Free Sync 3 Navigation Map Updates (NA 1 18)

[VAMike]

What I find hilarious about all this is that the files in the zip are dated December... So Ford sat on them for 6 months and still managed to botch the release.

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[UofMEngineer]

I was hoping for a straight forward update. Forget it. I’ll live with the maps I have. Come on Ford, you can do better.

Understood. That's an odd error for a map update which is why I asked for the other info.

I seem to have issues with Sync even acknowledging my USB Drive. It keeps giving me an "USB Not Supported. Please Remove" error. I am using a Cruzer Glide 16GB, formatted to exFAT like it says, and placed the files on the drive correct (I think? See attached) per the Ford instructions (The three files from the Sync3 zip and placed the License File in the SyncMyRide folder).

Note, the below attached photos show the jump drive AFTER attempting to install the update. I also used a W10 laptop and Macbook to format/add files. Neither worked.

Looks OK. Not familiar with the error message. Do you have another drive you can try it out with?

 

[bkosh84]

Looks OK. Not familiar with the error message. Do you have another drive you can try it out with?

Nothing else that big no. All the other jump drives I have are between 4 and 8 GB. I can try a different one tomorrow.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Has this succeeded for anyone?

Worked for me. Took three attempts but it worked. I ended up re-downloading the files from Ford, used a different brand of thumb drive, and sat with the truck to keep it powered on. Took about 30-45 min to complete the update.

I was kind of hoping for some nav-voice options or something to be included with the update. No such luck, oh well.

 

[Racket]

Maybe they could just stop the license BS

For real. It works exclusively on Ford Sync, you'd think keepi g it open to all Ford 'customers' would build brand favorability and ultimately loyalty.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

For real. It works exclusively on Ford Sync, you'd think keepi g it open to all Ford 'customers' would build brand favorability and ultimately loyalty.

The license is to prevent those older Fords with Sync systems that are not part of the free nav upgrade campaign from getting it. Like my Father-in-law's 2017 F150. In order for him to get the update he'd have to pay $110 for it. So he's sticking with running Wayze via Carplay until he decides to let me upgrade him to Sync 3.4 cia the CyanLabs method where I could get him onto the NA 1.19 maps for free.

 

[Rp930]

I’m going to try again today. If it fails I may try a different flash drive.

UPDATE: Failed again. Trying new USB.

 

[SemperVee]

If we are set for Automatic updates and connected to WiFi - Is this not necessary??

 

[VAMike]

If we are set for Automatic updates and connected to WiFi - Is this not necessary??

The maps don't update through wifi afaict

 

[Porpoise Hork]

If we are set for Automatic updates and connected to WiFi - Is this not necessary??

The OTA updates are generally for the Sync system itself and take a very long time to complete if it's a large update. The navigation system update is an entirely different animal. The update files from Ford are about 12.5GB (at least mine was) and can take up to an hour to complete from a USB drive with the system remaining powered on the entire time. Because the update process deletes large portions of the nav system files, it will not function while this is happening. If the system is powered off during this, the update would have to start over on the next system boot and the NAV system would remain offline until it was able to complete the update successfully. Also it is hard to say how much additional storage Ford included in the Sync system and it may not have the required free space to download and store the files prior to the update.

 

[VAMike]

The OTA updates are generally for the Sync system itself and take a very long time to complete if it's a large update. The navigation system update is an entirely different animal. The update files from Ford are about 12.5GB (at least mine was) and can take up to an hour to complete from a USB drive with the system remaining powered on the entire time. Because the update process deletes large portions of the nav system files, it will not function while this is happening. If the system is powered off during this, the update would have to start over on the next system boot and the NAV system would remain offline until it was able to complete the update successfully. Also it is hard to say how much additional storage Ford included in the Sync system and it may not have the required free space to download and store the files prior to the update.

Which is a shitty design choice, cutting a couple of bucks of storage in a thousand dollar option... There's no technical reason it couldn't download the update files incrementally, but they're a car company and suck at consumer electronics.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Well if you look at it from the bean counter perspective it kind of makes sense to not include the additional storage space. Say the extra 32gb memory chip cost Ford an extra .50 cents per unit to purchase and have embedded per vehicle. In 2018 they produced 2,497,318 vehicles alone. To be conservative lets say only 65% have Sync / Nav systems installed. To include that extra storage would cost Ford $811,628 annually to provide the means for owners to update the Nav system via OTA. Yes they could pass this expense on to the buyer but until the vehicles have sold it'd be a hit to the bottom line. So they push the engineers to design the systems within a certain budget and adding the extra memory would exceed the budgeted expense for that particular system.

I'm just glad that Ford didn't go the same route as many other manufactures and put the NAV data on an external SD card. My wife's Santa Fe is like this and have had the SD card fail twice on her. Both times Hyundai replaced it for free but now that the B2B warranty has expired if it happens again we would have to buy the updated Nav files at $140 to get a new SD card. I tried to copy the current one but even using Linux it failed due to the DRM they put on it.

 

[SemperVee]

Its quickly becoming too much trouble if the dealer can't or won't do it for free... The details to innstall is not quick and problematic with having to stay powered on for a length of time. Guess i will just stay with my WAZE and Google maps!

 

[VAMike]

Well if you look at it from the bean counter perspective it kind of makes sense to not include the additional storage space. Say the extra 32gb memory chip cost Ford an extra .50 cents per unit to purchase and have embedded per vehicle. In 2018 they produced 2,497,318 vehicles alone. To be conservative lets say only 65% have Sync / Nav systems installed. To include that extra storage would cost Ford $811,628 annually to provide the means for owners to update the Nav system via OTA. Yes they could pass this expense on to the buyer but until the vehicles have sold it'd be a hit to the bottom line. So they push the engineers to design the systems within a certain budget and adding the extra memory would exceed the budgeted expense for that particular system.

IMO they'd sell more $1000 nav options if their implementation of nav sucked less. So from the bean counters perspective they're .50 cents wise and $1000 foolish. (The only reason I took the option this time was for backup if I'm in the boonies with no cell signal. I generally don't take the nav option because the auto manufacturers have been so terribly bad at supporting them that I feel like it's generally a waste of money. The experience on the ranger only confirms that feeling, and I will not be giving ford or any other car company the luscious profits they take on an option that doesn't work very well.)

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Oh I completely agree with you. If more companies actually adopted a customer 1st business model instead of focusing on coddling the investors, they would be pleasantly surprised with the results.

At least for now Ford is giving these updates out to us for free.

Later on and for as long as the Sync system is able to be updated we can do so with options like Cyanlabs that quite possibly also update the Nav Maps as well. I was able to do update mine from NA 1.18 to .19 when I updated to the 3.4.20021 build.

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