U.S. driver safety group sues Ford over touch-screen systems | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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U.S. driver safety group sues Ford over touch-screen systems

Saffer

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Not a big fan of class action anything, but seems like enough people had it with Sync.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-driver-safety-group-sues-235510827.html

(Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (NYS:F) has been hit with a proposed class action claiming it neglected to fix defects in vehicle touch-screen control systems that create safety hazards for drivers.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by the Center for Defensive Driving, a non-profit driver safety group. The plaintiffs are bringing the lawsuit on behalf of customers who purchased or leased Ford vehicles equipped with a MyFord Touch system, as well as variations like MyLincoln Touch and MyMercury Touch.

According to the lawsuit, customers have complained that the system freezes up, malfunctions, blacks out and fails to connect with mobile devices. The complaint said system flaws have created "significant safety risks" for drivers, diverting their attention from the road when the product malfunctions and failing to contact 911 during emergencies as designed.

Ford launched MyFord Touch in vehicles in 2010. The system was designed to centralize audio, navigation, climate, mobile-device, entertainment and safety controls through LCD interfaces powered by Microsoft's Sync operating system. The MyFord Touch system can be controlled via a touch-screen panel, voice commands or by buttons on the steering wheel.

Since its launch, however, MyFord Touch and other so-called infotainment systems in Ford vehicles have been an "unmitigated disaster," plaintiffs said in the lawsuit.

A representative for Ford declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, reported 400 problems with its MyFord Touch system for every 1,000 vehicles in November 2012. The company previously said it aims to lower that number to 360 by August.

Automakers have struggled to create easy-to-use and effective touch-screen systems that integrate entertainment and navigation systems.

Ford has faced public criticism over its systems from some customers. At least two websites, including syncsucks.com, have been set up to chronicle customers' problems with the systems, the complaint said. Customers also have lodged complaints with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the system, according to the lawsuit.

"In theory, MyFord Touch is a brilliant idea and worth the premium that Ford charged its customers for the system," plaintiffs' lawyer Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro said in a statement. "In reality, the system is fundamentally flawed, failing to reliably provide functionality, amounting to an inconvenience at best, and a serious safety issue at worst."

Ford said in a June press release that Sync and MyFord Touch were sold on nearly 80 percent of 2013 Ford vehicles, up from 68 percent in 2012.

Ford has issued several updates to address issues with the system, but the complaint said that the updates failed to address plaintiffs' problems.

The company said in June that it is also planning to add buttons and knobs to MyFord Touch systems in future vehicles.

Plaintiffs are seeking a court order compelling Ford to recall or replace the systems, as well as damages.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye, Editing by Noeleen Walder)
 



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Not a big fan of class action anything, but seems like enough people had it with Sync.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-driver-safety-group-sues-235510827.html

(Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (NYS:F) has been hit with a proposed class action claiming it neglected to fix defects in vehicle touch-screen control systems that create safety hazards for drivers.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by the Center for Defensive Driving, a non-profit driver safety group. The plaintiffs are bringing the lawsuit on behalf of customers who purchased or leased Ford vehicles equipped with a MyFord Touch system, as well as variations like MyLincoln Touch and MyMercury Touch.

According to the lawsuit, customers have complained that the system freezes up, malfunctions, blacks out and fails to connect with mobile devices. The complaint said system flaws have created "significant safety risks" for drivers, diverting their attention from the road when the product malfunctions and failing to contact 911 during emergencies as designed.

Ford launched MyFord Touch in vehicles in 2010. The system was designed to centralize audio, navigation, climate, mobile-device, entertainment and safety controls through LCD interfaces powered by Microsoft's Sync operating system. The MyFord Touch system can be controlled via a touch-screen panel, voice commands or by buttons on the steering wheel.

Since its launch, however, MyFord Touch and other so-called infotainment systems in Ford vehicles have been an "unmitigated disaster," plaintiffs said in the lawsuit.

A representative for Ford declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, reported 400 problems with its MyFord Touch system for every 1,000 vehicles in November 2012. The company previously said it aims to lower that number to 360 by August.

Automakers have struggled to create easy-to-use and effective touch-screen systems that integrate entertainment and navigation systems.

