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Comments
As far as all the other issues, that's not normal and also not comforting to the owner, I know. I'd be concerned. If it continues to have issues, don't keep this car outside of warranty! Get a new car. You may have a "lemon", or at least a sweet lemon.....
I've been really pleased with my Explorer - it's my 8th one, and the best in a long time. Mechanically, no issues at all. Only a couple of cosmetic repairs needed, minor and completed easily under warranty. We love how it drives and the room is great. Features are second to none.
The dealer winner ford in cherry hill was very nice and helped as much as they could. Apparently the sync is not giving an error code even though there is an obvious error. The ford customer service rep was also very nice, got me a rental after my second dealer visit and called after every visit to check on status. Offered to extend the warranty and was sympathetic.
My issue, fix the problem ford, call me when it is fixed so i dont have to call and loan me a GPS until the problem is fixed. I understand you are not a software company and this appears to be a software problem, but you need to sell cars that work. Give me a year of trouble free driving before I have a problem.
The link is a video of the navigation not working.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d6B1kzC5qsI&feature=plcp
Let's start with the worst, ignoring the tacky non-functional body kit and the 1980s automatic transmission the Mustang was OK, the engine was brilliant. The MyFord Touch was a disaster. We were listening to a book on my iPod, three times it decided I didn't have an iPod and chose some random other thing to play. The system reset on several occasions and sometimes wouldn't connect to Bluetooth or USB. Sometimes it also forgot about the satellite radio. We actually pulled over on I93 in NH to switch off the car and restart the 'entertainment'.
The later Edges and Explorer were better but shared common faults. The random disconnects and failures to recognize Bluetooth and USB were still present. The next thing we noticed and I don't remember noticing it on the Mustang, was the difference of opinion between the dash and the touch screen. The dash would deny I had a phone or iPod while the main display showed that I was streaming audio from my phone. How can you not be entertained by this late 90s behavior. Now if they fitted the Mustang gearbox to the Explorer it would be easy to think you were back in the past.
The most irritating thing is the slow startup. I have been an embedded systems engineer since the early 80s, I have done a variety of military and civil jobs. I have never had a project that took a second to start. In embedded software a second is a lifetime, in aircraft control systems if you can't restart in 1/50th of a second then you can't do the job. Each time I started the Explorer I'd poke and poke at the screen waiting for it to decide it was alive, the display was on already, then it would issue a startled group of beeps and apply all those ignored button presses. This really isn't good enough. Then there was the "did it find anything interesting" lottery, would I be listening to the real BBC world service on my phone or the fake one on satellite (the rest of the world gets much wider programming) or something from the iPod?
I could always get round the system eventually, except that once we had to pull over in the Mustang. But this really really isn't good enough.
I stopped using the bluetooth in the Explorer because of the wind noise problems. Nobody could understand me. But as far as that is concerned the Edges all appeared to be OK, it was only an Explorer issue for me.
The voice commands were worse than useless. Last week Jeremy CLarkson drove a Shelby Mustang with this calamity of a system and ended up yelling "will you shut up" at it. I think that was about the level of success I had too. I could not get it to voice dial anything, no method worked.
This system is garbage at present, somewhere there are a bunch of self satisfied little idiots who think they did an acceptable job. What planet are you people on? You need to spend a few hours in one of your own cars.
I must admit I know one of the Germans who did the BMW iDrive CCC system (after they ditched their Microsoft based version 1 - are you listening Ford?) and it was a bit opaque to use at first, but it came up fast and was reliable the one time I used it on a 5 series in 2004 or so. That uses VxWorks, the same operating system used on things like spy satellites, space probes, the Mars Rovers, commercial aircraft and bombs... all things that absolutely have to work. They switched to CIC which is based on another realtime operating system, QNX, in about 2008. I liked the Audi MMI too and can't ever remember having any problems with the Infiniti system, that just works.
PLEASE FORD, do something about this garbage!
Actually, there may be something to that. Before my second upgrade, if I had both my phone and my wife's phone synced to the system, it would blow it up. Finally took mine off and left hers on (since it's primariy her car), and it worked fine. After upgrades, not a problem anymore.
In any event, the system isn't going away because people want it and it sells cars. And the software will continue to be tweeked and changed and massaged, just like iOS or Windows or just about any application out there.
I do admit I'm still using WinAmp version 2.64.
