A9 SD card

[Stephen Cannon]

That sounds about right. There was a lot of pushback around 2013-2014 era with the SD Cards. At that time I believe it was A4 Cards and that was it. The pushback was this and yes I was one of the people feeding the fire to get movement. I had sent a letter to NAVTEQ (MAP SD card vendor) and asked when newer updates were going to be available. Simplified version of their reply....and yes I can't make this up.

"We appreciate the input but our infrastructure is not set up for more frequent updates" Focus on the IS NOT SET UP. I replied....You are a MAP company THAT IS YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE AND Purpose in life. That is what you do, I am not asking you to provide sports scores or movie listings.

I submitted the reply to Ford and basically this is what your vendors think about providing assistance and service to their customers. A little over month later all of a sudden the A5 card came out, this was around April-May 2014 time frame. After that every year about the same time pretty much like clockwork the new card comes out. I am sure it wasn't just me that pushed the updates through but he it sounds good right?

If you are this far along in the update cycle I would wait until the A10 card comes out.

 

[peterk9]

And now with Sync 3, there are no cards.

Peter

 

[Stephen Cannon]

Peter....Correct no cards but also with SYNC 3 we are also at the mercy of when Ford IVT team decides to develop, test, and release updates both SYNC3 and NAV. It is theoretically possible that they may release updates in frequent or not at all. At least with MFT you could get MAP updates even if system updates were slower. SYNC3 works better and faster than MFT but would like stand alone NAV updates if available.

 

[White Rabbit]

Just bought an A9 card off eBay a few days go. I'll let you know how it works in my 2015 Sport. Any tips on installation or do you just pop out the old and pop in the new?

 

[Stephen Cannon]

Exactly that simple. Might have to cycle card a couple of times especially in cold weather but if you put a A9 card in the slot it should read it pretty quickly. Keep power on, remove old card. You should get a NAV SD card fault....associated with card removed. Slide in new card and it should read fairly quickly. Verify after installation there should be a menu to verify that A9 is the current card installed.

 

[RedDen]

And now with Sync 3, there are no cards.

Peter

Yep, and no updates... Shall I choose any other Ford/Lincoln as my future vehicle or switch to Honda for example, 5 years of updates are free and Navi is provided by Garmin...

 

[peterk9]

Or just buy a Garmin device with free lifetime map updates.

Peter

 

[White Rabbit]

Just bought an A9 card off eBay a few days go. I'll let you know how it works in my 2015 Sport. Any tips on installation or do you just pop out the old and pop in the new?

Installed it yesterday. Just replaced the A6 card with the eBay A9 card while the car was running and it seems to work just fine. The system recognizes the new card as an A9 and everything tracts as it did. However, I have not as yet used for navigation. We'll see if there are any issues. Overall, so far, the $40 spent on eBay seems like a better deal than the dealer's $150+.

 

[oojphnh]

Pirating these is very difficult. But, I've had one A8 card that didn't work at all, another that was slow, and an A9 that is slow. Considering the system is pretty slow in the first place, a noticeable slowdown from a new card is pretty annoying. Purchase from someone who claims that cards are different for different cars and has a "F150" card, might be better. I've stopped worrying about it, Google Maps is mostly better anyway. Although that also has its problems, like if it can't find a number on a certain street it just makes it up and lies.

 

[peterk9]

Pirating these is very difficult. But, I've had one A8 card that didn't work at all, another that was slow, and an A9 that is slow. Considering the system is pretty slow in the first place, a noticeable slowdown from a new card is pretty annoying. Purchase from someone who claims that cards are different for different cars and has a "F150" card, might be better. I've stopped worrying about it, Google Maps is mostly better anyway. Although that also has its problems, like if it can't find a number on a certain street it just makes it up and lies.

Your '02 Explorer uses the A9 card??

Peter

 

[Sixonemale]

Installed it yesterday. Just replaced the A6 card with the eBay A9 card while the car was running and it seems to work just fine. The system recognizes the new card as an A9 and everything tracts as it did. However, I have not as yet used for navigation. We'll see if there are any issues. Overall, so far, the $40 spent on eBay seems like a better deal than the dealer's $150+.

I did the exact same thing yesterday, replaced an A6 with an A9 SD card from EBay and it worked fine on my '15 Explorer with 3.8. Keep in mind if you choose the right buyer on EBay, refunds are allowed and EBay backs up most purchases, very little risk if any.

Update: I read RedDen's post #13 and since 3.10 is now available on Ford's website, I installed it and do think it's a little bit faster or more responsive than 3.8. Prior to this, before it was on Ford's website, I was hesitant to update to 3.10 because of some of the problems I had read about that other owners encountered. I haven't had it installed for very long, but have run through quite a few exercises and processes and thus far have not encountered any glitches.

 

[Chrisrj8084]

Anyone have a good link for the ebay to get a working A9? I would hate to spend $50 on a fake.

 

[Sixonemale]

Anyone have a good link for the ebay to get a working A9? I would hate to spend $50 on a fake.

EBay listing that I purchased it from:

Latest 2019 Map Update FORD A9 Nav Navigation GPS SD Card SYNC 2 A8 2018 US CAN | eBay

How would I go about getting 3.10? I bought the car 3 weeks ago and downloaded an update from Ford's website. Took like an hour for it to install and when it did it said I had 3.8.

I uploaded the XML to ford and now it says I am completely up to date. Is 3.10 model specific?

Go to "owner.ford.com" and register or input your vehicle and then go to sync updates and the 3.10 update should be there. Once you plug in the USB with the updated file into SYNC, it says that you need to run your vehicle for 30 minutes to install the update and cannot shut it off during the update process.

 

[xlt03]

Just got letter from Ford that A10 SD map update is available. I just updated to A9 via above mentioned EBay seller.
Seems like interval from A9 to A10 was shorter.

 

[mbushnell]

I also got a letter from Ford & ordered the A10 Nav Update.
Hopefully A10 will have my street & home on it. A9 didn't.