Ford SYNC black screen

[bykfixer]

Mrs Fixer has one of those cars with a touch screen display that uses Ford SYNC 3. Thus far it has been trouble free until today. When you turn off your radio (infotainment system) the screen goes blank. Not even a clock. Turn it on and you see a Ford logo for about 20 seconds. From there you should see a display with several items. Hers would go black.

Soft reset where you hold the power button and skip right button for 10 seconds does a soft reset. You see the Ford logo, but in her case the screen would go black again. Now the radio worked. In the menu for the car, in the dashboard AM/FM/Siri all would play through the speakers.

I did some reading and found where if you have the vehicle turned off and in park, with the door open you hold the power button for 10 seconds, let go and press it again. And dawg gone if that didn't actually work.

5 Proven Ways To Solve The Ford Sync Black Screen Of Death Fix

If you have a Ford Sync system in your car, you may be familiar with the dreaded black screen of death. This problem can be extremely frustrating, but don't

motopickers.com

Here was the article. I read at another source about the door being open so I don't know if that matters. I had the door open.

Oh, but you have to turn the radio back off when you exit the car or the display stays on. About 5 minutes after it was fixed Mrs Fixer went to see if it was "still fixed" and the display was still on.

 

[ilikeguns40]

I'll have to save this in case this happens to my F250 work truck. Music is a must with my long drives

 

[alpg88]

Back in the days we had an electrician in the shop, who was famous for being able to solve electrical issues on Oldsmobile aurora 1st gen, (it was one of the hardest cars to troubleshoot electric issues, some shops would not even look at those) we asked him what helps you find problems in this car while others are afraid to even touch it, he said 'A book" we're like what book? we thought he had a dealers service manuals, or maybe even factory documents, but no it was none of those it was a bible.

 

[bykfixer]

Back in the days we had an electrician in the shop, who was famous for being able to solve electrical issues on Oldsmobile aurora 1st gen, (it was one of the hardest cars to troubleshoot electric issues, some shops would not even look at those) we asked him what helps you find problems in this car while others are afraid to even touch it, he said 'A book" we're like what book? we thought he had a dealers service manuals, or maybe even factory documents, but no it was none of those it was a bible.

When Mrs Fixer said thanks for fixing my car I replied "God did it, not me". I just read the articles He showed me and took steps He reccomended.

 

[bykfixer]

Ok, so my fix worked for about oh...... 3 hours and back to black...screen that it. We took it to the stealership who tried updating it but "no communication" kept showing. So they tried reprogramming it to no avail. So it needs a new APIM. I'll report back once it gets replaced.

In the meantime I found a 2020 Ford TSB # 20-2363 that basically reads that nearly every Ford model in 2020 and many from 019 were plagued by the issue. Now the TSB was Ford hollering at dealers to stop replacing the APIM's (at Ford's cost) before trying to reprogramming it first.

20-2363 Ford Technical Service Bulletin

20-2363 Ford Technical Service Bulletin

www.tsbsearch.com

 

[bykfixer]

Update:
The stealership took the car in and reprogrammed to APIM per the standard protocol and said "nope, didn't work. Next day everything went back to working normal but the guy had ordered a new one.

It worked normal until we put it back in the shop and they replaced the APIM under warranty. If you finance a newer car by all means get the extended warranty. Between the APIM replacement and other items fixed under warranty the cost has already been offset.

$650 for the radio, $550 for the labor to install it.

 

[sween1911]

Thanks for this. My 2020 Escape had one episode of screen funk on a roadtrip earlier this year. I'll check into this.