Has anybody done the SYNC 3 "hub" replacement?

[NRGTi]

Does this sound familiar? My 2017 Energi's Sync has become laggy and forgetful. Sometimes it works normally, but more than half the time, my button pushes to select radio and phone options have become suggestions instead of orders. It's taken up to 20 seconds  for routine button commands like radio tuning  and audio  source to take effect. Once I got a spam call on  my phone, in the car. I'd  dumped that call on the phone for five seconds before it came in separately over the SYNC,  where I had to dump it again.

 

I've been through one round with the local Ford dealer. Yes, sometimes this happens, and sometimes a software refresh can help. But in my case, it didn't. They've offered to apply that $170 towards a $1000 replacement of the "hub," a unit behind the Sync screen. Have any of you tried this repair? It's the first big repair for my car, whichh has  been utterly reliable and trouble free, otherwise.

Edited September 29, 2021 by NRGTi
misspelling

[cr08]

You mention a 'software refresh'. What exactly was done? Was the Sync unit (APIM) fully updated when the dealer worked on it? If not, I highly recommend doing that and can do that yourself through the Ford site: Ford Support | Update Your SYNC® System with a Flash Drive if that was not already done.

 

Second is doing a master reset which will clear out any leftover cruft on the system and start fresh.

 

If doing those two in tandem (update and then master reset in that order) doesn't resolve the issue, then it may just be a faulty unit.

 

As far as the cost of the replacement, the first question should be if you have factory navigation or not. That'll be a major factor in determining the price. With $1000 wouldn't seem to be out of place for dealer pricing for a nav enabled unit. Non-nav that starts to be a bit pricey to the point you could probably do the job on your own. Direct pricing on usual suspects like eBay you can probably find the APIM on its own for around $300 for non-nav and $600 for nav (prices will vary of course and I don't have current number).

 

Replacing the APIM (the unit in charge of Sync here) isn't that difficult. The actual hardware replacement is pretty easy. For this I highly recommend looking up videos for Sync 3 -upgrades- for the Ford Escape on Youtube. They are abundant and will show you the entire process. The interior of the '13-'19 Escapes is identical to the C-Max so the same instructions apply. The screen would not need to be replaced, but the APIM attached to it will. And since your car came with Sync 3, the more difficult part would be reprogramming the replacement module with the AsBuilt for your vehicle. But since it already came with Sync 3, that's as simple as pulling the original AsBuilt from Ford and applying it via ForScan and the appropriate OBD adapter. That's like a 5 minute job for someone familiar with the process.

 

Another option you may consider is using the CyanLabs Syn3Updater tool to bring your unit up to 3.4 and see if it improves things any as it is well known to be a little more performant than the older firmware versions. These older model year APIM's Ford only officially supplied updates up to version 3.3.x whereas there are 3.4.x updates for newer 2020+ vehicles but are 100% compatible with the older units. The Syn3Updater tool is completely unofficial but in this process will do a full format and wipe of the APIM and load the new updated 3.4 software on. Caveat: Once this process is done, it can no longer be downgraded back to any 3.0-3.3 version. It is also not sanctioned by Ford, so keep this in mind with whatever potential warranties you may have remaining that cover this portion of the car.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by cr08