Ford has faced public criticism over its systems from some customers. At least two websites, including syncsucks.com, have been set up to chronicle customers' problems with the systems, the complaint said. Customers also have lodged complaints with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the system, according to the lawsuit.

"In theory, MyFord Touch is a brilliant idea and worth the premium that Ford charged its customers for the system," plaintiffs' lawyer Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro said in a statement. "In reality, the system is fundamentally flawed, failing to reliably provide functionality, amounting to an inconvenience at best, and a serious safety issue at worst."

Ford said in a June press release that Sync and MyFord Touch were sold on nearly 80 percent of 2013 Ford vehicles, up from 68 percent in 2012.

Ford has issued several updates to address issues with the system, but the complaint said that the updates failed to address plaintiffs' problems.

The company said in June that it is also planning to add buttons and knobs to MyFord Touch systems in future vehicles.

Plaintiffs are seeking a court order compelling Ford to recall or replace the systems, as well as damages.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye, Editing by Noeleen Walder)

nice find. Thanks for Sharing.

call me cynical, but I CAN'T WAIT until I get that coupon for a free oil change from the inevitable settlement. However, the lawyers will come out good on this one, and Ford probably does deserve to be sued for this.
 






SMH.

So much for innovation.
 






Ford doesn't force you to use the touch screen. That's a choice. You have to use the ignition, steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedal. Everything else is for your "pleasure." Sue for inconvenience if you must (and still lose) but it's only a safety issue if you choose to take your eyes off the road. Ford doesn't make you.

Cry me a river.
 






I think theres some terminology confusion in that lawsuit.

SYNC works

MY FORD TOUCH doesn't work

What about all those on this forum that called us whiners and said emphatically that MFT works flawlessly for them?
 






I'm not sorry to see Ford being held accountable on this. It's about time, Ford has only been dinking with the MFT/Syc systems for 4+ years.
 






Ford doesn't force you to use the touch screen. That's a choice. You have to use the ignition, steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedal. Everything else is for your "pleasure." Sue for inconvenience if you must (and still lose) but it's only a safety issue if you choose to take your eyes off the road. Ford doesn't make you.

Cry me a river.

I thought there were many functions that required you to use MFT. Things like Temp control etc.. If you 'must' use MFT and it doesn't work I'd be mroe than pissed too.

I guess even If its just another 'feature' I may still be pissed assuming you are paying for MFT..

~Mark
 






Not saying I wouldn't be upset. I'd be a pain in the dealerships neck for sure. I don't think suing on the grounds of safety is going to go anywhere though. They'll settle out of court because they're good at math and like mentioned before, some folks will get a few free oil changes.
 






I think theres some terminology confusion in that lawsuit.

SYNC works

MY FORD TOUCH doesn't work

What about all those on this forum that called us whiners and said emphatically that MFT works flawlessly for them?

Mine works perfectly. So I'd say it does work. Considering the common thread to most of the "whining" around here revolves around Apple devices and Sync and the fact that my desk drawer-bound iPhone never went anywhere near my Explorer tends to point the failure in one direction. In the interest of full disclosure, I use Android and Windows 7.x and 8 phones with MFT and with 0 issues.

The temper tantrums sure are entertaining though.

Class action lawsuit? LMAO. Some people will do anything for a payday no matter how meager the payoff. :rolleyes:
 






Mine works perfectly. So I'd say it does work. Considering the common thread to most of the "whining" around here revolves around Apple devices and Sync and the fact that my desk drawer-bound iPhone never went anywhere near my Explorer tends to point the failure in one direction. In the interest of full disclosure, I use Android and Windows 7.x and 8 phones with MFT and with 0 issues.

The temper tantrums sure are entertaining though.

Class action lawsuit? LMAO. Some people will do anything for a payday no matter how meager the payoff. :rolleyes:
Wonder if there's a link there... I use Android and have no problems... maybe I'll start a poll
 






Only real problem I have had is with a 160GB iPod classic loaded up with 14,000 songs.

