Preliminary Evaluation PE16-012: Door Ajar Warning Light Always On

The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened this investigation on September 28, 2016 based on allegations that the door ajar light located on the instrument cluster stays on all of the time even when all doors are closed and fully latched on 2011-2013 model year Ford Edge vehicles.

When the light is illuminated continuously, vehicle occupants cannot be certain if any of the doors are properly latched.

Reported safety consequences as a result of this issue include doors opening while driving (because doors were initially not latched properly), doors cannot be locked while driving, and the interior dome lights staying on continuously. Ford data received from the Information Request letter corresponding to this investigation indicates the failures were caused by contamination of the electrical contacts on the switch located within each door latch that tells the vehicle if the door is open or closed.

All four doors contain the same latch design and switch.

According to Ford, the Body Control Module (BCM) monitors the position of the switch and continuously samples it to detect a state of change.

After a closed door state is detected, a continuous wetting current designed to keep the electrical contacts clean is sent from the BCM to the switches as long as the BCM is active.

Beginning with the 2011 model year Edge vehicles, a change in BCM strategy resulted in a reduction of the wetting current sent out to clean the switch contacts by more than 75%.

Over time, this low level of current is not sufficient to keep the switch contacts clean and contamination build up causes them to fail as described above.

During the course of this investigation, ODI has identified a total of 1,983 complaints related to the door ajar light.

Of these complaints, 14 indicated that a door opened while driving.

Twelve of the 14 door opening events were situations where an occupant of the vehicle (often a child) opened a passenger door because the doors were not locked.

The remaining two complaints involved a door opening on its own because the driver was unaware that the door was unlatched.

There were no accidents but one complainant reported that a shoulder injury was caused by the driver having to repeatedly slam the door in an effort to get the door ajar light to turn off.

After reviewing all available data, an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety has not been identified.

The door latches themselves continue to function properly, remaining securely latched until acted upon by a driver or passenger.

Child safety locks on the rear doors continue to function properly and can be used to prevent the rear doors from opening via the inside door handles.

Vehicle crashworthiness is not affected by the lock condition of the doors and all active safety systems continue to function normally even if the vehicle BCM believes one or more doors is open.

In addition, no accidents or accident related injuries have been reported.

A safety-related defect trend has not been identified at this time and further use of agency resources does not appear to be warranted.

Accordingly, the investigation is closed.

The closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by NHTSA that a safety-related defect does not exist.

The agency will monitor the issue and reserves the right to take future action if warranted by the circumstances.

ODI numbers for the reports cited above are shown in the attached document.