell a vehicle with a tampered odometer. What steps should I take while I wait?

The dealer can use a scan tool and read the ECM for the exact mileage. If the ECM and the odometer are equal , there may be another issue. Does the vehicle have the factory tires? The other problem which you are aware of is the vehicle probably has a lot more mileage on it..
Good luck

 

[andrew11823]

@rugedraw @HammaMan Got an update from the dealer. They said they are still diagnosing the problem and probably won't be until Monday they have something to report, but that since the car was sold in Canada, they won't honor the warranty. The IL dealer, who I texted, disagree and has offered their "Fixed Operations Director" to speak to them. Now, that's one issue. The main issue is I got my local dealer to take a picture of the trip computer. The last trip counter before I reset it when i got it reads 1,400 miles (really 4,200 miles) at 7MPG... which means this truck has at least 2,800 miles discrepancy and probably more.

What kind of recourse do I have with the IL dealer if they come back and say this truck actually has like 50k miles? I want to be cordial but I know once I speaking legal bullshit, they're going to very careful with how they communicate with me. This has been such a headache.

 

[rugedraw]

@rugedraw @HammaMan Got an update from the dealer. They said they are still diagnosing the problem and probably won't be until Monday they have something to report, but that since the car was sold in Canada, they won't honor the warranty. The IL dealer, who I texted, disagree and has offered their "Fixed Operations Director" to speak to them. Now, that's one issue. The main issue is I got my local dealer to take a picture of the trip computer. The last trip counter before I reset it when i got it reads 1,400 miles (really 4,200 miles) at 7MPG... which means this truck has at least 2,800 miles discrepancy and probably more.

What kind of recourse do I have with the IL dealer if they come back and say this truck actually has like 50k miles? I want to be cordial but I know once I speaking legal bullshit, they're going to very careful with how they communicate with me. This has been such a headache.

Man, I don't know what to tell you. I have never come across an issue like this before. This is messed up and obviously a bad situation to be thrown into. I don't think there is going to be any easy way out of this.

 

[HammaMan]

This is quite odd, and a huge red flag. You're bought something with an odometer that is some how incorrectly reporting mileage and there's no telling just how long it's occurred. There's probably some way / some how to extrapolate an approximate mileage from all of the data that's collected. The dealer did updates and then drove it. It gives an end of trip report so if they drove 4 miles or so for the camera alignment and then it reported ~1.5, that tech should have seen that.

@Jesse-Infotainment is there an avenue for making this occur intentionally?

 

[andrew11823]

This is quite odd, and a huge red flag. You're bought something with an odometer that is some how incorrectly reporting mileage and there's no telling just how long it's occurred.

@Jesse-Infotainment is there an avenue for making this occur intentionally?

Also, what's the most accurate way of calculating true miles? I'm worried the dealer won't know, even if they can fix the odometer counter.

 

[HammaMan]

Also, what's the most accurate way of calculating true miles? I'm worried the dealer won't know, even if they can fix the odometer counter.

Some modules are retaining lifetime values of all sorts, engine hours, total engine revolutions should be in there, probably a dozen or so other things recorded that could provide some idea. BUT, personally I don't think that's your concern. The dealer needs to be eating this entire thing making you whole.

 

[andrew11823]

Some modules are retaining lifetime values of all sorts, engine hours, total engine revolutions should be in there, probably a dozen or so other things recorded that could provide some idea. BUT, personally I don't think that's your concern. The dealer needs to be eating this entire thing making you whole.

Agreed. I will probably ask to return or get reimbursed on all costs associated with fixing (outside of warranty) plus the depreciation of the vehicle with the added true miles.

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