A couple of things for Ford to consider ...

[JimJa]

I'm going to assume Ford watches this forum, so I'm posting a couple of items for consideration:

- A large number of people off-road. I would like to see an optional thumb drive that, depending on the geographical area, would bring up topographic maps on the nav screen similar to a standard nav, and move as the vehicle moves just as the nav screen currently does. The maps are currently available and most topographic maps (with trails, fire and secondary roads) are copies of U.S. Forest Service 25,000:1 topographic maps.
- Many of us have some form of bed cover on their trucks. We are alway fighting dust and dirt coming in from the tailgate perimeter. A factory tailgate seal to prevent that dust would be a great addition. Right now there is a "tailgate war" among the manufacturers. Each has developed a tailgate with various opening or step options. Now is a good time to introduce a tailgate with q proper seal.

Neither of these seem difficult. Weigh in if you have an opinion or other items you believe would be worthwhile.

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[pbethel]

Isn't this year the last of the 5G Ranger?

 

[mtbikernate]

I'm going to assume Ford watches this forum, so I'm posting a couple of items for consideration:

- A large number of people off-road. I would like to see an optional thumb drive that, depending on the geographical area, would bring up topographic maps on the nav screen similar to a standard nav, and move as the vehicle moves just as the nav screen currently does. The maps are currently available and most topographic maps (with trails, fire and secondary roads) are copies of U.S. Forest Service 25,000:1 topographic maps.

Gaia GPS via Android Auto/Carplay does this. And it stores maps so they work without cell reception.

 

[JimJa]

@pbethel. Yes, but this sort of thing is an easy running change regardless of year.

@mtbikernate . I have Forest Service Topos loaded on my iPhone, so yes, you are correct, those maps are available for our phones, but having them on the large factory nav screen would be a real plus. I'm no IT person, but it just doesn't seem as though it would be too difficult to have a thumb drive for a given region of the country, besides , the older you get, the larger screen you need.

 

[veedubtuner]

Hey Ford, consider bringing this stuff back

https://www.ranger5g.com/forum/threads/list-of-deleted-items.18640/

 

[Msfitoy]

Bring back the $6k I spent on replacing the damn tranny...

 

[Dr. Zaius]

If Ford reads this I have a suggestion courtesy of my buddy.

His 2018 Ford Escape with the 2.0 EcoBoost just ate an engine at 106k miles. He had the 100k extended warranty that included all maintenance.

ALL maintenance and service was dealer performed and he has receipts to prove everything.

There is a Lawsuit about this issue.

So my advice to Ford if they are reading is this:

Don't screw your customers when there is a known problem.

He really liked it up until this and was planning to get himself an F150 (the Escape is his wife's)

The way Ford is screwing him around over this, you can bet that neither him, nor any member of his family, nor anyone he works with (he deals with a LOT of people) will EVER buy a Ford product now.

We see it on here with the 2019 heater box issue.

A known problem that apparently is a question of when, not if, it will fail to the tune of a $$$$ repair bill.

I really like my truck, but the continuing lackluster responses from Ford over some issues has me thinking.

 

[thorn726]

@mtbikernate . I have Forest Service Topos loaded on my iPhone, so yes, you are correct, those maps are available for our phones, but having them on the large factory nav screen would be a real plus. I'm no IT person, but it just doesn't seem as though it would be too difficult to have a thumb drive for a given region of the country, besides , the older you get, the larger screen you need.

a version of what you are suggesting is a memory card interface of some kind and it would be GREAT if we could instead of needing a phone, just add music to a folder, maps to a folder, etc on a card we can take in and out and add to from our computers and then be able to access them via apps that are downloaded into our screens... the sync apps are supposed to do this but they dont do it well, and wont work with the type of map you describe so what we also would need here is better mapping apps... really that is the main problem here. the vehicle already has the ability to go online and download stuff and has some storage which could easily be increased.
Main thing holding it up is probably that everyone assumes home pcs are dead, everything is wireless and everything will be downloaded but i agree a card slot of some sort would be massively helpful
Another option would be a more seamless integration of the phone to vehicle screen where the screen mirrors your phone's touch screen.
More likely third party screens and entertainment systems will be needed because greedy car companies want to keep you on their software BUT the part where you plug in a memory card really shouldnt be that hard to add or affect their grip on softwares....

 

[Stevedbvik1]

@pbethel. Yes, but this sort of thing is an easy running change regardless of year.

@mtbikernate . I have Forest Service Topos loaded on my iPhone, so yes, you are correct, those maps are available for our phones, but having them on the large factory nav screen would be a real plus. I'm no IT person, but it just doesn't seem as though it would be too difficult to have a thumb drive for a given region of the country, besides , the older you get, the larger screen you need.

OnX and Gaia both display on the vehicle big screen through CarPlay for your iPhone. I use my OnX for navigation quite often

 

[mtbikernate]

@pbethel. Yes, but this sort of thing is an easy running change regardless of year.

