Sync 4A - Are we stuck with deprecated technology already?

[bryan995]

But the real question is....are you buying a car or are you buying software?

In a Ford most necessary controls have a physical switch or knob. There are some advanced controls via software(infotainment system) only but most redundant controls are old school switches.

In the Tesla the screen controls everything..that can be either good or bad. The system has to be better. Personally, I hate Tesla's take on minimalism/automation and prefer manual controls with tactile feedback.

So yes, while I do think Ford should improve the focus and interface can and should be different because it has a different function.

Not everyone likes driving a rolling computer. As I said earlier, Ford doesn't need to copy Tesla. Ford needs to just do a better job of being Ford.

What year is this ? 1969? Vehicles and software are no longer separate things. It’s a complete package. You need both to be successful.

This iteration of the F150L is nothing more than a stepping stone to a more modern architecture / design. They did so to help ease the aging population (read Ford F-150 buyers) into the EV segment. Soon enough they will follow the lead of Tesla / rivian / lucid.. or they will die.

I have news for you. If you want physical buttons and a vehicle without any software/tech/ai/automation you are in for a world of hurt over the next 10-30 years.

Sponsored

 

[white lightnin]

That’s not my experience. They work very well.
Which is why the UX team moved the button elsewhere. Its no longer needed. Maybe you have a faulty sensor?

Do you still manually adjust the headlights / high beams? Or let auto do its thing ?
No need to hold onto the old way of doing things. If that were the case they we would never get improvements / updates.

That is also not my experience at all. Ha. Which year / model do you have ? 2012 S ??

2020 model y

 

[MichaelCA]

4) I hate the tesla UI, not because of how it functions. It does it really well. But because as soon as I I can navigate the system well they change the UI. I should not have to relearn how to turn on the windshield wipers every few months. It is beyond frustrating. Quite honestly it is dangerous and making wholesale changes to UI layout should not be allowed. Imagine if you had a car from the 90s and every few months someone came in and replaced the dash with different buttons and levers. The built in muscle memory is gone and you have to take your focus off the road to turn on the windshield wipers.

The windshield wiper has a stalk. If you want it to manual turn on just hold down the button on the left stalk. No screen usage needed. Also if you press it, the on screen ui for the wipers turn on. If you don't want the changing UI/software changes and make it more of traditional ICE car without updates, just disable ur wifi and prevent Tesla from updating.

any light/controls are literally in Settings>Controls. Just disable the wipers and auto highbeam there and use the manual controls from the left stalk like any other car.

maybe im younger compared to the average f150 crowd, but I never had issues during the v11 changeover or any small ui changes. Its like an iphone, new incremental ui changes.

 

[white lightnin]

The windshield wiper has a stalk. If you want it to manual turn on just hold down the button on the left stalk. No screen usage needed. Also if you press it, the on screen ui for the wipers turn on. If you don't want the changing UI/software changes and make it more of traditional ICE car without updates, just disable ur wifi and prevent Tesla from updating.

any light/controls are literally in Settings>Controls. Just disable the wipers and auto highbeam there and use the manual controls from the left stalk like any other car.

maybe im younger compared to the average f150 crowd, but I never had issues during the v11 changeover or any small ui changes. Its like an iphone, new incremental ui changes.

It doesn't turn the windshield wipers on. It does the cleaning action. https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-A5C33F3D-E41D-4671-ADE5-C2FB73203323.html

I never had an issue with manually using the lights.

The last paragraph is just rude and a strawman argument. I learned how to turn the wipers off and on after hunting for a while. The point being is it should never happen. There was no warning, just one day I went to use the windshield wipers and I can't turn them on anymore. Driving in hard rain trying to look at a screen to figure out where they put the windshield wipers should NEVER happen.

 

[sotek2345]

It doesn't turn the windshield wipers on. It does the cleaning action. https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-A5C33F3D-E41D-4671-ADE5-C2FB73203323.html

I never had an issue with manually using the lights.

