My Ford Touch Thread

[copernicium112]

OK, wanted to wait a couple of days and a few drives after my APIM replacement before posting anything. Dropped my car off last Wed (5/29) and was suppossed to pick it up Fri (6/1), with a rear caliper replacement as well, under warranty. Needless to say, through a series of disasters I ended up getting it back Tue (6/5) night.

Unfortunately, by the time they got around to pulling the APIM, getting the serial # off it, and ordering a new one, it was too late to get one shipped out overnight for Friday delivery (their fault). Fortunately, FEDEX actually delivers twice to them on Saturday. Unfortunately, by the time FEDEX delivered it, the only guy on staff that day that could do it had gone home for the day.

So they dove into it Monday morning with the new APIM install. Unfortunately, it was a defective module (not their fault) they received and had to order another one for overnight delivery to arrive on Tuesday (which did and was not defective). In the dealership's defense, I had a loaner from them the entire time and when I went to pick it up/settle up Tuesday night, the service manager apologized greatly for the inconvenience and said "I don't want to add insult to injury so the other stuff is on us." They covered the oil change/summer tire swap.

So he pointed me in the direction of my car and he asked if I wanted him to come out and help me get my phone paired up and help with any other settings, etc. I'm sure they are used to dealing with the non-technical user base but I said thanks but no thanks, I am comfortable with the system, I got it.

Got in my car, started it up, and tried to pair my phone. Things got off to a bad start when the phone wouldn't pair. Tried three times, nothing. Finally did a reverse-pair and that worked. Plugged my iPod in and headed off. It only took about 4 minutes to index/BVC which made me suspicious. Tried some voice commands. No better, no worse with the new hardware. The new version really has a problem with short song titles by voice. While I was without my car I spent some time over on the syncmyride owner's forum and from some of the stuff I was reading over there, this was done on purpose, it was programmed to give a wider margin of error because people were having problems with it playing the wrong song after a command was given, to give people more control by offering choices instead of just launching the wrong song. These are songs that I never had a problem with before, on v2.11, by voice so I don't know that I buy that explanation/excuse. I still just want my old voice-recognition back.

Got in the car to head to work Wed morning and lo and behold no street location under the compass. That was fast, only 12 hours until that disappeared. Set my work address as a route, activated it, cancelled it, and the street location was back under the compass. So, this problem is not hardware related, it is just piss-poor programming. Also, still no street location in the Nav tab if I go from Nav screen to any of the other three category screens unless, like before, I go to yet another category screen and back the one I entered from the Nav screen. Then it is there. Again, piss-poor programming.

So in a nutshell I guess I am saying if anyone is at their dealership and the service dept wants to install a new APIM to take care of the problems I have seen come up over and over again in this forum, obviously it is your decision but from my experience it does nothing but leave you without your car for a while (but after 7 days in a loaner it was oh so nice to get my car back for a number of other reasons about the car).

[feta_mgp]

Unfortunate to read that, especially after the long wait.

I'm just hoping Ford is actually working on a true rewrite from the ground up and not just another patchjob with a new coat of paint.

Seems like 99% of our problems have been programming error, not hardware.

[blackraven456]

Originally Posted by feta_mgp

Seems like 99% of our problems have been programming error, not hardware.

Yup! Seriously an advanced high school or college class of programmers could have come close to replicating this software. It's sad really.

[feta_mgp]

Originally Posted by blackraven456

Yup! Seriously an advanced high school or college class of programmers could have come close to replicating this software. It's sad really.

I think an advanced high school or college class would have done better. I have some pretty basic C, Java, and C# skills and I feel like a lot of the inconsistent errors I could have handled better. All it takes is some real world testing, and a little time spent tweaking code.

[copernicium112]

On a funny side note, I was looking over my invoice when I got home and they had an area for customer notes under each job. For the work they did on the APIM they had in notes:

"Customer states voice commands for entertainment are a disaster."

Yep, it is what I told them but I didn't realize they were going to enter it verbatim.

[raptor1956]

Originally Posted by copernicium112

On a funny side note, I was looking over my invoice when I got home and they had an area for customer notes under each job. For the work they did on the APIM they had in notes:

"Customer states voice commands for entertainment are a disaster."

Yep, it is what I told them but I didn't realize they were going to enter it verbatim.

I wonder how many of those forms have four letter words in it?


Brian

[copernicium112]

Originally Posted by feta_mgp

Seems like 99% of our problems have been programming error, not hardware.

I suspected that but had to know for sure I guess. Hopefully this will save someone else the time and trouble. I also wanted a "clean" module in case it had to do with potential problems from the "installing over an existing install" variable (though I am not really sure where the software resides but the guy who was working on it did say they had to program the module and then install MFT again as part of the process and it takes in total about two hours for both).

[noahsfocus]

Originally Posted by copernicium112

I suspected that but had to know for sure I guess. Hopefully this will save someone else the time and trouble. I also wanted a "clean" module in case it had to do with potential problems from the "installing over an existing install" variable (though I am not really sure where the software resides but the guy who was working on it did say they had to program the module and then install MFT again as part of the process and it takes in total about two hours for both).

Wouldn't it be nice if they could install the v2 system instead of the v3 crap ...I'm sure its possible with a new blank apim ...goodluck trying to get them to do it tho. So happy to still have my v2 MFT working well.

[BiggerBoat]

Originally Posted by noahsfocus

Wouldn't it be nice if they could install the v2 system instead of the v3 crap ...I'm sure its possible with a new blank apim ...goodluck trying to get them to do it tho. So happy to still have my v2 MFT working well.

I'm glad you are happy but 80% of us (while happy with the v2 interface) were NOT happy with the functional stability of v2.11. I know that some things went backwards but most of us had freezes and massive slow-downs on v2. Also, I have worked in and purchased technology products for 30 years....and they 'NEVER go back.' So that's s a pipe dream.

I would say we need to Focus our energies on getting Ford to finally release a version that hits on all cylinders reasonably well.

[noahsfocus]

^^^Agreed biggerboat ...let's hope they do soon too, I would love to be able to get the updated nav system but for me its worth dealing with the outdated maps for now.