CarPlay - Ford Fiesta wired very unreliable

[afd]

My wife just got a 2022 Ford Fiesta with a Sync 2.5 radio. It has CarPlay over usb that has so far been about 10% reliable. We’ve tried 3 or 4 lightning cables, a mixture of Apple, Amazon Basics and Anker. Also tried a brand new anker cable. None of them work reliably.
We have to keep, plugging the cable in and out, trying both sides of the cable until CarPlay starts. Once it starts, it keeps working until the car turned off. Turning on without unplugging results in having to do the unplugging/plugging in thing a few times more.
Is wired CarPlay usually this bad?
My car is a 2021 Mini with Wireless CarPlay it rarely doesn’t work. Most of the time it’s because I’ve been using the phone’s hotspot with my ipad and the 2 are still connected.

 

[earthdog]

Are you on the 15.6 Beta 4? If so I have the exact same behavior with the BETA. If not its very reliable cabled. Do this and you will see MAJOR improvements. If your unit is upgradable:

https://cyanlabs.net/tutorials/sync-3-automated-method-update-to-3-4/

 

[contacos]

Does it show the iPhone still as charging when it is acting up? My Ford Puma (last years model) started to act up as well. I wonder if something went wrong with an software update or something. The whole usb slot would not work randomly (with two different iPhones), once I plug it into the other usb slot (hidden in the arm rest) and again in the main one, it would magically work.

Btw my iPhone 12 Pro Max also refuses to charge on the wireless pad (magnet?). My iPhone 11 charges just fine

 

[afd]

Are you on the 15.6 Beta 4? If so I have the exact same behavior with the BETA. If not its very reliable cabled. Do this and you will see MAJOR improvements. If your unit is upgradable:

https://cyanlabs.net/tutorials/sync-3-automated-method-update-to-3-4/

Not on any Beta, iOS 15.5. We have an SE2 and 13 Pro Max. Can a Sync 2.5 unit be upgraded to 3

 

[afd]

The phone charges and can play music over USB but no CarPlay. Haven't tried other USB socket, it's at back of the centre console for rear passenger in Fiesta. I'll give that a go tomorrow.

 

[BrianBaughn]

You didn't say if you gave the iPhone's Lightning port a good cleaning.

 

[afd]

I didn’t say, because it hadn’t occurred to me. I gave it a wee clean, tried it and it worked first try, unplugged a couple of times and it still worked. So thanks! And sorry Ford.

 

[Ruggy]

Does your Ford have a USB and an Aux jack socket?
It's going back a good 12 years but my old Ford back then needed a special cable that connected into both at the same time in order to play music. I doubt it's still true but thought I'd mention it just in case you still need a special Ford cable for some reason

 

[afd]

Everything should go over the lightning - USB cable.

 

[cynics]

Make sure there isn't an update for the head units firmware? Tried going into forgetting the iPhone from the car and the car from the iPhones CarPlay settings and resync'ing? Try lightly jiggling the cable around on the cars usb side and phones side to see if you can get it to disconnect thus indicating a poor connection. The data pins are different then the charging pins so even though it would seem unlikely its worth just testing.

If that stuff doesn't work I would suggest a Ford Fiesta forum to see if there has been anyone with the issue and if they figured it out. I glanced around and found a couple people with the issue but I didn't see a solution, I looked for about 1 min though...