What is your question?
Just to clarify exactly what car I own; 2009 Ford Taurus Limited
Last year I bought my car used, one owner, around 80K miles on it from a local Ford dealer that has always been a good dealership. A few months into owning the car it had a hard time starting, I would turn the key and nothing would happen. At the time it seemed like it might just be a battery or alternator issue, since it brought up a warning that read "Check Charging System". I took it to the dealer's Quick Lane to have the battery and everything checked out and I thought that would be the end of it. On the way there the dials all dropped to zero and absolutely all of the warning lights turned on and again the warning read "Check Charging System", this seemed to confirm my power related suspicions and I got the car in to the Quick Lane for service. I called later to check in on it and see if the car was done and they informed me that they could find nothing wrong. Both battery and alternator were putting out more than enough juice to keep the car going strong. Took the car home thinking maybe I had drunk some bad cactus juice or something and was just glad I could go to work the next day.
A week or so later, the same issue came up. This time I got it to Quick Lane while it was still acting up and had the techs check it out. I felt better knowing that they were seeing the problem as well. They were lost and we sent it over to the main garage at the Ford dealer to have the other tech check it out. The computer never put out any codes to even hint at what the issue might be or how we could fix it. The only indication was the blinking anti-theft light that suggested that it could be a PATS issue.
With no codes to guide repairs and the issue only rearing its head intermittently we went through around three months of the car being in and out of the garage having every possible system checked and there was still no indication of what the real issue was. Eventually, it stopped acting up long enough that we deemed our efforts a success and I happily drove off the Ford lot.
Fast forward about five months and we start seeing a repeat performance. I sit down in the seat, put the key in, turn it, and nothing but the warning lights come on and there is the ever present anti-theft light blinking away.
We have tried using the other key.
I have tried starting it with everything unnecessary shut off. (AC, radio, bluetooth, etc)
I have unplugged the battery to try and reset the computer.
I have tried a few different methods that I have read about to reset the anti-theft and get it to recognize that the keys I have are indeed genuine.
What could the real issue be?
Could it be the PATS intermittently not recognizing my keys? I have read of similar cases in Ford's Focus line, does anyone know of one of those situations that has been resolved successfully?
If it is the PATS, how is it dropping my dials to zero and turning on the warning lights while I am driving? (This does not affect the car's ability to keep going. I have continued at highway speeds with the dials still reading zero because I know that they often turn back on. Dangerous, I know, but necessary when it happened.)
Does anyone have any insight into this issue? I will get pictures up of what the dash looks like with all of the warnings up while driving.
