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Been an extremely long time since I've looked at anything truck related but my parents just bought a 2011 F350 XLT SuperDuty and a mid size 5th wheel. The truck is pretty barebones inside and I'm thinking of upgrading their radio to have carplay so they will have navigation during their road trips as they want to go cross country next year. It has what looks like base trim on pretty much everything.
Can I buy them a SYNC3 kit and retrofit it or are we better off going with some kind of aftermarket unit? They use iPhones so it would need to be compatible with carplay if anything. They currently daily drive a 2023 Escape and are well accustomed to the SYNC3 system, hence the idea. I see the retro exists from Sync2 to 3 in 2013+ F150's atleast but not much info out there for the older SD's.
What about the auto climate control? They don't need dual zone, and I doubt their truck has the individual zone hardware in the hvac box, but will the auto climate function still work as a whole and can it be done without needing lots of extra harnesses?
Bump. I am also interested in this information. Like what parts are needed to do the swap, what might need to be programmed and if that can be done with forscan. I have a 2012 F350 King Ranch with the voice navigation and would like to change to the SYNC 3.
Last edited by Krazypluto; Jan 8, 2025 at 01:24 AM.
You need a different dash to run the sync 3 system, the base model dash doesn’t have the ability to hold the new hvac and audio controls module (FCIM Front Control Interface Module), the dash has to be the “hump dash” with sync 2 (which is actually call My Ford Touch) and you need the 2013-2016 high trim level cluster that has the I-CAN bus added to it for everything to work.
This will most likely also require you to swap the HVAC box to the dual climate control and swap the cab harness to make it work.
If you can get access to someone parting out a truck and grab everything for a good price it’s not a hard swap to do but that only gets you sync 2, you still have to upgrade to sync 3 after.
I know this thread is over a year old from the original posting. My experience would say go aftermarket. Plenty of good head units on the market with similar if not better functionally than the Ford system for less cost than trying to part out something. There are a few companies out there that will install a Sync 3 or 4 set up in your dash. However these are using brand new Ford head units then it needs to be programed for your truck. I looked into this and it was around 2.000 dollars for these systems. However, aftermarket I was probably half the cost. I have a 7 inch unit in my dash from Pioneer. I had both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay functions. My installer also have a backup camera, sirius XM installed. My head unit was not HD Radio optioned though. However. I have sat radio, streaming from my iphone and I pod, USB stick and even over the cellular. I even have a DVD player! I am not starved for media content. CarPlay and Google Maps are my navigational aids. Recently I was thinking about having my friend update the head unit and speakers as I am not planning on getting rid of the truck. I saw a few head units with larger displays like 10-11 inch in a landscape format. Also newer units are going to wireless AA and ACP function. No more pesky wires unless for charging.
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