NHTSA Complaint #11554584 — 2016 FORD ESCAPE

In Aug. 2021 my 2016 Ford Escape’s Sync/NAV stopped connecting to my iPhone. I went to Fullerton Ford in Somerville, NJ and a Service Advisor (SA) determined that Sync would not connect with his iPhone or mine. Another SA connected with his Android phone and it worked perfectly. Everything else related to the Sync/NAV was working. I did research online on connecting Sync with iPhone, and was finally able to reconnect to Bluetooth, but never able to connect with the Sync/NAV system. After weeks of trying get the Sync/NAV to work I had it diagnosed by Fullerton Ford. On Sept. 29, 2021 I paid a $100 diagnostic fee to assess the problem. I spent 7 hours waiting while it was worked on. They talked with the technical “hotline” but were unable to determine why the Sync/NAV worked with the Android but not the iPhone. They suggested the problem “could be” the APIM which would cost $866.16 to replace, but told me that they could not guarantee that replacing the APIM would solve the problem. Without a guarantee that spending $966.16 would solve the problem I declined. It was noted on the invoice that the APIM had given a faulty reading but the Service Advisor never told me that or what else could happen if the APIM failed. I suffered with the iPhone issue until Nov. 6, 2023 when I brought the car to Ciocca Ford in Flemington, NJ for service. I’d learned there was an update to the Sync system so I asked them to do that upgrade. When the car was “finished” the SA advised me that the whole Sync/NAV system had been disabled because the 3 attempts to do the Sync upgrade completely blew out the APIM module, and that it would cost $1,100 to replace it! Now I have no Sync/NAV system at all; no radio, clock, NAV, reverse parking support, or Bluetooth. In addition, the phone charging ports and upper vents of the heating system don’t work and I don’t know what else isn’t working. Other Ford owners have made complaints about APIM module failures to the NHTSA, so Ford should do a recall.