But good news is that it appears to be fixed at least on my 2013 Ford Explorer
I agree 100% that Ford needs a software fix that will not hang when encountering these issues. However Ford has no control over what users have in their phonebooks.
The fix is to clean up your phonebook. Only have characters A thru Z and # or & or '. For doctor spell it out do not use "Dr." basically keep it simple. Spell hard to pronounce names phonetically.
After phonebook is cleaned up you must reset MFT and phone before pairing back up to MFT.
Delete Sync pairing from phone and reboot phone or take off battery if possible.
Power reset MFT by removing either vehicle battery cable for a minimum of 5 minutes. When System is back up after re-connecting battery cable perform a Master reset through MFT menu. Go to Settings: System, scroll to bottom of page: Master Reset, answer yes to both pop up questions. A master reset is only successful if the screen turns off then comes back on at the Home screen. Reset typically takes 2 to 5 minutes. If reset is not successful, resetting to defaults box goes away but still on same screen, than try again. If still not successful take to Dealer.
Now pair phone to SYNC and allow phonebook download. Go to phonebook screen on MFT, when it shows phonebook download complete then go to MFT phone Settings screen: scroll to bottom: Manage Phonebook: Set Auto Download to off. You can use this same menu to delete and re-download phonebook to upload any changes.
If you do not want to fix your phonebook than follow all other steps but do not download phonebook to MFT. MFT will work and you can make and take calls, but Voice calling by name will not work.
If any phone with issues is paired and phonebook downloaded it can cause issues for the whole system no matter which phone is currently connected. The only way to fix it is to Power and Master reset MFT again and not download a messed up phonebook.
At any rate, his contention that the majority of problems are related to smartphones does not appear to be supported by the facts. I just bought a brand new F150 on Saturday evening, September 28th. I have put about 3 miles on the truck (from the dealership to my house). And I have NOT, repeat NOT, connected a smart phone to the system. All I did was try to connect a flash drive with MP3s. It required me going under the hood and pulling a battery cable before this piece of junk would play music from the flash drive. And when I tried a different flash drive, guess what, yes, that’s right, I had to go under the hood and pull the battery cable again.
And I will go further – the contention that it is your fault for having special characters in your phone book is 100% bogus. I have been writing and debugging software since 1968. If a piece of software that I was responsible for blew up when it encountered a “special character”, I could and would fix that problem in one day. That’s right, one day. (Recognizing special characters and skipping over them is not rocket science, folks.)
Now it might take several weeks, or in the worst case, several months for quality assurance to test my changes and release them to the end users. But these problems (Ford Sync) have been going on for more than 4 years.
I handle Factory warranty issues for Ford dealers. I also do upgrades like adding Headrest DVD Systems and Navigation etc. In no way am I doing PR for Ford. I just want to help people. In fact my helping people can cause my business to make less money. If SYNC has no issues and no one comes to dealer to have it fixed than I have less work to bill for.
I never said only Smartphones cause issues. Did u pair any phone to the System before using a flash drive? Phonebook content issues apply for all phones. Also I have seen many times where customers use flash drives that have security software or other executible programs on flashdrives along with music. When we remove these and only put on supported music they work.
Lastly I agree that Ford could and should write better software. My purpose of posting was to use my knowledge of SYNC to help people get it to work with the current state of the software. Also there are many things that could have contributed to SYNC not working when u drove it home. Like battery went dead on lot and improper jump start caused lock up, other customers testing vehicle paired phone with issues like Emoji in phonebook. As stated in my original post some issues can not be remedied without full power and master reset of SYNC.
Good luck Ford owners.
Explortion
I feel Mulally is part of the problem. He refuses to open up to the upcoming Apple iOS 7 and keep the slow Microsoft system in the Ford/Lincoln cars. I think he is doing this in order to get a sweet deal from Microsoft as a new CEO.
Also, he could be using Garmin (with 1 lifetime upgrade fee) for GPS vs. the $200.00/year upgrade map DVDs that Ford currently uses.
I also, am not a believer in Consumer Reports biased auto evaluations, though I do like to read the 5-8 year customer complaint summaries for each model to watch for trends in repairs and mechanical issues.
My 2013 Explorer Sync System shuts down every 18-20 minutes on a regular basis. Malcolm Cunninghan, the dealer, has had car several times, but not repaired. Does anyone else have a similar problem?