The last paragraph is just rude and a strawman argument. I learned how to turn the wipers off and on after hunting for a while. The point being is it should never happen. There was no warning, just one day I went to use the windshield wipers and I can't turn them on anymore. Driving in hard rain trying to look at a screen to figure out where they put the windshield wipers should NEVER happen.

Agreed - it also raises the question of what happens if you want to go to an aftermarket infotainment system. You would lose a ton of vehicle functionality (note: Ford has this issues too with Sync 4A).

 

[MichaelCA]

It doesn't turn the windshield wipers on. It does the cleaning action. https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-A5C33F3D-E41D-4671-ADE5-C2FB73203323.html

I never had an issue with manually using the lights.

The last paragraph is just rude and a strawman argument. I learned how to turn the wipers off and on after hunting for a while. The point being is it should never happen. There was no warning, just one day I went to use the windshield wipers and I can't turn them on anymore. Driving in hard rain trying to look at a screen to figure out where they put the windshield wipers should NEVER happen.

Not trying to be rude but, a tap of the stalk engages the wipers, holding engages the cleaning action. Maybe I am strawmaning but the physical controls have never changed, you really shouldn’t be trying to use a touch screen when physical controls are available while driving imo.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Not sure what you're talking about? If you paid for full FSD they're going to retrofit the car so it works when its released. Not to mention about a billion features your car has picked up since you bought it.

SO not true. Beyond belief that anyone still repeats this garbage. You have to pay for the updated CPU, and the cameras if you have the older black & white ones.

 

[F150ROD]

What year is this ? 1969? Vehicles and software are no longer separate things. It’s a complete package. You need both to be successful.

This iteration of the F150L is nothing more than a stepping stone to a more modern architecture / design. They did so to help ease the aging population (read Ford F-150 buyers) into the EV segment. Soon enough they will follow the lead of Tesla / rivian / lucid.. or they will die.

I have news for you. If you want physical buttons and a vehicle without any software/tech/ai/automation you are in for a world of hurt over the next 10-30 years.

For sure…. Just like Model 3 owners used to claim there was no need for an instrument cluster behind the wheel…… until Tesla decided it was only necessary in their higher end models.

BTW, have you seen what some do these vehicles without software/tech are going for nowadays….. look up an Integra Type R or the Original Lightning….

There will always be a place for cars without all the gimmicks, it’s the reason cars like the Miata keep chugging along without any “Tech”

 

[PrivateJoker]

SO not true. Beyond belief that anyone still repeats this garbage. You have to pay for the updated CPU, and the cameras if you have the older black & white ones.

You're basing this on what? FSD has not been released yet. Cite your source.

I'm not sure how the laws work where you are. But here if you pay for something and it requires future additional purchases to work that needs to be disclosed through a proviso.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

You're basing this on what? FSD has not been released yet. Cite your source.

I'm not sure how the laws work where you are. But here if you pay for something and it requires future additional purchases to work that needs to be disclosed through a proviso.

I have FSD beta. It is a joke. And to get FSD beta, many owners of pre-Raven (mid-2019) Teslas have been required to purchase, for $2,500 the upgraded CPU unit. It adds some other functionality, so Tesla is justifying this as an upgrade, while required to make FSD work, they will not do it for free. They also require even old FSD-capable cars, which have black and white cameras, to upgrade to color. Those are not available yet, but owners are being told they will hav to pay for them. At this time most of those owners are concluding they are orphaned. A major class action lawsuit with respect to FSD is in the works. Tesla has already been required to pay significant damages in Europe on infilled promises and over-reaching feature claims, and this one will be huge. I’m a four-Tesla owner, huge fan, but Elon got way over his skis on FSD and a few other things.

 

[PrivateJoker]

I have FSD beta. It is a joke. And to get FSD beta, many owners of pre-Raven (mid-2019) Teslas have been required to purchase, for $2,500 the upgraded CPU unit.

This isn't correct, if you have not purchased FSD than it is true. If you purchased FSD the required hardware will be installed at no additional cost once FSD is released. Not before. They has giant financial reserveres to handle the event they need to do a mass upgrade on the fleet.

