MFT/Sync issues... should I regret ordering??

[Falcor00]

I ordered a '12 Limited EX with delivery in a month or so. I've been reading a lot about the MFT issues (System Mainteance, black screens, generally not working)....

Can someone ease my mind with some GOOD news???

 

[spawnman]

I wish I could. I do sincerely hope that Ford can fix it. I think it will be a great system once it's working as advertised.

 

[Fredridge]

hard to say. My experience is different than many others.

I have had my explorer for around a month now. In that time I have not experienced any major issues with MFT.

in fact, I have personally had my iPhone be more of an issue that my MFT

It has never rebooted on me, gone into service mode or black screened.

With that said I still worry about it sometimes. I questioned upgrading from 2.4 to 2.11 because I wasn't having problems. I upgraded and it's been fine with a minor issue of not getting text notifications.

I worry that I could walk out get in my Ex and have all these things happen, but so far mine has been fine.

The voice stuff can be annoying and I would prefer knobs for many things, but I really like my Ex as a whole package.

Good luck on your decision.

As of now, my MFT is working great - taking it one day at a time.

 

[Fredridge]

so I left where I was at went to the gas station and on my way out o the gas station I looked at my screen and it was black. I started laughing figuring I got the black screen of death.

After a few seconds it showed the splash screen and said it was doing maintenance. That lasted maybe 2 minutes and then everything worked fine.

one hour at a time I guess

 

[jrmexplorer]

I dont have any problems with mine. I think it depends a lot on what peripherals you have connected and how much you have on them (e.g. a lot of phonebook contacts or a lot of music)

I have a Droid X with a USB stick with around 700 songs and my system loads up in 15 seconds or less and works great. I actually like the system a lot.

That being said, I have minor bugs from time to time - but nothing that a fuse pull doesn't fix!

You may want to try everything out with your peripherals before taking delivery. If there are any hiccups you could always refuse delivery.

Also keep in mind that it's software that Ford is actively working on to improve and fix. Supposedly a complete code rewrite is coming in the first half of next year.

 

[gdecamp]

I have to say I have talked 2 friends out of buying one until MFT is fixed....buyer beware!

ps: I have a blackberry storm2, no songs, 50 contacts. Have never used anything other than the phone on bluetooth and nothing at all in the USB port....I did get a Iphone 4s today and will pair it tomorrow.

 

[Falcor00]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I do plan on synching my phone and also a USB thumb drive with ~ 10gigs of songs... guess I should build a bit of patience and tolerance??

If it's a software issue being addressed next year... got a link for that?

 

[mjstx]

We've had our X now for about 3 weeks. At first I thought "this isn't as bad as I'd heard it would be", but now I'm having second thoughts.

- Bluetooth has stopped working. For some reason neither of our two phones will pair anymore
- iPod won't stay connected. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't for no apparent reason
- SiriusXM is horrible. Can't browse channels.

Needless to say, I'm quickly heading towards the "MFT is a disaster and could quickly sink the Explorer" camp.

Ford better fix this or this vehicle isn't going to do well in the market.

 

[tpchristian]

hard to say. My experience is different than many others.

I have had my explorer for around a month now. In that time I have not experienced any major issues with MFT.

in fact, I have personally had my iPhone be more of an issue that my MFT

It has never rebooted on me, gone into service mode or black screened.

With that said I still worry about it sometimes. I questioned upgrading from 2.4 to 2.11 because I wasn't having problems. I upgraded and it's been fine with a minor issue of not getting text notifications.

I worry that I could walk out get in my Ex and have all these things happen, but so far mine has been fine.

The voice stuff can be annoying and I would prefer knobs for many things, but I really like my Ex as a whole package.

Good luck on your decision.

As of now, my MFT is working great - taking it one day at a time.

You've had your car for only a month and it came with 2.4? Did I get that right?

 

[VinceL]

You've had your car for only a month and it came with 2.4? Did I get that right?

I thought that was weird too, but maybe it was a demo vehicle or something.

 

[Fredridge]

I purchased a demo.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

I ordered a '12 Limited EX with delivery in a month or so. I've been reading a lot about the MFT issues (System Maintenance, black screens, generally not working)....