MFT struggles with it. You need to run the insane little FORD 'Syncmyitunes' app which insultingly suggests its going to 'fix' your music library when really all it is doing is removing things it cant handle -anything un uppercase - like artist names changing from 'ABBA' to 'Abba', and and songs changing from 'Back in the USSR' to 'Back in the Ussr' and '3 AM' to '3 Am', (Hundreds of songs and artists changes) and removing the 'compilation' flag on all music since it cant figure out how to deal with that. (Maybe just ignore it?) It works, mostly. Its reliable, mostly. It doesnt randomly reindex the device.. mostly. It can take 30 minutes to really get fully indexed with voice commands and stable - so its a good thing I have a 90 minute commute to work - otherwise it would never work - I have little doubt. Once indexed and stable it will typically remain that way for weeks. At some point it WILL come back with "Indexing, Please Wait" even if it has never been disconnected form the system...and then you are largely dead in the water for 30-ish minutes. (yes you can use buttons to skip songs etc at this point, but you (mostly) cant navigate the device via touch contrlols and voice commands are non-functional at that point.)

iPhone works fine, though I still get a 'cannot connect to phone' message popping up once in a while after startup for no reason I can discern since the phone works fine. Yes, yes... I have deleted, repaired, deleted - reverse paired all the typical stuff. It still happens. This too is a bit annoying - its not like pairing with a bluetooth phone is bleeding edge technology these days. But its only a popup, and only once in a while, and only at startup.. no big deal right?

I have noticed that you (I - perhaps its only me..) simply CAN'T start using sync voice commands or mess with the media player or navigation within the first 4-5 minutes of starting the vehicle. It takes a while for the system to boot, for navigation to get up and running, etc. This is probably my biggest pet peeve with the vehicle - but I can live with it. After that 5 minute hurdle - the system... tends to... work very well.

If I would ask Ford IVT team for one thing... just ONE thing... it would be some sort of indicator.. even a tiny little red blip...a pacifier that communicates to the driver that the system is still busy doing whatever it is doing when the vehicle starts. Maybe 4 green/red dots (NAV, Entertainment, phone, climate). I feel that it would help. Possibly a great deal. Ever jump in the car and bring up nav and say 'destination HOME' and have the navigation system lock up? I have. Oops, sorry. Was I too fast? My bad, sorry. Please dont totally fall apart. If I had 4 green dots, perhaps I wouldnt have jumped the gun.

Im going on my third month with it - and I have had to do a software reboot (via USB software load) twice. This was required when the interface with the iPod really seemed to go south and once went so far as to freeze the system.

Oh - and I never was able to get the MFT system to be able to recognize the factory keypad code after 'mistakenly' deleting it in MFT. (The entry keypad works fine, but the MFT interface to it doesnt work. Surprisingly - it worked ONCE, by mistake it seems... but I cannot get back into the feature now...)

Once in a while I get the unscheduled 'Performing Scheduled Maintenance' screen when starting up. Whose 'schedule' may I ask? This never seems to be a prelude to a 'good day' for it. Maybe if anyone had any idea what it was doing, and why - I would feel better about it - but it seems it could say with equal accuracy "System Crashed, attempting to correct by restarting." Is 'crash' a bad word to use in a motor vehicle? ;-)

'Unmitigated Disaster'? I dont know, I wouldnt say so - but clearly thats only me and I may have more patience than it deserves... MFT/Sync definitely is what I would call 'finicky'. 'Safety Hazard' - oh come on. Though I must admit that when something - anything in the vehicle is not working it will be a distraction. I have developed a love/hate relationship with it. I love it mostly. I hate it occasionally.

Its funny (or sad) when a friend gets in the car and I want to show off the technology and say something like 'Play Artist Joe Satriani' and the system beeps and....nothing happens and then it tkes even LONGER for things to sart working normally. Or my kids get in the car and immediately say 'Daddy play (whatever)' and I cant because...well the car isnt ready to yet and may not be ready by the time we get to the softball field which is probably ony 5 minutes away. Or if I assume Im too quick just use the MFT 'Browse' buttons to navigate the music player directly and it immediately hangs on 'loading...'. "Sorry, Charlie - In my own good time" it seems to say. The software sucks. Im a programmer and if I wrote code that behaved like this I would be looking for a job first thing in the morning.

