Installed a new valve body in my 2018 f150. Trying to program the new solenoid strategy into the PCM. I have tried with Forscan and even FJDS. When I input the strategy Ford servers return an error code saying Solenoid Not Found. It happened first in Forscan so I moved on to FJDS with a j2534 protocol Autel VCI. I get the same code. Solenoid not found.Anyone have experience with this? I've put out an email to Ford tech and will call in the morning. Hoping maybe some has had this happen and what the fix was.

 

Do you have a picture of the new solenoid strategy sticker? Is it all number or are there letters too? Do you have the latest beta version of Forscan?

 

Yes I have the sticker. It contains an S as the 6th character. It's very legible and is definitely an S. I tried it with a 5 and it was rejected immediately. I updated Forscan on Sunday. I also tried it on Factory Ford FJDS. It returns the same thing. So at the very least that tells me that Forscan is communicating the data to Ford servers and it's functioning properly.

 

Was the bag or box disturbed when you opened it?

Post a pic of the sticker and what you are entering.

 

Top code is what I'm inputting. Box was sealed foil vacuum packed. Purchased from Ford dealership.

 

Finally got it updated. Ford free features list strategy updates but one did not exist for my valve body. FJDS could not find the solenoid stategy either so it manually wrote in the new parameters and directed a relearn procedure. Anyway it's all good. I've seen people do this on some ford transmissions with Forscan. Apparently Ford is not trying to keep up with the 10r80 debacle and making the downloads available. I'm guessing at the failure rate of the 10r80 they'd have to employ 10 people soley to upload the software updates to the servers.

 

Glad you got it to work! Everything I've seen says the strategy can't have letters in it for Forscan to accept it, but obviously you got one with a letter.

 

Might be a dumb question but could you just upload this new strategy to an existing PCM through Forscan to force an update? Speaking about the updated strategies that they apparently came out with that make it shift through all the gears instead of the leapfrog shift pattern it has now. Have an '18 5.0 that I'm fighting Ford on trying to get the repair done... Trying anything at this point

 

The solenoid strategy tells the TCU about the physical characteristics of the actual valves installed, like the time required to fill, empty, etc. each solenoid. Writing the wrong strategy gives the TCU bad information about the solenoids and it won't know how to properly time and control everything.

The solenoid strategy is not the shift schedule. I shelled out for the HPTuners device and wrote the late model shift schedule to my '18 and I couldn't be happier with how it shifts now. 1-6 are so tight getting up to speed, it's very nice.

One step of the old 10R80 TSB was to re-write the existing solenoid strategy back to the TCU. Not sure if Ford updated anything in the solenoid strategy or if they're worried that over time the data would get corrupted or what.

 

How did you get it to update with the "S" in the new solenoid strategy?