Depends on your tolerance for fussing with stuff. I'd say that 4 out of 5 times that I get into my vehicle everything works as expected. But there's about one time out of five that it just doesn't. And really I'm talking about BT audio, as that's what I do most often. 20% of the time it simply doesn't work, and I end up trying various combinations of turning BT on and off (phone and MFT), rebooting the phone, etc. Sometimes I can get it working in 5 or 10 minutes, sometimes it never will work...only to work fine the next time I get into the car.

If it will irritate you to be constantly monkeying with basic functions trying to get them to do what they had been doing only 30 minutes before, then you'll likely develop an ulcer dealing with MFT. If you can take that sort of glitchiness in stride then you'll be OK.

 

[spawnman]

After reading all the posts above like "it depends on your tolerance..". That's all fine, but the bottom line is I purchased a vehicle that was advertised to work! Never was there any fine print in the paperwork, that stated I would have to mess with anything to keep it going. Or, "oh by the way, I hope you are a contortionist and can reach fuse #29!", or "don't have more than 50 contacts in your phone book", or "Dont' drive on windy days unless you like wind noise", or "the windows might streak for awhile and no one knows why"

This is nuts, I've never had a vehicle with sooo many issues from day one.

 

[Rocketfan]

I don't know that I would buy again (I lean to the not buy again (and definitely not recommend) side because I expect advertised features to just work and not waste time and risking accident trying to make them work when they don't).

My experience is similar to many. When MFT works, it's great. When it doesn't, which for me is about 20% of the time I try using something, it makes me want to sue Ford. The irritating thing is that the problems are inconsistent (works 80% of the time so I know it does work but maddeningly not 20% of the time which is just unacceptable for basic advertised features that other carmakers can make work 99% of the time without problem (actually, similar features on my older Infiniti have always worked so it is 100% for Infiniti).

About 1 in 5 times that I try to use something, it won't work: e.g., bluetooth audio and/or USB audio not working despite being paired and/or plugged in; nav offline (made me very late for a meeting I was relying on nav to get to/ now I print maps before going to new places just to make sure which makes me feel really stupid for paying for nav; phone won't connect even though recognized by system; radio stations won't show up; radio won't turn on, etc.). Luckily, I have never had a climate control issue and the car itself runs fine. I hope Ford fixes this with its next major MFT release because I know I won't be happy with a class action settlement that consists of some services coupons.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

...The irritating thing is that the problems are inconsistent (works 80% of the time so I know it does work but maddeningly not 20% of the time which is just unacceptable for basic advertised features...

That's really the thing, isn't it? It'd be one thing if a particular feature simply didn't work with your phone (like say, text messages on the iPhone) but it's frustrating when features work sometimes, then other times simply don't for no apparent reason. I can't tell you how many time's I'll be streaming "TWiT" via bluetooth from my iPhone, then I'll stop into Walgreen's for 5 minutes, come out and restart the EX, and BT Audio just won't work. WTH?

I connect this iPhone to other BT stereo audio devices and never have problems with it simply disconnecting and/or disappearing. Only with MFT.

 

[Falcor00]

Thanks for your posts! I can't say reading through this and the other posts in this forum has eased my anxiety. My anticipated use cases are:
1.) USB with ~ 10gig of music
2.) Synch with my Dell Venue Pro
3.) Navigation assistance

I can't say I will rely on voice commands all that much. It seems to take awhile and don't want to be commanding my car with others in the vehicle. Seems the manual touch button would suffice.

The only thing that sets my mind at ease is to test all of this upon delivery methodically and refuse delivery if it doesn't work... refuse if it doesn't work? That's tough to type but if the main audio/nav/phone/temp control unit is not working as designed... then I should do that......?:scratch:

 

[tpchristian]

Your issues may not show up when you are at the dealer. For instance, after the thing does one of it's random reboots. My bluetooth streaming with work fine for the next few times. Then it will go haywire and only work sometimes. Many of the other numerous problems occur often, but are intermittent. I think that you have to be willing to live this POS system until or if it ever gets fixed. If you strangely have better luck, then you are fortunate. I know the tech in the car is very compelling to certain types, (myself included), but you may want to temper this. If I had the ability to do it over I would not buy this. I would have purchased a vehicle for much less than this very expensive car and put in aftermarket tech. As it stands now, I don't even think you can put in aftermarket if you wanted because many of the functions of the vehicle require this system. (I.e. how would I turn the heated seats on -- there is no hard-button for it)