cr08

Just a wild guess similar to an earlier post I made, I think the reason why 3.8 and 3.10 aren't on the website are to get you in to the dealer to do the update. 3.8 was the start of significant rewrites to stabilize Sync and they likely want to make sure everything goes smoothly.

The files you guys grabbed must be missing the VHR app. I know earlier on in my ownership I self updated to 3.8 (which also was not on the Ford site and had to find someone else's upload) and it was missing VHR and 911 assist. After an APIM replacement and the dealer updating it to 3.10 I have both VHR and 911 Assist back. May want to verify the contents of your downloads.

Using the parking brake is always a good thing. :) It's become a habit for me personally. But yeah, old bug with VHR. Glad it's all sorted!

To be fair it is not Windows CE that is the issue but the 'Sync' software on top of it. Windows CE on its own is fine. It's whatever software people throw on that has a chance to wreck it. It's just like the desktop version of Windows. By itself with nothing else it is fine. Throw on buggy POS software and the whole system as a package deal goes to crap. And people often blame it all on Windows as a result. I've kinda covered that in my wall of text above. Though as a whole package deal, yes. It -was- a hot mess. 3.8 and 3.10 quite solidly sort it out. Mine's been pretty damn reliable and smooth on 3.10. I am upset they didn't add some promised features ESPECIALLY Applink but it is what it is. These days I almost exclusively play music off a USB flash drive or listen to Sirius and take advantage of nav and Travellink. I've even picked up a compatible USB modem and used the hotspot feature.

To be fair, depending on what version you're currently running, 3.8 and 3.10 really button it up and make it reliable. No new features obviously, but the system behaves well. You aren't going to get anything new going forward unfortunately. Don't even expect Google Auto. I think the reason Ford hasn't posted these updates online is to get people into dealers to do the updates to ensure things go smoothly. The techs can do additional massaging at the lower level that we do not have access to via simple USB updates. This coincides with the 12M02 warranty extension in case the system goes tits up they can fix it at no cost to you. Based on the existing information out there, at best the direct blame can be placed on BSquared for building what is the entirety of MyFordTouch to begin with, bugs, lack of promised features, and all. Then Microsoft for partnering with them and suggesting Ford to work with them on the project. Essentially the underlying Windows Automotive OS is fine but the software BSquared built which is the entirety of the MyFordTouch you see and interact with, is what has been the cause of all the headaches. Eventually it got to the point that Ford had to bring in some Microsoft engineers to fix and start rewriting things to get where it is now in a stable state. With that said, from a PR perspective they pretty much had to EOL Sync 2 and start fresh with Sync 3. It nearly murdered Ford's Consumer Reports ratings on some models. There have been rumors based on an ex-engineer's LinkedIn profile that the Sync v2 hardware is able to be partially upgraded to Sync v3 but not getting hopes up on that one. That was brought up around ~2 years ago and clearly nothing has come of it. Sync v2 is purely on life support now.

Do you have the parking brake on when you run it? That has been a long-standing problem with VHR way back to the first gen Sync systems. It sees the red brake light on the dash as a general signal of an issue even when it is on just for the parking brake. Next time try running VHR without it set and it should give you a clearer idea.

Not necessarily. The only reason why most existing hybrid/PHEV vehicles lack trunk space is they are taking existing body styles that were not designed with EVs in mind and have to shoehorn the batteries in. The trunk is, in many cases, the easiest place to add it. And with the battery size needed for long range BEV's, I doubt Ford's going to shoehorn that into an existing ICE vehicle design without significantly reconfiguring the chassis to accommodate it. A good example is the Chevy Bolt which is designed from the ground up as a BEV. It is taking some design cues from Tesla and the battery is spread out in a flat pack under the floor taking up no precious cabin or cargo space: http://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2016/Jan/naias/chevy/0111-bolt-du.html

Given his location, very likely could be a Canadian built C-Max if used. So yeah, DRL's are the likely culprit. Could either a) work with your Ford dealer to disable them or b) (if inclined) use a tool such as ForScan to do the job yourself. Simple software toggle in the BCM.

This is true. Non-nav cars will have the GPS receiver still. If memory serves I think our cars are new enough that 911 Assist is able to provide those GPS coordinates to 911 dispatchers upon request (unlike cellular e911, the car will actively speak out the coordinates on the call). It is also used for Sync Services based navigation which you are able to use. This was even a thing was back in early v1 Sync systems with the 2 line text screens. Not sure what else. Generally the compass has its own hardware but it might be integrated with the GPS unit. GPS doesn't do well determining orientation at a standstill.

Funny enough I had this happen this last week as well on my Energi. TL;DR for the future for anyone else who runs into it: Just pull fuses 67 and 79. Shouldn't even need to really do the engine start rigmarole. I did mine while the entire car was off and just pressed the power button for the radio after re-installing the fuses. I don't know specifically where the presets are stored but in our MyFordTouch systems there are two parts of the radio: The ACM which is hidden and is basically what handles the audio routing and is responsible for the AM/FM/Sirius tuners and drives the speakers. The APIM which is what you see as the touch screen and Sync system largely just handles USB playback, Auxillary input, nav, voice commands, etc.. It routes all audio to the ACM for output. For tuners it just controls the ACM and tells it what to do. All volume controls are also done strictly by the ACM. So what likely happened in your case is since you were already listening to a USB device, the APIM is functioning fine and allowed you to change tracks but the ACM wouldn't allow volume changes or moving off that input to a radio tuner or otherwise doing anything else. ACM was stuck for all intents and purposes. My situation was very similar. USB audio worked but I managed to turn off the audio (audio power button) and it wouldn't turn back on after that. As a result there was no audio anywhere even from the parking sensors. No touch screen beeps, etc..

If you have MyFord Touch, look into the Lockpick devices. They have two MFT compatible models. One adds the option to integrate a second (front facing camera) among other features. There's also another model that adds an additional two inputs designed for side cameras that can be activated via turn signals.

I used to lurk some of the BMW forums and similarly they've done some battery monitoring and operated various modules when the vehicle was 'shut down' based on battery age and SOC. They did have some programming to indicate to the vehicle what size of battery was installed and would need to reset the monitor when replacing it. Boils down to that as the battery aged and SOC drops, various unessential modules would go to sleep much earlier after the car was shut off. Goes without saying I'm assuming the same or similar behavior comes into play with our C-Max's. With that said, haven't seen it brought up with any late model Ford's being able to modify the battery size in programming without a legit IDS.