- SYNC.
People who talk to their cars will now find them responding with Ford’s innovative new SYNC offering. SYNC is a fully integrated, voice-activated in-car communications and entertainment system that works with most Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones and most popular digital music players. It is available on a number of vehicles launched and shown this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show, including the Lincoln MKS, Ford Taurus and Taurus X, and the Mercury Milan. SYNC will be available on a total of twelve 2008-model Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles. The system is based on state-of-the-art Microsoft Auto software, and is the result of close collaboration between Microsoft and Ford.
“This will change the industry – we’ll never design entertainment or information systems for cars the same way again,” says Gary Jablonski, Ford’s manager of infotainment systems. SYNC uses Bluetooth to connect with a driver’s phone and has a USB port for music devices, controlling them via voice commands and piping music and phone calls through the vehicle’s speakers. On phones capable of Bluetooth text messaging, it also has the capacity to read SMS messages to the driver, and allows him or her to respond by selecting 1 of 15 pre-defined messages.
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Anyways, about the sync, I also asked my dealer about that, first, he said he could but about two weeks later, he said he couldn't. I know that if you can order the parts (a whole bunch of them since you need buttons for the steering wheel, a mic. installed, new center console, the actual sync system with the HDD etc. etc. etc.) you CAN have it installed. However, most dealers wont order parts for your car unless it already has them factory installed (in other words, you could do it for the 09 but probably not for the 08 since their system will ask for the VIN number and match the factory installed options). Good luck though, let us know if you managed to make it happen.
One other thing about your GPS nav. I don't know if you have done it yet but in October, they have released a new Navigation DVD (version 7p) for our system, you might want to upgrade it if you don't have it yet. Although, it cost me $170 and the only difference is the road data. there are no other changes such as menu options or anything like that..
Makes no sense why they'd offer technology like that on low end cars like Focus/Fusion/Taurus and not on a higher end model. People buying higher end cars want technology. Ford is always lagging the other makers in technology options. They need to start looking at other luxary cars and what their options are and include them in their vehicles or customers like me will look elsewhere.