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I had this problem with my 2017 Ford Fusion Energi Titanium which I bought new. I also bought an extended warranty. I asked Ford to fix it but Ford declined a the grounds that it was a defect in the “ dash pad” which was not covered. I took Ford to arbitration and the arbitrator ruled in my favor. I argued it was a safety matter because the defroster was not working properly and I was concerned that the air bag would not deploy properly. During testimony the Ford engineer admitted that the air bag might not deploy properly and that the defroster would not work properly.

Just for future reference for other who might experience a similar issue, I may have found the solution I wanted to post on the forum. Last week I had two more instances of issues. First, where I forget to disable the start/stop function with the button, and it stalled at a stoplight while heading to work. The car refused to start and I was stuck at the light for about 2 hours waiting for a tow. The dash screens would light up but none of my outside lights worked. For the heck of it, before the tow arrived, I disconnected and reconnected the terminals and, low and behold, the car was working fine again. The second instance happened when I parked my car and later it simply wouldn't start (appeared unrelated to stop/start). Once again, I disconnected and reconnected the battery and it was starting fine. Strange as it sounds, my Cobra radar detector has a battery check function whenever the car is started and it told me last week the battery was bad. Exploring this potential cause, I discovered that the prior owner installed a standard, non-AGM battery in the car. According the owner's manual, stop/start cars specify a AGM-type battery. I installed an AGM replacement and haven't had any problems (at least so far). Admittedly, I'm a bit nervous about keeping the stop/start function on so I've been trying to remember to keep it off but check it's functionality every time I drive the car when parking the car to see if works. So far, about 20-30 tests without issue. Just to try to increase my confidence in the fix, when I took the old battery to the auto parts store to recycle it, I asked them to use their battery check equipment to verify the battery was bad. When they checked it, it showed as 'passing'. This didn't help me feel better but, like I stated, the car appears to be running fine now that an AGM-type battery is installed. Maybe the old battery was just starting to fail (?). I hope this information helps someone else out in the future.