MFT report your successful installations or problems

[redbirdpat]

After driving with the update for a couple weeks, here's a couple of other issues that I found. I know this has been mentioned before, but the traffic flow is really hard to see on the maps. They really downgraded that functionality by making it less visible. They really need to fix that, especially since you have to pay extra/month to get that information.

 

The other issue I found is with my playlist in shuffle mode. When I select a playlist on my iPod and then select shuffle mode, it will play and shuffle just fine. However, when I stop the car and unplug the iPod, then plug it back in when I get back in the car, it continues where it left off. However, the playlist now goes to shuffle album mode I think. It will start playing only songs from the same album on the playlist. Once it's done with that album, it picks another track from a different album and does the same. I can fix it by setting the shuffle mode to ALBUM, then setting it back to ALL. That will work until I shut down the car and disconnect my iPod again. So the Shuffle All setting does not stay set for me on playlists on my iPod. This functionality worked before the upgrade.

[Jackalope]

Anyone else have the problem where the ETA for nav doesn't account for traffic in any way? (It used to give a good rough estimate before this "update"). Now, it doesn't even try. If it is 20 miles to work, it says ETA 20 minutes. Not 35 or so it did previously due to known traffic.

 

Also, in the Navigation settings menu for traffic avoidance I think it is called. If I select an option it doesn't save such as the "manual" or "automatic" settings. Everytime I come back to the screen it is back to automatic.

 

Dealer replaced the sync module (APIM) and now my traffic preferences are saved but the system is still not reliably downloading and updating the traffic information. t

This feature worked well with version 2,11 with version 3.02 not so much.

[Wulfgott]

Dealer replaced the sync module (APIM) and now my traffic preferences are saved but the system is still not reliably downloading and updating the traffic information. t

This feature worked well with version 2,11 with version 3.02 not so much.

 

Sadly, the nav traffic and ETA calculation is one of the things I used a lot... every single day practically :-( I find myself using my cell phone for nav again now. So the system is proving to be worthless in that regard since it is not doing what I not only want but need it to do. Which, it did previously (when it worked).

 

Additionally, I have had the system completely lock up finally yesterday. Apparently, I was speaking a foreign language when I said "destination work". To which, the system locked up and just displayed a green background screen with no wording whatsoever. No text in the other three corners at all or time displayed. It sat there for approximately 10 minutes maybe more. Since I was driving I didn't bother mesing with it. When I got to work I was just kind of irritated and turned the car off. When I got off work and went to go home. It did its maintenance thing and was working again (if you can call it that).

 

I also have been getting screens that are just garbage when it asks to select one of several possible matches for destinations off and on. Just grey lines on the screen that are partial selection boxes or so they appear. Nothing selectable, and text only in the first box which is a few letters of a partial word or name.

 

They could have saved money maybe (and time) by just using epoxy to mount a TOM TOM, and a Sirius portable radio to the dash and creating a nice bezel. At least it might work better or be semi-reliable...

 

I took some pics of the screen... will upload them when I get some time.

 

On the bright side, I finally was able to see some of the 3D buildings (a lot of them in vegas!). They are cool. Prior to this update I only found one near me, but I didn't have a lot of opportunity to search. The Pond in Orange/Anaheim is 3D. (Honda center now or something).

[choff1138]

Ok, I am giving in and finally going in to get mine upgraded to v3. Easy to say, I am nervous as hell. They have to order my stick and nav card, so next Friday is the day. Hope I continue to have good things to say after.

[JOEHIO]

I've been fine since my update, guess I better keep my fingers crossed.

[ChEeZyToPpInG]

so i bought my car in November and was almost immediately having problems with MFT (freezing frequently, black screen, disconnecting from my iPhone...) I called the dealer and they told me the update was going to roll out "soon".... well, 4 months later and i received my USB stick and SD card in the mail and upgraded!

 

I wasn't having any weird problems like before until i was sitting in my car for about a half hour listening to my iPhone via USB cable and the car turned off (you know, so ya don't kill the battery, not like i've EVER done that...) and then when i turned the ignition on, my car wouldn't reconnect to my iPhone... it was counting thru the song like it was playing but it wasn't... I tried thru the USB connection and Bluetooth. so i officially disconnected the iphone and then repaired it and it didn't work... so i gave up. and then the next day when i got in my car, it worked again.

 

does anyone know what the heck happened? does MFT hate the iphone?! well, i'm not getting a new phone anytime soon so i hope this is just a random glitch that MFT hates apple but i'm hoping someone has the answer to this? or anymore insight...

 

thanks

[wilsons66604]

so i bought my car in November and was almost immediately having problems with MFT (freezing frequently, black screen, disconnecting from my iPhone...) I called the dealer and they told me the update was going to roll out "soon".... well, 4 months later and i received my USB stick and SD card in the mail and upgraded!

