My Ford Touch Thread

[gaphil]

I had MFT 3.5.1 installed a couple of days ago, and I'm happy with it.

• Happy they brought the ambient temperature reading back to the 8" display. You can turn it off if you don't want it there. I feel like I've been reunited with a long lost friend. No, the read-out in the smaller display in the instrument cluster isn't the same ambient temperature. That's his ornery cousin.
• Contrary to some other posters, MFT's overall performance has improved for me, but that could just be because my system hadn't crashed--er um "performed scheduled maintenance" in a while.
• My navigation favorites were gone. I had to re-add them, which led me to realize that keying is a lot more responsive now. Feedback was close to immediate--a huge improvement over the key and wait I had to deal with before.
• The previous version had empty boxes for the radio stations on the main screen and was missing other info on the Media screen. I see radio stations now. Lap of luxury! This wasn't a big deal to me before, since I tend to listen to music on my smartphone via USB. Speaking of...
• I have an iPhone 4S. Before the update, if I plugged in the phone, it'd take up to several minutes to switch to the device and start playing, and usually it would just switch to the device and not playing, requiring me to go to the Media page and press play. Other times, it would be in la la land and wouldn't play when I pressed Play, requiring me to connect and disconnect the phone to get it to linked up properly. I'm sure I only ran over three or four pedestrians while sorting that out.
• The MFT lady seems a bit more long-winded now. Last night she didn't quite catch a name I was asking to dial and went on and on about my options, including the option of calling an 800 support number. I know I could have interrupted her, and I would've, but I found the help monologue oddly entertaining. When I arrived at my destination, I prompted changed the voice option from Novice to Expert.
• I was so hoping the ability to program the 1 and 2 stars favorite buttons on the wheel would come back, but, no dice there. If I had my druthers, one would go to Nav and the other Media, because I'm super lazy and I think the 8" display steals the user's soul whenever he or she touches it. Okay, maybe not, but at a minimum, it gets greased up. I don't see how you can argue this was done to simplify the system. "Favorites" are inherently custom buttons. To set them to arbitrary destinations is presumptuous, to say the least.
• I saw someone post that the MFT Shuffle function actually works with iPod now. I'm hoping that means it works for iPhone 4S, as well. That was a major bug before. If I selected a specific song, MFT refused to go back to Shuffle, regardless of the Shuffle setting. The only way to fix it was to unplug the phone and set the phone to Shuffle.
• The MFT navi seems to be even less calibrated than before the update. It takes several minutes after driving out of a parking garage before it latches on to my location, and even then, it's still not accurate. I might have to get that checked out the next time I go to the dealership.
• I noticed after leaving the dealership that the clock was way off, which is nothing new. The date and time have randomly slipped from time to time. I'm not sure if this is related to the update or if there's still a date-time-keeping glitch. I'm guessing that sort of thing can't be corrected by a software update.

[lewisra]

Originally Posted by Cougarslair

My main issues with 3.5.1: (Non NAV MFT)

1. Radio silent when first starting the car - I have to press one of the radio stations to get the sound to work. Never did this with 3.2.2

2. If whilst listening to the radio/USB device with the engine off, I then start the engine, the system will randomly switch to the AV in screen (did this in 3.2.2 as well)

3. The light levels of the display will fluctuate - for example, today it was a rainy, very overcast, grey day and on the drive home the screen kept altering its light levels as if it couldnt decide whether to stay in day mode or night mode. 3.2.2 seemd to do this very occaisonally but its worse with 3.5.1.

I seriously wonder how much testing they do before releasing these updates. Its almost as if they have one test vehicle they drive around the block a couple of times and then decide its ready for release!

Despite this Im still glad I opted for the MFT and enjoy driving my FF every day.

Did you do a master reset after install? It might help with some issues. I've found that if you listen to radio when car is not started, when car is started the system won't respond for about 20-30 seconds then will go through all of the buttons you've touched since engine start. I've learned to power off/on after starting. If listening to USB when car is not started, it will go to AV upon start up, even if you leave vehicle and system shuts down.

[copernicium112]

Originally Posted by gaphil

[*]The MFT navi seems to be even less calibrated than before the update. It takes several minutes after driving out of a parking garage before it latches on to my location, and even then, it's still not accurate. I might have to get that checked out the next time I go to the dealership.

If you do get it checked out by the dealership, please post back with what they tell you (if anything). Mine actually started doing this after the 3.0.2 update and 3.2.2 and 3.5.1 haven't fixed anything as far as how long it takes to lock on (and I hardly ever park in structures, even parked outside under open sky it takes forever after startup).

