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DIY modifications on my Ford EcoSport: TPMS, dashcam & others

15th July 2021, 16:16 by Rahul Nagaraj

As the previous mods helped me quite a bit, I was curious to do something more to my car.

BHPian jithin23 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Some Updates for Blue Baby

Installing OEM TPMS sensors

As the cruise control mod helps me quite a bit in resting my right foot, I was curious to do something more to my car. So I decided to go ahead and install TPMS in my car so that it can be useful to detect sudden air loss or if the air pressure is low. I had faced a tyre blast incident last December and had I installed TPMS back then, I might have been more alert and could have averted the mishap.

It's a very simple mod albeit the cost of the sensors can help one clear a part of the EMI instalment. Since I drive about 20 - 25k km in a year and I drive to far off places, I consider the TPMS sensors to be important during such drives. Plus will keep me alert as well when it's time to refill air in the tyres.

I purchased 4 sensors from FASS and the cost of each sensor is 2.5k. Some of you might think that this guy is nuts to spend 2.5k per sensor for each wheel. I'll tell you why I was very particular from getting OEM sensors only (apart from having a clutter free look and warranty) before placing an order from FASS, I had tried on Aliexpress, but they do not ship to India currently. Moreover the sensors from Aliexpress sometimes do not match with the BCM frequency.

The lone supplier for Ford Sensors is Schrader from the UK. They are the pioneers for TPMS in the automobile industry. I tried to import from Schrader as well, but customs duties and international shipping will jack up the price significantly. I did consider sensory too but their sensors will not integrate with the car's communication modules. Hence, I opted to buy from FASS. You get the sensors from Boodmo as well. This feature can be enabled on any variant. Titanium+ (except 2017-Apr 2018) and lower variants didn't come with TPMS at all.

Sensor part number and cost.

The sensor weighs 15 gm

Step 1: The Sensors can be installed at any tyre shop, however, wheel alignment and balancing needs to be done after fitting the sensors to the wheel. Once this is done, the TPMS needs to be enabled in BCM configuration and IPC configuration using Forscan (this step can be performed first too)

Wheel removed to fit the sensor.

Step 2: The parameters to be enabled using forscan are:

Tire Pressure system (BCM and IPC)

TPMS Placard (BCM & IPC)
TPMS Menu (IPC)
TPMS Pressure units- psi (IPC)
TPMS Region-Europe (BCM & IPC)
TPMS Auto Learn (BCM)
TPMS Reassign (BCM)
TPMS Hard Reset Button (IPC)

Step 3: Now, after these things are enabled, we can enter TPMS training mode by using the run tests tab in Forscan (use this if you have the TPMS learning tool) or we can go to FASS and activate the installed sensors. This will take about 5-10 minutes. FASS uses Atek VT55 TPMS learning tool.

TPMS learning tool is available easily in Europe/USA/Aliexpress. Here is the reference link.

For availability in India, here it is!

The TPMS learning mode gets activated by a single honk from the car and the activation is done clockwise from the Front Left Tyre, Front Right Tyre, Rear Right Tyre and Rear Left Tyre. Each time the value is stored, the car will honk once and will be displayed in the instrument cluster. It takes of 15-30 seconds for each sensor to be programmed. Sometimes, once the ignition cycle changes, the values will be blank. This got me worried. Then I had asked the service manager to go for a road test and Voila! TPMS works!

TPMS values enabled partially:

All we had to do after the training mode was to drive for 3-5kms above the speed of 30km/h. Only then the sensors will give us real time air pressure from the tyres.

There was a twist in my story though. When I had gone to FASS first in the morning, I thought that FASS will enable it from the BCM and then it'll work. On digging deeper into their tool functions I figured out that I had to enable TPMS in the BCM as well and FASS does not have the authority or enable or disable features. They can only diagnose and fix errors or activate the TPMS sensors. I went back in the evening and repeated step 3.

TPMS in action:

This pic is one of the main reasons why I wanted to use OEM TPMS, so that it can be viewed on sync 3 screen as well(this is a WIP for me because I'll need to do some technical modification to the Sync 3 board).

This video is relevant for those who wish to replace TPMS sensors without using Forscan.

DIY Hardwiring of Dashcam

This is yet another simple mod provided if we know the right fuse slot. Just route the wire to the Shotgun's side foot-well and remove the two black screws which are visible. This way, we can access the fuse box without touching the glovebox.

I used this for hardwiring my 70mai Dashcam

Note: Use only a micro fuse tap because other fuse tap sizes will not fit in the fuse box slot.

Pull the Rubber part on the body frame for the wire to pass, the plastic trim can be gently pulled using hands. The trim needs to be removed so that the wire can pass through easily. Then route the wire through the exposed cover and connect the fuse tap to Fuse# 6. Use a nose plier to remove the existing fuse from the fuse box

Wiring routing bottom

Wiring routing from top (inside the car)

Wiring from the side

Fuse box after removing the foot-well cover (use only the yellow coloured box marked for Dash cam fuse tap)

Fuse Tap

A scary moment for me was when I had used the fuse tap in the wrong fuse slot and the dashcam was on. Then Naveen came to the rescue by calling me up and telling me to switch the fuse tap to fuse# 6 so that the dashcam will turn off when the ignition turns off. Plus I had used a different tap which was not slotting at all. Then I tried with the micro fuse tap and it worked. The ground is not fixed properly and vehicle loses communication with the BCM while I'm trying to start the engine. Then, I had changed the position of the ground and everything was working as usual.

Fuse tap attached (using Naveen's pic for reference)

Now, the dashcam can be used for Parking Surveillance too.

GPS tracker

I have explained about the GPS tracker in this post.

I made sure to install this tracker because my scooter got stolen in front of my house 3 months ago and I feel this is a better way to track the car and it's better to spend 5k rather than lose 12L. Once a vehicle gets stolen, there's little chance of recovery and the way our insurance and legal departments work, God alone knows when we'll get the claim amount.

The Car Dustbin was a bonus fits snug into the cup-holder.

Part number for the car dustbin.

Total Wallet Burn:

TPMS sensors: 2.5k X 4 = 10,000
Alignment and balancing + sensor fitting: Rs 1,000
Car Dustbin= Rs 150
FASS charges for programming the sensor: Rs 250
GPS Tracker: Rs 4.7k

Total: Rs.16,110 ( TPMS: 11,250 ; GPS Tracker: 4,700)

Another incident was my windshield got cracked due to a tree fall and I had claimed Insurance from Acko. They were very prompt and swift in settling the amount as they had settled it in 1 hour after I accepted the claim offer. This happened as soon as I reported the incident to them first. Everything was done through the mobile app itself and the surveyor assessed the damage just through the pics sent from the app. He just called over phone and settled everything quickly.

Parallelly I had applied for replacement Fastag from HDFC online portal itself because I had some amount left in the previous fastag. This too was smooth as I had to pay just 100 bucks for the replacement tag online and it got delivered to my house in 3 days.

The Damaged Windshield.