New Free Upgrade for My Ford Touch System

MY FORD TOUCH
GETS A MAJOR NIP & TUCK FACELIFT MAKEOVER

by Marty Bernstein
Editor-at-Large
The Auto Channel

Dearborn March 8, 2012; Almost twenty ago when writing a speech for a top automotive executive about the technological changes in automobiles, I included the line, “There’s more computer power in our new cars than was on the Lunar Lander.” And that was before infotainment systems, touch screens, advanced GPS navi-systems, Blue Tooth connectivity, music downloads, restaurant recommendations, points of interest information and the myriads of other techno-tchotchkes were resident in vehicles, especially Ford who says it is a technological and automobile company.

The MyFord Touch (think MFT) system introduced a couple of years ago was a significant addition to their new vehicles, providing more in-vehicle infotainment than any other car company. Over 300 thousand were sold and installed in new vehicles. But as many Silicon Valley companies have learned, pioneers get arrows in their motherboards, reputations and elsewhere.

Ford realized they’d been too geekish with TMI – too much information. The MFT was overloaded with esoteric, arcane, over-packed, difficult to use, no or slow responses info, garbled voice commands and other problems my generation refers to as Gremlins. This resulted in consumer complaints, dealer frustration and lowered quality rankings for Ford. But like a good tech-based company what is it going to do? Fix it.

Ford expended countless hours and money in improving, changing and modifying MFT to meet the demands of its customers and dealers. The reason is simple: 56% of Ford new car buyers say technology is an important purchase consideration when buying a new vehicle. The MFT system changes went through extensive focus panels, consumer group meetings, internal reviews and even Beta testing to make certain it was now fully user friendly and even intuitive. The blue oval company may call it an upgrade, I prefer the more colloquial nip and tuck which obviously refers to improvement of specific features. But let’s not quibble over terminology.

To make the first buyers, aka early adaptors, relationships and its dealers whose sales people were overwhelmed by the techy-nerdy issues happy with their MFT system Ford has fixed it. And is fixing it free! This alone is an incredible and significant step. It proves Ford Motor Company is serious, very serious about the technology in its vehicles and genuinely cares about its customer’s satisfaction.

Every Ford customer who purchased the MFT has been mailed a special kit containing a USB drive and installation guide to update their vehicles system for a do-it-yourself job. Don’t want to DIY? Every Ford dealer has received a special package of USB drives and information and will install it for you – also free.

It’s nice to see a tech company proactive and reach out, isn’t it.

SIDEBAR

Passwords to live without

Anyone who is Internet literate be it on desktop, laptop or smart phone knows the vagaries of access to a WiFi network and passwords. This can be an especially daunting experience when trying to log-on to the web in a public venue and the available network is private but you’re missing the password. Ford solved the problem at the media event detailing the MFT improvements. Here’s the card that was on the luncheon tables with the password needed to log on to their media network.