But if we go back to the original premise of this thread - let's compare this to Ford. Which 2015 Ford is currently offering a retrofit kit for Sync 4A free or otherwise?

 

[GDN]

This isn't correct, if you have not purchased FSD than it is true. If you purchased FSD the required hardware will be installed at no additional cost once FSD is released. Not before. They has giant financial reserveres to handle the event they need to do a mass upgrade on the fleet.

But if we go back to the original premise of this thread - let's compare this to Ford. Which 2015 Ford is currently offering a retrofit kit for Sync 4A free or otherwise?

I'm not sure this is all true about Tesla - for the model 3 - it was delivered with HW 2.5. If you purchased FSD then they included the HW 3.0 and those upgrades have already been done - over 2 years ago for most. I don't expect Tesla will ever upgrade the HW in my car again even if required to achieve 100% FSD.

To say the least - I do appreciate back on topic to Ford.

They've noted in interviews it won't be possible to be backward compatible with even a different APIM or which ever module will run the Android OS. They are changing other things too, like protocols that will prevent it from talking to other modules in the truck.

I see a few things out of this, but we all already know it. Ford is still trying to understand what it means to make a vehicle updateable, they don't have a platform that they can build on today, and I predicted they would never make a change to the current Lightning in the current form. That will be held for the new platform at the new factory.

They are struggling very hard right now to get SW updates out and to get them to work. I do really hope they are focused on that rather than a new OS for a truck that will only be built another year or two.

 

[BennyTheBeaver]

They are struggling very hard right now to get SW updates out and to get them to work. I do really hope they are focused on that rather than a new OS for a truck that will only be built another year or two.

I have a feeling that the 22MY and 23MY year Lightnings will be lacking in the SYNC area. Effort will be put into fixing bugs, not new features or enhancements.

I've accepted with Ford that the features the truck comes with is really all I should expect for the lifetime of the truck. Updates will fix bugs, just not expecting alot of new features (especially since the software team is most likely already working on Android OS integration).

 

[PungoteagueDave]

This isn't correct, if you have not purchased FSD than it is true. If you purchased FSD the required hardware will be installed at no additional cost once FSD is released. Not before. They has giant financial reserveres to handle the event they need to do a mass upgrade on the fleet.

But if we go back to the original premise of this thread - let's compare this to Ford. Which 2015 Ford is currently offering a retrofit kit for Sync 4A free or otherwise?

It absolutely is true. One family member and two friends HAVE been required to purchase the CPU (actually MCU in Tesla-speak) upgrade to join the FSD beta program. I did not have to because my 2019 MX is a Raven got under the wire by two months. Facts matter, and this is a fact. FSD HAS been released fairly widely, I have been using it for nearly a year. Calling it beta is just legalese - Teslas' AP has had the beta moniker since September 2015, when I first received it OTA on my December 2014 P85D.

FSD will never attain the capabilities that Elon promised. Never. And I use that word advisedly, with caution - but absolute confidence in this instance. The vehicles simply do not have the technical capacity to see what is required to see in order to drive safely and competently unassisted on the road, full stop. Robotaxi will not happen. Not even close.

Tesla is retrofitting some elements free, but not all, and is inconsistent in how it handles customers with respect to this issue. I also know one person who got upgraded for $750 because he had other unrelated issues. But most are paying $2,500. And, no Ford does not retrofit anything. Anyone who bought a Lightning should have KNOWN that Sync 4 was on the way out - Ford made their intention to move to Android clear well before any of us placed our final orders. I have owned every iteration of Sync - they all suck, but it is a trade-off that we accept when buying these trucks.

 

[PrivateJoker]

So here I am months later. Finally received my truck.

Guess what, as I fretted about in my first post in this thread; constantly pulling a fuse to reset the software so I can reach it via remote app. Ford if anything you're consistent with your user experience... You suck at software, put a damn reset button in your hardware ala 1992 PC Towers.

I'm actually seriously asking if there is a way to add a button like this that works with the fuse.

Sponsored