Yep - the radio works fine. Like a rock. But thats not what the kids asked for. Know what I mean?

I've been listening to Sirius more lately too. Less risky.

Re-read that last line. Horrifying, isnt it?
 






Ahhhhh.... Sorry to burst the apple hater bubble here. I used a Motorola Atrix for 2 years with MFT. Minimal problems. I now own an iPhone 5 and it has worked flawlessly since day 1. Soooooo..... No the problems don't stem from the iPhones. My Sport has operated as advertised. No complaints. Extremely happy with my purchase. Just waiting for the promised new upgrade, although, I may wait to see how it does. As 3.5.1 has been awesome.
 






Mine works perfectly. So I'd say it does work. Considering the common thread to most of the "whining" around here revolves around Apple devices and Sync and the fact that my desk drawer-bound iPhone never went anywhere near my Explorer tends to point the failure in one direction. In the interest of full disclosure, I use Android and Windows 7.x and 8 phones with MFT and with 0 issues.

The temper tantrums sure are entertaining though.

Class action lawsuit? LMAO. Some people will do anything for a payday no matter how meager the payoff. :rolleyes:

The Apple proprietary issues are a big problem, your right there.

My issue is that it doesn't matter whether or not you drank the Apple Kool Aid its still the most widely used smartphone. So MFT should play nice with it regardless if MS is the provider of the MFT software or not.

Apple proprietary BT stack is BS.

MS makes Office for Mac so they can play nice together, come on man!
 






Mft

We have had no problems with the system since our purchase in Aug 2012 and a 2850 mile trip in June 2013. Since our cell phones are pre-historic (+5 years old) and we don't try to load every ap, song or what ever the latest whing ding is, our experience has been quite good. Maybe all the whiners should just use a car for what it was designed for instead of trying to make it into a mobile entertainment center!
 






The Apple proprietary issues are a big problem, your right there.

My issue is that it doesn't matter whether or not you drank the Apple Kool Aid its still the most widely used smartphone. So MFT should play nice with it regardless if MS is the provider of the MFT software or not.

Apple proprietary BT stack is BS.

MS makes Office for Mac so they can play nice together, come on man!

You’re comparing apples (no pun intended) and oranges. Desktop OS vs Mobile OS, industry standard hardware (Intel), vs proprietary mobile hardware. Seeing the iPhone is using a proprietary BT stack, I wouldn’t go pointing fingers at Microsoft, popular hardware or not… that’s a non-starter. Apple is using proprietary stacks and hardware for a reason, they want to own the sandbox, and make it so that you can only play in theirs.

Look, even my Windows phone isn’t supported totally with all the available functions of Sync. Still, it plays very nicely with Sync / MFT as does my Android phone. No connection lags, no error messages. Streaming works fine with either phone. My NAV works great, and the entire system is booted within a minute of starting, and that includes indexing of the 16GB USB stick that’s filled with 15.5GB of music. I'v had more trouble with the million dollar avionics suite(s) I use.
 






Ford doesn't force you to use the touch screen. That's a choice. You have to use the ignition, steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedal. Everything else is for your "pleasure." Sue for inconvenience if you must (and still lose) but it's only a safety issue if you choose to take your eyes off the road. Ford doesn't make you.

Cry me a river.
Uh, no.

There are controls that are unavailable when MFT locks up. And it does cause driver distractions as you try to get the thing working while driving.

I do like this statement: "Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, reported 400 problems with its MyFord Touch system for every 1,000 vehicles in November 2012. The company previously said it aims to lower that number to 360 by August."

Only 360 problems per 1000 autos would be a GREAT quality rate........
 






Uh, no.

There are controls that are unavailable when MFT locks up. And it does cause driver distractions as you try to get the thing working while driving.

Which controls are those exactly?
 












Which controls are those exactly?

rear a/c controls
back up camera
all navigation

that's just quickly off the top of my head. When MFT completely locks up, none of the a/c buttons or radio buttons will work until the system is up and running.
 



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Window controls still work though, right? No AC isn't a safety issue; it's unfortunate, not dangerous.

Please don't begin to say you're dangerous on the road without navigation or a backup camera. Lol
 






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