 

I wasn't having any weird problems like before until i was sitting in my car for about a half hour listening to my iPhone via USB cable and the car turned off (you know, so ya don't kill the battery, not like i've EVER done that...) and then when i turned the ignition on, my car wouldn't reconnect to my iPhone... it was counting thru the song like it was playing but it wasn't... I tried thru the USB connection and Bluetooth. so i officially disconnected the iphone and then repaired it and it didn't work... so i gave up. and then the next day when i got in my car, it worked again.

 

does anyone know what the heck happened? does MFT hate the iphone?! well, i'm not getting a new phone anytime soon so i hope this is just a random glitch that MFT hates apple but i'm hoping someone has the answer to this? or anymore insight...

 

thanks

I've determined that the upgrade is mostly cosmetic. Yes, they changed the nav but it still shows me driving through corn fields from time to time.

The brains behind managing the connections to the phone (usb or BT) are still just as buggy as they ever were....the bugs just look different.

 

Ford really screwed this one up and can't find a way to fix it.

I bet MFT (as we know it) will not be in the next years models. The future is to use the owner's cell phone as the main processor and use the car to simply display/play it.

[wlepse]

I've determined that the upgrade is mostly cosmetic. Yes, they changed the nav but it still shows me driving through corn fields from time to time.

The brains behind managing the connections to the phone (usb or BT) are still just as buggy as they ever were....the bugs just look different.

 

Ford really screwed this one up and can't find a way to fix it.

I bet MFT (as we know it) will not be in the next years models. The future is to use the owner's cell phone as the main processor and use the car to simply display/play it.

Well so far mine has been more stable and we have phones connected but I agree the overall functionality is still very buggy. I have questioned fromt he beginning the choice of processor in the APIM. As I recall it is 400MHz which is the same as what is in my old portable GPS and it doesn't have to handle HVAC, voice recognition, radio, phone etc. I know they dumped some of the processing to the GPU but 400MHz is way underpowered. There are definitely still software bugs but I think a lot of the issues are because they are trying to write code around the hardware limitations.

[djmodifyd]

Well, I just had my 3rd (maybe 4th) reboot since the update.

 

I had to do a master reset because my bluetooth audio controls went away. I called the help phone number and the lady recommended a master reset. I explained to her of the problems that I'm still having and that my dealer does not know much about this system. I also asked if they are looking at a patch in the near future, and she told me they are working on one and they do have quite a few known issues, but there is no ETA for the patch yet.

 

I also told her of my buttons turning red problem. THis has happened twice to me, all buttons on screen turn a bright red, and the only fix is to press each button or do a master reset.

Anyone else had the "red button" problem?

[Davom97]

I wanted to add something to the record. Back after the update, I jumped on this thread to vent that I was frustrated by songs and track titles being out of order and not matching. It seemed random, but after many weeks of use and testing, I narrowed it down to two albums and guess what? They are wrong in my iTunes library. Can't blame Ford & MFT for that one. Let the record show.

 

My MFT 3.02 system is not flawless, but it's improved drastically for me. It's locked up only once for me in the weeks since the update.

 

BTW, ever since I jumped to the most recent update in Firefox I can no longer pull up the attached thumbnails on this forum. Wonder if Ford will do anything about that.

 

Peace,

 

DM

[chanka98]

It's been about a month or so for me since I updated to ver 3.02. I was one of the lucky ones who had basically no issues with ver 2.11 so I was VERY hesitant to do the upgrade. I had a minor glitch with the install but it seems to be working ok, but since I didn't have any of the lag/freezing, etc with 2.11 I don't see any improvement in performance. It actually seems to me that there is more of a lag now between the time when I start the car and when the radio becomes available. The newer graphics are nice but not game-changing. It does seem to index my ipod Touch faster than before. I finally had some time the other day to really play around with some of the settings when I noticed that you can have the date displayed in the top middle instead of the time. This made me wonder why they didn't incorporate the outside temp into that option as well? Why just remove it altogether? I know it's in the driver's right screen (so is the time BTW), but the font is small and in a gray color so when I am wearing sunglasses I have to actually pull them up to read the temp. I thought one of the great things about MFT was how customizable it is! They should have made it an option to have the time, temp, time/temp, time/temp/date/, time/date, etc.....just my two cents. I hope Ford has taken note of how many of us miss the outside temp and at least give us the option to include it or not.

[akirby]

I believe it will be added back as an option at some point but I suspect all of their efforts went into stabilizing the software first.

[Sarnano]

Did mine yesterday (2011 Edge). Took about an hour. Like watching paint dry.... so I was doing other things arond the garage. No problems with the updates. I do miss the outdoor temperature readout on the center console. Seems silly to take it away. Also not too sure about the climate screen on the home page. 2 large font temperature readings? Too simplified in my opinion.

