Hi all,

New to the forum after just purchasing my "new" used 2017 F-250 XLT. Nice truck! Previous owner bought it new and put only 24500 miles on it, and it's always been garaged so it really is like new. However....

The SYNC Generation 1 system is intermittent. I went to pair my phone to the truck yesterday and nothing would happen when I pushed the phone button. Looked at the Menu options and the only ones that show(ed) up were as in this photo:



Tried pushing the Phone button next to the Menu button and nothing happened. Started thinking the previous owner wanted to delete any stored devices etc., and may have glitched the SYNC system, so read the manual to find out how to to reboot it. It says "To perform a System Reset, press and hold the Seek Up (>>|) button while pressing and holding the Radio Power button. After about 5 seconds the screen will go black. Allow 1-2 minutes for the system to reset. You may then resume using the SYNC 3 system." So I tried doing this but the screen never blanked out, and the only thing that happened was as shown here (which disappeared a few seconds later):



It then went blank and nothing else happened. Now comes the weird part: After running an errand, I fired up the truck and the radio (which I hadn't turned on previously) came on at a loud volume. After turning it down, I pressed the Menu button again and all the options populated. I was then able to connect my phone via BT and chalked the whole episode up to gremlins. BUT, next time I got ready to take off, everything was gone again and I haven't been able to resurrect it (the SYNC menus) again. What might be causing this intermittent problem?

Should I consider a Master Reset, and if so how do I do that? I can't find the "Settings" screen so can't find the Master Reset prompt. I've heard another option might be to disconnect the battery and let it sit for 10 minutes or so, which supposedly resets everything to factory default. Any suggestions you might have would be very much appreciated!

Cheers!

 

COULD IT REALLY be this simple? Quite by accident today, while doinking around in the truck, I turned on the radio (which I normally don't listen to) and started messing with the menu options again. Lo and behold, the media and sync (and some others I can't remember) menus were there. Giddily, I re-paired my phone. All is good again in the world, right?

Turned off the radio and they all disappeared again but the original three (Clock, Display and Camera Settings). Turned the radio back on and the others reappeared. Did this a half dozen times to test the theory that the fricking radio has to be powered on for all the setting options to be available on-screen, and it was consistent. Nowhere in the manual does it say this. I talked to three different IT techs at the Ford Relationship Center in Dearborn who worked very hard to try to help me with a SYNC software update install, and not one of them mentioned turning on the radio. Made an appointment to take it to the stealership for troubleshooting, and the service writer said it sounded possibly like a bad/intermittent Accessory Protocol Interface Module (only $600!!), but they'd need to run some tests to make sure. Even he didn't ask if I'd turned on the radio.

So, you are all now welcome to pile on and tell me "DUUUUHHH!", or you may express surprise as I did....it's up to y'all. But I'll take one thing away from this: since nobody answered my original post, maybe, just maybe none of you had experienced this issue, maybe because you somehow knew by osmosis that the friggin' radio has to be powered up to see all the menu settings. At least to me, that's not intuitive; if I can push the Menu button with the radio off and see SOME of the options, why can't I see them all? Why does the radio have to be turned on for the Phone button to respond to being pushed? Why, why WHYYYY?

I'm gonna go have a beer now.

 

Gee, who would have thought that you'd have to turn the unit "On" to be able to use it? Stupid Ford !!!!

You DID say to pile on....

On a serious note - whenever I find competent tech support, I am stunned and terrified that I won't get the same person if I need to call back. I have a real hard time with Indian accents, so I tend to call tech support as a last resort.

 

B-ManFX4, to be clear, the only reason I didn't turn the radio on in the first place is because some of the menu options were available without doing so, like the Clock, Display and Camera Settings as mentioned earlier. It just seems intuitive to me that as that was the case, that all menu options/settings should show up under the same conditions. And in our other car, a 2023 model from a different manufacturer, the radio doesn't need to be powered on for ANY of the menus to populate, and our phones sync as soon as we start the car. Oh well, live and learn.

My main beef is that as far as I have been able to determine there's nothing in the manual indicating the need to turn the radio on, and even the service writers I spoke to didn't ask if I'd done so.

Oh, and to your point about reaching tech people on the phone that speak understandable English, my experience so far with the IT agents at the Ford Relationship Center (833-389-0848) is that they've all been U.S. based, native English speaking and highly competent. Pretty rare in this day and age.