We love overlanding and camping out of our truck, but as a night photographer who enjoys taking long exposures of the stars, I never liked how there wasn’t a way to disable the interior and exterior lights on our Ford F-150 from coming on when the doors were opened.
The photo below is of what camping out of our Ford F-150 looks like in a IDA dark sky park. (The blue glow was from a small LED on our fridge.)
This is also very annoying when camping in a campground, with the running lights and cargo lamp shining into everyone else’s tents every time you need to get something from the cab in the middle of the night. This, along with the truck’s keyfob panic alarm being so easily triggered, led us to look for some solutions to these not so “camping friendly” features of the truck.
Using Forscan to Enable Police Mode or Silent Mode on a Ford F-150
Thankfully, there is a solution for keeping your Ford F-150’s exterior lights from coming on each time the doors are opened. It’s not a perfect solution however, since you will give up all automatic courtesy lighting inside and out, and lose the confirmation light flash and horn honk when locking and arming the vehicle. For more privacy and the sake of our long exposure photography though, these lost features are a trade-off we’re willing to accept.
Please Note: If you perform this modification you can no longer trigger exterior courtesy lighting with the keyfob when approaching the vehicle at night or have lighting when opening doors, which may be a safety issue for some. Also, this modification worked on our 2018 Ford F-150, but may not work on some other models.
The tools you’ll need are an OBD2 scanner/programmer, such as the ELM 327, along with a program called Forscan, which you can download here. The Forscan program is free, however you will need to buy a $12 extended license (for one year) which allows you to use all features. A two month trial license is available for free.
Enabling Dark, Silent or Police Mode on Ford F-150
Please note that this post is not a tutorial on Forscan. Please visit the developer’s website and learn how to back up your vehicle’s factory settings before making any changes. One Forscan user who goes by Livinitup has posted an excellent Google doc showing how to get started and make a backup of your truck’s factory settings, which you can find here, along with a link to some of the more common mods you can perform.
After you have connected the OBD2 adapter to your truck’s port (found just under the driver’s side dash) and connected to the truck, click on the symbol that looks like a computer chip in the left margin.
The change you will want to make to enable “police mode” or “dark mode” on your Ford F-150 can be found in the “as built” Body Control Module or BCM. Locate the third digit from the last and change it from a zero to a one. When you’re done, click on “Write” and disconnect the vehicle from the programmer.
Bdy CM (as built) 726-58-02 xxxx xxxx x*xx Feat Cfg SilentMode5: 0=disabled, 1=enabled
When you’ve made this change your Ford F-150 will be in dark mode, aka “police mode” or “silent mode”. The only light you will see when you open the doors or use your keyfob will be the Ford logo on the entertainment center display.
Will Using Forscan Void My Truck’s Warranty?
Legislation known as the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act helps protect those of us who work on our own vehicles. The long and short of this legislation is that a vehicle manufacturer cannot void the warranty of your vehicle because of an aftermarket part or procedure, unless they can prove that the aftermarket part or procedure was the cause of or contributed to the failure of the vehicle. 15 U.S.C. 2302 (C)
Other Ford F-150 Forscan Mods For Camping
Other mods you can make that are helpful for off-roading and overlanding are enabling “Bambi mode”, which allows high beams and fog lamps to be on a the same time (for off-road use only), disabling auto start-stop and disabling the Ford F-150’s keyfob panic alarm, which is prone to being accidentally triggered.
Disabling Ding-Dong Chime On Ford F-150 Startup
Another modification you can make to your Ford F-150, especially if you enjoy quiet when using your truck in the outdoors, is to disable the four ding-dong chimes that play each time you insert your key in the ignition. To toggle this off go to the IPC module and toggle the value marked by asterisk below to a 2. (Do not be alarmed if your gauges begin to click. This will stop after the procedure is finished.)
IPC 720-01-02 xxxx – x*xx
Seat belt reminders and door-open chimes can also be disabled. (See link to code list above.)
So Far So Good
So far we’ve seen no unwanted side effects of disabling our Ford truck’s courtesy lighting. If we really need to use the dome lights, etc., all will work as normal with the key turned to accessory.
We suspect there might even be some significant battery savings from going dark, especially when camped at one spot for a few days. Also, if you plan on visiting any of the IDA recognized dark sky parks, as we have recency, you’ll appreciate having a truck that doesn’t contribute to more light pollution.
Disclaimer: This post does not constitute full instruction on how to use Forscan or OBD2 programmers and any modifications described herein are to be performed solely at the users own risk. This post may include affiliate links to products we use and recommend.