[attana]

Received the update package today. It included an nice marketing tri-fold containing the USB drive and a SD NAV card. I went through the update process in my driveway and it completed successfully. Then I ran through some quick checks and when I reached the Ambient Lighting settings the ambient lighting turned off and I couldn't get them to turn on again. However, the ambient lighting turns on when I stop the vehicle, but turn off when it is running. I will run through a more extensive test tomorrow.

 

EDITED (for my opinion): Frankly, I expected much more from Ford after 15 months of ownership. Maybe my expectations are too high for a $45K vehicle? Would another $10K on a Lincoln got me better results? Not from what I've seen with the My*Touch. Sorry for the bummer, but the My*Touch is one big technology fsckup for Ford.

 

EDIT #2: I started the vehicle early this morning and the ambient lighting is working again. The MyFordTouch system's improved response is noticeable in this update compared to the previous version. This is where the system should have been when I originally bought the vehicle, or shortly thereafter with one of the many updates, not 15 months later. I didn't have time to run though a full test this morning and will do that this weekend and post my results and impression. Oh, you would think they could save the user settings to the USB drive during an update and copy them back, or offer a system option to manually backup/save the user settings. Ah, I'm rambling.

[attana]

We received our updates and the upgrade went well. Faster but do miss temp on main display. Nice

 

[rogersmj]

We've lived with our upgraded MFT for about 5 weeks now, after suffering almost every bug in the book with the previous one for 1.5 years (at one point I had an open bug list of 37 items).

 

Pros:

- Much faster

- Cleaner interface (although I don't agree with all their decisions)

- Most of the little bugs we had been experiencing are gone

 

Cons:

• Significant radio bugs
  
  • If you hang up from a phone call when the radio was off, it will sometimes turn on to FM as soon as you hang up
    
  • Twice, the radio turned on when we started the car even though the main display indicated it was off, and the driver display indicated it was on. Then when we shut the car off, the radio wouldn't shut off. We had to restart the car and fiddle with all the radio controls several times before it would actually turn off. You can't walk away from the car until you get this sorted out, or it will run the battery down.
    

  [*]Don't like where they moved the outside temperature display

  [*]Don't like that you can no longer see the artist/song when on the Home screen on the main display

My 2011 Kia Optima SX w/ nav performs all the same functions as MyFord Touch does with a couple minor exceptions (voice control of music isn't quite as robust, for example), and I haven't experienced a SINGLE bug in that car's software in the year I've had it. These ongoing problems with MFT really make it tough to consider Ford for the next vehicle, no matter how much I want to. Minor annoyances get more and more irritating as we close in on 2 years and are still experiencing substantial issues. I've been very patient but am starting to feel like I've been cheated. Still, the rewrite was a big step in the right direction, maybe some patches will be out soon that will resolve the rest of our problems.

[wlepse]

For me the update has been better but I do agree it has a long way to go to be considered acceptable. It is pretty sad that what is considered a budget manufacturer has a system that works so much better than Ford. But I guess the take away is we might not be screwed forever. I beleive the Kia system is based on Windows too, so if that one works they should be able to get this right too...unless of course there is a hardware issue.

[wlepse]

I should never have opened my mouth. Just today the system started off with a black screen and radio on. Took about 5 minutes to start to show the "performing maintenance" screen then did another reboot then seemed ok. This really is so frustrating. I just wish I knew what set it off, if there is something in particular, so I could avoid it. Luckily we didn't need nav and the HVAC did seem to be working this time. Just such a dissapointment that everyone was told to wait for this rewrite and we still have these major issues. I will say this is still better than 2.11 for me but in two months we have probably averaged a lock-up/reboot every other week. Along with other bugs. Just so dissapointed because in so many other ways we love this car but if they don't fix this by winter I don't think we can take the chance of not having heat again.

[akirby]

I should never have opened my mouth. Just today the system started off with a black screen and radio on. Took about 5 minutes to start to show the "performing maintenance" screen then did another reboot then seemed ok. This really is so frustrating. I just wish I knew what set it off, if there is something in particular, so I could avoid it. Luckily we didn't need nav and the HVAC did seem to be working this time. Just such a dissapointment that everyone was told to wait for this rewrite and we still have these major issues. I will say this is still better than 2.11 for me but in two months we have probably averaged a lock-up/reboot every other week. Along with other bugs. Just so dissapointed because in so many other ways we love this car but if they don't fix this by winter I don't think we can take the chance of not having heat again.

 

Take it to another dealer. You have a hardware problem.

