I have owned a 2009 FEH AWD since new and it now has 27,000 miles. It has worked fine for 2 year now, but a strange thing happened two days ago and I'm curious if anyone has an idea was caused it.

We drove it 8 miles into town, parked it for 3 hours in 90 degree weather, nothing usual for our area (New Mexico) Started the vehicle and noticed the a/c and fan and radio stopped working. You could turn up the fan and radio, the indicators would change on the dash, but no change in fan speed or sound from the radio. Drove to another place in town, shut off the engine, came out 15 minutes later and drove 5 min to another place in town, this time the radio started working again, but the fan and a/c did not. After the next stop, we drove for about 5 minutes and noticed a electric burning odor. We turned off the a/c and the odor went away. For the next two days the vehicle has been working fine, no repeat of these problems.

Today we took it to the local Ford dealer and they found nothing - no codes, nothing.

My strategy is if the burning odor occurs again I'm going to leave the a/c on and if a part burns up, maybe the dealer can locate the failed part easier.

Any ideas, anybody?

 

Did the dealer actually remove the stereo or the A/C controls and inspect the wiring or did they just run a diagnostic? It sounds like to me that you have some bare wires somewhere behind the center dash stack.

 

I'm pretty sure the dealer just ran diagnostics.

What I'm hoping for is a failure of some sort and not an intermittent problem. I want this resolved while it is still under warranty - could be expensive otherwise.

I agree with you about possible bare wires.

 

Actual Radio or CD functionality..? CD players do not like high temp/humidity situations but usually a code will show the reason for no operation. 3 hours in a hot New mexico sun might raise the cabin, battery compartment, temperature beyond 130F.

A/C functionality dedicated to battery cooling..?

 

Just the radio sound stopped working - indicators on dash still worked. We didn't try the CD player.

Is your theory that the cabin temp > 130F might have triggered the A/C and cabin fan to shut off until the battery cooled down?