@mtbikernate . I have Forest Service Topos loaded on my iPhone, so yes, you are correct, those maps are available for our phones, but having them on the large factory nav screen would be a real plus. I'm no IT person, but it just doesn't seem as though it would be too difficult to have a thumb drive for a given region of the country, besides , the older you get, the larger screen you need.

Gaia GPS actually displays on the Sync screen if you've set up your phone through AA/Carplay. I used it pretty extensively on a recent road trip when I was WELL outside of cell phone range pretty frequently in both the US and Canada. You can also use it to record tracks and drop waypoints.

On the same road trip, I used a thumb drive with music on it.

That said, I think it would be problematic to set up the factory nav to display different map layers that you might want to load onto a thumb drive. There's quite a lot occurring on the backend that most people never see. It would likely require quite a notable increase in processing power in order to handle the increased load, the maps would have to be formatted correctly (this is no small feat. I know of many ways to accomplish this with different file formats, but none is necessarily all that simple or straightforward).

Better integration of vehicle systems and phones is probably a better answer (such as screen mirroring, mentioned above).

 

[P-38Ranger]

A tailgate seal that slightly inflates/defaults to seal / open.
Take that Chevy!
I love innovation and product wars!!!

 

[P. A. Schilke]

I'm going to assume Ford watches this forum, so I'm posting a couple of items for consideration:

- A large number of people off-road. I would like to see an optional thumb drive that, depending on the geographical area, would bring up topographic maps on the nav screen similar to a standard nav, and move as the vehicle moves just as the nav screen currently does. The maps are currently available and most topographic maps (with trails, fire and secondary roads) are copies of U.S. Forest Service 25,000:1 topographic maps.
- Many of us have some form of bed cover on their trucks. We are alway fighting dust and dirt coming in from the tailgate perimeter. A factory tailgate seal to prevent that dust would be a great addition. Right now there is a "tailgate war" among the manufacturers. Each has developed a tailgate with various opening or step options. Now is a good time to introduce a tailgate with q proper seal.

Neither of these seem difficult. Weigh in if you have an opinion or other items you believe would be worthwhile.

Hi Jim,

It is very unlikely Ford follows this site.... Your best bet would be through Ford Customer Care.

Best,
Phil

 

[Squatchranger]

I'm going to assume Ford watches this forum, so I'm posting a couple of items for consideration:

- A large number of people off-road. I would like to see an optional thumb drive that, depending on the geographical area, would bring up topographic maps on the nav screen similar to a standard nav, and move as the vehicle moves just as the nav screen currently does. The maps are currently available and most topographic maps (with trails, fire and secondary roads) are copies of U.S. Forest Service 25,000:1 topographic maps.
- Many of us have some form of bed cover on their trucks. We are alway fighting dust and dirt coming in from the tailgate perimeter. A factory tailgate seal to prevent that dust would be a great addition. Right now there is a "tailgate war" among the manufacturers. Each has developed a tailgate with various opening or step options. Now is a good time to introduce a tailgate with q proper seal.

Neither of these seem difficult. Weigh in if you have an opinion or other items you believe would be worthwhile.

Ford definitely doesn't moniter here, at least in any appreciable way that would be impactful for what you're looking for. So for your first idea gaia gps is brilliant, free, works offline, and has carplay so you can use its full functionality in the sync screen. It also has a ton of other features such as doing breadcrumbs creating landmarks etc, you can see routes others took and use it to find trails too, it also stays updated. Ford will never do a usb thing when they can use an app or in built program like the bronco has. Carplay has rendered that stuff completely obsolete.
As far as the tailgate seal, what about when it rains and you don't have the bed covered? A proper seal would cause a lot of potential issues and while many of you do have bed covers the vast majority of rangers and trucks in general do not.
For my idea I would love them to make fordpass compatible with Siri (yes there are extremely convoluted workarounds but an optimized plug and play system would be ideal)

 

[Danager]

Maybe they could fix the bed height mistake…

 

[Craig]

I'm going to assume Ford watches this forum, so I'm posting a couple of items for consideration:

- A large number of people off-road. I would like to see an optional thumb drive that, depending on the geographical area, would bring up topographic maps on the nav screen similar to a standard nav, and move as the vehicle moves just as the nav screen currently does. The maps are currently available and most topographic maps (with trails, fire and secondary roads) are copies of U.S. Forest Service 25,000:1 topographic maps.
- Many of us have some form of bed cover on their trucks. We are alway fighting dust and dirt coming in from the tailgate perimeter. A factory tailgate seal to prevent that dust would be a great addition. Right now there is a "tailgate war" among the manufacturers. Each has developed a tailgate with various opening or step options. Now is a good time to introduce a tailgate with q proper seal.

Neither of these seem difficult. Weigh in if you have an opinion or other items you believe would be worthwhile.

I found a seal on I believe amazon

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