[wlepse]

I can call around but previously when I called and said I had MFT issues no one was even willing to look at it. When it was in a few weeks ago the dealer claims to have checked out the system and said it was fine. Just not sure what they do for diagnostics. Maybe FordGuru can chime in on what if anything they can do as far as hardware checking goes. Not sure if they have tools to test memory, CPU etc or if they just play with it to see if it has any quirks. I have to bring it back to this dealer anyway since they forgot to reinstall my hood switch and now the remote start doesn't work...so I'll give them another shot. After that if I am still having issues I'll see if the regional rep can help influence another dealer to look at it.

[akirby]

I can call around but previously when I called and said I had MFT issues no one was even willing to look at it. When it was in a few weeks ago the dealer claims to have checked out the system and said it was fine. Just not sure what they do for diagnostics. Maybe FordGuru can chime in on what if anything they can do as far as hardware checking goes. Not sure if they have tools to test memory, CPU etc or if they just play with it to see if it has any quirks. I have to bring it back to this dealer anyway since they forgot to reinstall my hood switch and now the remote start doesn't work...so I'll give them another shot. After that if I am still having issues I'll see if the regional rep can help influence another dealer to look at it.

 

Why do you need the regional rep to get another dealer to look at it? Just call and talk to the service manager and explain the problem.

Edited May 14, 2012 by akirby

[wlepse]

Why do you need the regional rep to get another dealer to look at it? Just call and talk to the service manager and explain the problem.

Like I mentioned...previously no dealers wanted to schedule service for MFT issues unless I purchased the vehcile there. Even the dealer I purchased at has been reluctant to schedule sevice for MFT issues. Which is a big part of my frustration with Ford and this MFT system. They all know it is a problem and don't want to have to deal with it.

[akirby]

Like I mentioned...previously no dealers wanted to schedule service for MFT issues unless I purchased the vehcile there. Even the dealer I purchased at has been reluctant to schedule sevice for MFT issues. Which is a big part of my frustration with Ford and this MFT system. They all know it is a problem and don't want to have to deal with it.

 

I would think this was due to the pending software rewrite. Now that the software is out of the way they should be more open to continued problems especially if it sounds like a simple hardware swap.

[Wulfgott]

So, I have been running the "fixed" (not really!) software for a while now. It still is frustrating and just annoying. Just to list a few of the issues I have had since the update...

 

1 . The navigation ETA calculation since update no longer accounts for delays in traffic as it did in all previous versions. Only gives absolute time based on distance.

 

2. When using navigation (voice primarily, but it happens with manual input as well). The system will routinely offer options and ask you to select a line number... yet no data is present (including numbers) to select. If you then say something like (1 or 2). It may load some random destination that was unrelated to the search. Or, may repeat itself asking to select a number (of which there are still none).

 

3. Often, the navigation system with glitch out and offer navigation selections that are unreadable and have screen artifacts covering/replacing the location name text such as gray lines/colors. "garbage screen". As above, the system asks you to select a destination number.

 

4. Completely black screen for several minutes on start up. Then goes into the "maintenance" screen before starting.

 

5. On some rare occasions... when turning the vehicle off, the background (which is normally black) will flash white and display the blue ford logo as the system shuts down... while still displaying all menu and other items on the screen... during and well after the white ford logo screen has been displayed and gone... and the car has been exited and locked... sometimes 1-5 minutes... sometimes longer (I got tired of waiting one time and just left).

 

6. System on occasion just locks up while giving voice commands... after approximately 2-3 minutes it then repeats the last question stating it did not understand, try again. During this entire time the system shows "listening" in the bottom right corner. However, you are not able to do anything while it is still thinking.

 

7. System starts (when it works) and defaults to the home screen (which sucks, but i can live with that). However, it does not always revert back to previous radio station. On several occasions it defaulted to a terrestrial radio station which was on preset. However, the display on the home screen was showing SIRIUS satellite presets. Pressing a preset of one of the satellite station names changes to another terrestrial radio station and not the satellite.

 

8. unknown if related however, the MPG calculation does not match the trip computer (i reset both instant/trip A) every time I fill up. When the trip one goes up 0.1 mpg, the instant will at the same time go down 0.1 mpg. While i thought these two may be unrelated previously it appears that they are not. As the instant one will readjust to match trip meter routinely. With the instant mpg jumping sometimes over a full MPG such as from 19.6 to 20.8 to match the trip meter.

 

There are several other issues. But, honestly it gets tiring just listing them. The worst part is I was dumb enough to help convince my brother and best friend to buy a ford/lincoln. After I was able to experience the sync/myford touch system at CES in 2011. Now both of them are unhappy with theirs as well. So, I will not be recommending any ford vehicles with anything even remotely similar to this system to anyone. I have in fact talked my fiancé out of buying the lincoln MKZ hybrid. It isn't worth the headache of dealing with the electronics no matter how good the actual car may be.

[c_bova]

this sounds like an APIM problem. Since I have updated mine I haven't had one issue with it (knock on wood)