While Ford’s SecuriCode keypad might not be the most cutting-edge way to lock or unlock a vehicle, it’s become a staple for many owners. The feature was first introduced on the Thunderbird and Lincoln Continental in 1980, but took off on more productivity-oriented vehicles, like the Blue Oval’s trucks and SUVs. Yet, as the years have dragged on, SecuriCode has been removed as standard equipment or factory options from many Ford models. Now its final hour has arrived on America’s best-selling vehicle.
Yes, the 2025 Ford F-150 will do away with factory-installed keypads. First reported by Ford Authority and confirmed to The Drive by a Ford representative in an email, they’ll remain an option dealers may install for a $455 fee, but that’s it. On 2024 model-year trucks, SecuriCode was standard on all trims except the base XL, which mostly went to fleets anyway.
In this age of phone-based keys (and some OEMs even neglecting to offer fobs altogether), it seems that SecuriCode has fallen out of favor. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still useful for many owners, with unique benefits of its own.
Personally, I never owned a vehicle with this feature, though I have had a few Fords in my possession over the years. I have to shout out Ryan McManus’ excellent blog over at Medium that truly gets to the heart of why SecuriCode has been so valuable and enduring for some folks. This passage, frankly, lays out its use case better than I ever could:
The thing that Securicode introduces into the vehicle is the idea of both tiered permissions and variable access. Most vehicle access devices allow you total permissions—access to the cabin, trunk, or hood, but also access to drive, to park, to speed. Every car key is a master key. But Securicode introduces the idea of tiered permissions. It allows someone who knows the code access to the vehicle, but not the operation of the vehicle. Once you realize this, its utility becomes apparent.
Ryan talks about how it’s an obvious boon at job sites. But our Jerry Perez gave an example on Slack this morning about, let’s say “high-impact” activities, like hiking, kayaking, or even going to a concert. The types of situations where the chances of losing your keys are elevated. With SecuriCode, you can leave them in the car, and lock them in the cabin with the keypad. Hell—if someone in your party needs to return to the vehicle for any reason, you don’t need to hand them the keys, either. In this day and age of everything being so intelligent and flashy and internet-connected, sometimes it’s remarkable how the simpler, relatively lower-tech solutions can still be so powerful.
Though the removal of any previously standard equipment is disappointing, we can at least be thankful that SecuriCode is technically still available. As was the case with the Maverick and more recently with the new Explorer, it’s been relegated to a dealer-installed option. However, it still comes standard on the 2025 Lincoln Corsair compact SUV, which starts at $40,880. So it’s not all doom-and-gloom for the time-tested security feature, and perhaps now that it’s become more of a rarity on Ford’s best-selling model, people will notice, spread the word, and pester the company to keep it around.
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