Hi Schauzerguy, NW NJ here, Jan 04, we've got about 2 inches of snow here overnight and still snowing and blowing, 21F temps, and high winds. I was away over night and had a 30 mile drive home from the casino, er, I mean from therapy. Roads were not plowed, and salt ineffective at these temperatures.
It was a little squirrelly, a few minor skids/wiggles that caused me to hold my breath, and that was all below 40 mph, mostly doing 30 mph. 17" wheels, Continental ContactPro All weather tires (poor tires, IMO).
I watched the Intelligent 4WD indicator on the last 10 miles (no traffic) and like you, it was FWD all the way.
In normal wet/dry weather, I see torque to the rear wheels on any acceleration and on even the gentlest of hills. I didn't see that happen at all today, in spite of the slippery weather. I was surprised as you are.

 

Wondering what happened to the 2014 Honda CRV during these tests. Not in English, but the video is subtitled. They compare the CRV to a Kuga (Escape) and the difference is something.

I know some have complained about the time it takes the Escape's rear wheels to engage, though most of the complaints are theoretical more than practical. Check out how fast the Ford gets it together when they test it.

 

Wondering what happened to the 2014 Honda CRV during these tests. Not in English, but the video is subtitled. They compare the CRV to a Kuga (Escape) and the difference is something.

I know some have complained about the time it takes the Escape's rear wheels to engage, though most of the complaints are theoretical more than practical. Check out how fast the Ford gets it together when they test it.

I think the fast response of the Escape has to do with the predictive programming. There's no way it could detect that tiny bit of wheel spin and send power to the back that fast, it's sending the power to the back by default from the start.

It appears that there are a lot of weak-spec AWD systems out there like the Honda. The weakest link is the torque coupling that "turns on" the rear wheels. They can only handle a certain amount of ft-lbs before they will slip, which is really bad for it because it heats up and destroys the clutches. So they all have some kind of built-in protection, but the specs for how much torque they can handle vary a lot. Ford did their own in-house design that resulted in a unit that can handle all the torque going to the rear. Reading the Honda response it basically says "Our system wasn't designed to be able to send all the torque to the rear without damage".

 

Very interesting.

I wasn't sure this was even possible without a check engine light. Interesting that the FWD-programmed PCM didn't realize something was amiss when it was connected to AWD hardware. I appreciate the follow-up, too many times people resolve issues and never report back on the fix. Especially one as strange as this!

Glad you got your car working right.

 

I can only guess, but the PCM was simply not energizing the electromagnetic clutch pack in the rear drive unit. So the drive shaft forward of the clutch packs were just spinning from the transfer case. In the rear, both shaft assemblies along with the rear differential were also free spinning up to the clutch packs. Probably like pulling a 500 lb. trailer. Gas mileage maybe will improve a tad with the proper programming, along with improved acceleration I would imagine.

 

Interesting thread, thanks for the follow-up.

Welcome to the forum @Schnauzerguy !

 

No it was an independent shop that has full ids access. The car is a reconstructed car that was hit in the front left which must have damaged the pcm. The pcm was replaced before the shop I bought it from got the car and they didn't check the pcm vin match.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

No it was an independent shop that has full ids access. The car is a reconstructed car that was hit in the front left which must have damaged the pcm. The pcm was replaced before the shop I bought it from got the car and they didn't check the pcm vin match.

Gotcha. Just wanted you to know that the rear drive unit has a four digit number that needs to be programmed into the PCM. I’m guessing that all the tolerances and parameters are slightly different from unit to unit and thus the PCM needs this info in order for things to run smoothly.

 

It was an improperly programmed pcm. Apparently you can put a fwd pcm into an awd FE and it will appear totally normal except you have a fwd car with a whole lot of excess weight. The pcm had to be totally reprogrammed from scratch. All now appears to be working right.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Just curious, but is it a Ford dealer that’s doing the programming?

 

We may have located the problem. Apparently the pcm was replaced and may not have been correctly programmed. I'll know more after tomorrow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

That kind of surprises me, mine operates like jshel's does. Every time I pull up my display, I see power going to the rear wheels at almost all times below 30 MPH or so. Whenever applying lots of throttle it also sends power to the rear wheels, even at high speeds.

 

Just drove my new to me 2014 FE in the snow for the first time. I was watching the intelligent 4wd indicator on the dash and it never showed any power going to the rear wheels even though it was slippery and the tc system was activating. Is this normal behavior? I really didn't drive enough distance to get a feel for whether the traction was better than fwd, I have driven lots of standard 4wd vehicles so I know hat part time 4wd feels like. Thanks for any insights.

Are you having traction issues accelerating from a dead stop in the snow going in a straight line? If so that should definitely not be happening

 

Was below 30 the whole time, it was very slippery antilock kicked in almost every time I stopped

 

Whenever I watch the dash indicator it always show all 4 wheels under power at all times until i get up to around 40km/hr. What speeds where you noticing this behaviour at?

 

I also would not necessarily depend on that display to be accurate. A bug in the display software is not unlikely to my mind. I should think that bit of code gets a lot fewer man-hours devoted to it than the drivetrain control system software.

I usually turn traction control off in slippery conditions -- I've often found it more defeating than helpful, but that's just my opinion based on driving other Ford products (notably my previous 2014 Focus).

 

Definitely no check engine light and never have had one. I thought I remember seeing the display show a split when I test drove it in the fall when it as warm and not slippery. I'll see how it feels next snow


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Doesn't sound right to me but I have a 2017. In my vehicle, just accelerating with any spirit sends power to the rear wheels.

Generally, the system is invisible to me -- it just goes and applying lots of power with the 2.0 feels great with the AWD.

I guess you have no DTC's? No check engine light or anything?