3.5.1 has increased the frequency of occurrences where it places me off of the road I am actually on. Sometimes it places me slightly to the right or left of the road on the map, sometimes it places me way off of the road. This happens even after the system indicates it has locked on to a signal. It was very rare for me with 3.0.2/3.2.2 but seems to happen much much more now.

[gaphil]

Originally Posted by copernicium112

If you do get it checked out by the dealership, please post back with what they tell you (if anything).

I haven't done much driving since the 3.5.1 and A4 updates, just a few minutes back and forth from work, but I'll let you know if I see a lag, myself. As was noted before, the only way to calibrate GPS is to take it to the dealership, which is a bit annoying.

My '06 Mazda3 had a pretty simple calibration feature I ended up using a couple of times over the six or so years I had it.

If this keeps up I'll make a note of it and check with my dealership, and I'll let you know. It's something I'd probably hold off until my next scheduled maintenance.

Interesting to hear that you are having problems with GPS even parking in the open. I'd assumed it was because I was out of satellite range. Satellite-based devices don't work in the garage on any car I've been in, so that was just an bad assumption on my part. Without GPS, it looks like the navi just relies on speed and turns, so throw in a few levels of a parking garage and I'm about a 1/4 mile off facing the opposite direction most of the time. And, add to that the time it takes for the car to pick up a GPS signal and things start to get pretty comical.

Yesterday I was driving alongside a road for about a mile after coming out of the garage. I thought the navi would have rounded off to the nearest road--there were no side roads to get confused with--but nope, I was just driving in the ditch, I guess.

[TiPilot]

Originally Posted by copernicium112

If you do get it checked out by the dealership, please post back with what they tell you (if anything). Mine actually started doing this after the 3.0.2 update and 3.2.2 and 3.5.1 haven't fixed anything as far as how long it takes to lock on (and I hardly ever park in structures, even parked outside under open sky it takes forever after startup).

3.5.1 has increased the frequency of occurrences where it places me off of the road I am actually on. Sometimes it places me slightly to the right or left of the road on the map, sometimes it places me way off of the road. This happens even after the system indicates it has locked on to a signal. It was very rare for me with 3.0.2/3.2.2 but seems to happen much much more now.

Yeah, mine's rerouted me because it's so far off from my actual position. I'm going to ask my dealer to look at it when I take it in for an oil change/rotation next week. It's definitely not better...

[Vernl]

I got my new map chip and the download of the 3.5 today. When it warms up from -25 i'll install it. Before i installed3.2 i pulled/reinserted the fuses, did the install and then did master reset and in over a year with 3.2, i had no problems whatsoever....I will be using the same plan to do this install and can only hope i have the same luck.I'll be posting in a few weeks with any news good or bad.

[copernicium112]

Originally Posted by TiPilot

Yeah, mine's rerouted me because it's so far off from my actual position.

Likewise.

Originally Posted by TiPilot

I'm going to ask my dealer to look at it when I take it in for an oil change/rotation next week. It's definitely not better...

Like with gaphil, please let us know if they have anything for you on this, good or bad.

Left work two nights ago and thought I turned onto the usual road I normally do when leaving the work parking lot. Thankfully my nav system was there to let me know otherwise. In reality, I was driving through fields and small bodies of water. Well-sealed car I guess because I certainly didn't get wet the entire time I was apparently driving dead center through Horseshoe Pond!

[HillbillyInBC]

Originally Posted by gaphil

[*]The MFT navi seems to be even less calibrated than before the update. It takes several minutes after driving out of a parking garage before it latches on to my location, and even then, it's still not accurate. I might have to get that checked out the next time I go to the dealership.

This is the exact opposite of my experience. My unwanted 3.0.2 "upgrade" introduced this misbehaviour, and the recent 3.5.1 "upgrade" improved the system's ability to recover from starting underground quite a bit. As I've observed in several other cases on this forum, our MFT experiences and our success with various fixes and workarounds all seem to vary considerably from one another. Weapons-grade non-determinism, approaching Windows 95 levels.

[gtncpa]

I got the new chip in the mail for the navigation. Plugged it in and got an error. Tried a few things .. no good. Put back the old one .. and it works fine. maybe I got a bad SD ram. Any one else have this problem?

[6769MOPARS]

Originally Posted by gtncpa

I got the new chip in the mail for the navigation. Plugged it in and got an error. Tried a few things .. no good. Put back the old one .. and it works fine. maybe I got a bad SD ram. Any one else have this problem?

If the A4 card does not work but the A3 does, you have not yet upgraded SYNC to 3.5.1. You must do that in order to use the A4 card.