As some may know I have played around with lighting in the old Xr abit and had a few weird and wonderful probs. Knowing that im never wrong ( joking ) and the fact that the probs self repaired etc etc etc, I thought I would get the brains checked. Took the car to ford and got a diaignostic done. Told me I had a short or open circuit in the seat. Not a prob I thought. The tech went to load the upgraded software into the car and after around 10 mins it came back with " unable to connect with Master please retry " or something to that effect. Ok for the retry I thought. "Opps" says the Tech "its not working". So now I am driving a Mondeo as a loaner, The BEM sounds like its sh*t itself, and I'm then told that a whole lot of the BEM's were changed due to a fault, but mine is meant to be ok. So becareful if your serviceman tells you to upgrade the software. You may have to walk home. PS My BEM is the alarm module.

Scary, Hope mines OK its the alarm BEM too. Tell me if it chirps when you get it back. Best o Luck.

Ok I'll bite. What is BEM? Why is software being upgraded?

I had one minor glitch at about 500km, the speedometer stopped working and the "D" as in drive indicator (Automatic) started flashing, however just like a well known PC operating system turned off the ignition at the first opportunity (stopped at the traffic lights), the electronics rebooted and all came back to normal, it has only happened the once and did'nt seem to affect anything else. I convinced the dealer to run diag's and upgrade the software at my 3000km check (this was at the end of January). I do not have an alarm and have had no other issues with the BEM, now 6000km new.

gjconn, its the BodyElectronic module. Its the brains behind pretty much all functions behind apart from the engine.

Oh and its getting upgraded to the new software because the alarm wont chirp, the lights dont flash for boot release, and it appears it should clear up these probs.

Apparently it is only the "alarm" BEM that is stuffing up because of this master software prob - my son is still waiting for his to be done and Ford still can't tell us when - it is something that is coming from the US we are told - WTF? It's a Bosch unit which makes this story a bit sus.

I got the ford alarm and its playing games. At first press unlock, blinks no chirp , button pops up , no pbobs. To open boot press boot,noprobs. Now press boot, horn chirps lift up boot alarm gose off. I now have to unlock car first then boot. Ford said it needs a new doodad on the boot light? Once the alarm went off when some hoon drove past with no muflers on WTF ?

Once the alarm went off when some hoon drove past with no muflers on WTF ?

That's strange, I didn't think the Ford alarm had a shock sensor...

Anyone know what the Ford alarm DOES have?

When I took my car in at 8000km to get the front disks machined they told me my BEM (alarm version) needed replacing. I hadn't had any of the problems with the auto down windows when unlocking or such, but I had had a few instances of the alarm going off on its own and not being able to turn it off and it was just driving me nuts.

So it took another trip back to the dealer to get it replaced, and everything seemed fine until last week (now at 13300km) as I was leaving work and the alarm tripped itself again - exactly the same as with original BEM!

I'll need them to check it at the 15000km service again - little things like this are so annoying.