svjim

Not only does the mileage go down in the winter, the Prius has some sort of rubber bladder in the gas tank that stiffens in the winter and it cannot hold a full tank. I lived in Minneapolis for about 4 years, so I know what the winters are like. I would look at some of the early blogs on the FFH. It seemed like most of them were from the midwest and they test drove the FFH in Feb and March and were not overly impressed with the MPG. They all sort of noted that it was winter time and thought that winter may effect the mileage but didn't say much more then that. Jim

This must be a functionality tied to the Nav system. I have a FFH 501A and the 3GS works fully as an iPod when connected via the USB connection. One quirk, appears to be that you should have the 3GS connect over bluetooth before connecting it to sync via the USB connection. I've not only been able to use the 3GS as an ipod, I have been able to stream sound via MLB, Pandora, and WunderRadio iphone applications and still maintain the other functionality. One thing when you are streaming data on applications other then the ipod app, the application is terminated when the phone is used and needs to be restarted. Jim

There is a guy who just joined the sync forum (not syncmyride.com) and he is obviously a member of the sync development team. To your question he replied that the update for NAV users on Sync 3.0 was similar to the 1.3 update. He said it consisted mainly of bug fixes and minor enhancements. Look for post by Condor on the sync forum.

If you have the NAV system you already have turn by turn directions built into the NAV. Sync 3.0 provides a Turn by Turn capability for those who do not have a NAV system.

Thanks Jon for reporting back. I think you have pretty well established that those features only work in cars without the NAV, but that sync 3.0 will install on both cars without the nav system as well as those with the nav system. Jim

So Jon, From your post, it appears you have the Nav system and have installed Sync 3.0. Have you tried the new Sync Services to see if they work? I am talking about the Directions, Business Search, Traffic, and Weather? There has been a lot of stuff on the web, including syncmyride.com, that says they do not work with the NAV system - Can you verify that they do or do not work?

I am not the expert on the NAV, but I believe your only option is through Sirius. As far as I can tell, all the new options just out in sync 3.0 are dependent on getting the location from the GPS chip on sync and not from the NAV. It really isn't clear yet whether or not the Sync module on the 2010 vehicles has a GPS chip or not. If it does, I would think you should be able to install sync 3.0 and use it services. However I suspect that the sync module that is in 2010 cars that have a nav system is the old module. The reason I believe this has to do with the problems that I had installing sync 3.0 into my car that does not have the nav system and what eventually changed to make it work.

No, You will most likely have 2.0. 3.0 provides those services to cars that do not have the NAV system. It is all by voice command and no display like you have. I believe your weather and traffic is on a 6 month free period after which you will have to pay a subscription for it. The services with sync 3 are free for 3 years and after which there will be a subscription fee. Jim

If you got it to install last night, I don't see any reason for you to update it again. I think, and this is just an opinion based upon my experience today, that the only real change was to change the MasterReset_v1.X.CAB file. I am making a wild ass guess that the 1.0 file works with the Nav system and that if you don't have the Nav system that the _v1.1 file works instead. In the download early this morning, the MasterReset file was the 1.0 file, later on they ADDDED to 1.1 file. Ford hasn't been real clear about what type of support the new features will get on a NAV equipped system. The sync site is a real mess. I just went there and it indicates that I do not have version 3 installed, which I did and have even used. They are a real mess and it is about impossible to post anything there and use any browser other the IE.

I had some initial problems getting it installed. I am not quite sure why, other then the install package was trying to install an old version of an installation checker. After some time on the phone with sync support, I was told they would have to get back to me. I am a bit impatient on things like this and can figure most of the things out myself. So about after an hour after I was told they would get back to me, the list of install files changed on the website and I was able to install the applications. So for what good that did me, I can't tell because I cannot customize any of the applications on Syncmyride.com. I may have to use them intitially from the car. So it is back to the car to see if they work at all. **OOOPS - It took about a half hour for me to be able to activate the services. WARNING ** If you downloaded the files before 11 am PDT, I would recommend you download them again before trying to install them. They definitely changed on my FFH 501a package without NAV. It is just possible that the sync box on systems with NAV is the same as the older systems and that is why the masterreset 1.0 did not work with my car. - The message I got was "possibly not enough space for installation or wrong version. My final download of files had the masterreset 1.1 with it and it installed.

Right now, no smiles in Mudville. My install failed with "Possibly not enough space or wrong version." I did a factory resync and got the same results. Now to bug Sync support. I think this should be pretty straight forward for a car just out of the factory.

Your correct in your comment that mileage may vary based upon the dealer. I know each dealer comes to an agreement on specific cars with Costco and most of them will give you the same or similar break on cars that are not included in the deal. I am glad to hear that you left a comment with Costco as at least on the surface they seem to be interested in the results. BTW, was the dealer price for one in stock or to order one. I do know that even the guys that will give you $500 over invoice usually will not do that for a car already in stock. They are all to rare and in most cases they can get MSRP or better, but if you order it through them, then it is easy money.

You ought to be seeing a vin number soon, but I've seen a number of posts where it was at least 4 weeks before they got a vin #. For the manual, click under "Owner Guides" - find it in the left hand gray column under "Non-Subscription Resources"

If you are a Costco member, they have an auto plan that usually results in a good price and no haggling. I got my FFH here in California at Invoice + $500. For what it is worth the invoice price includes both the shipping and an advertising fee (I forget the name) Basically Costco sets up a relationship with the dealer and you get fleet prices which will vary from dealership to dealership.

Well May 26th has come and will fast disappear. The CSR on syncmyride.com that I messaged with today said that the 'offical' word he had was that it would come out in the first week in June. I don't quite understand why they are so secretive about a release date. I suspect they will have a lot of people who have older cars upset that they cannot get the new services and if the rumors of sync 3.0 not being compatible with Nav system are true, 2010 owners may be upset too.

I must have a lead foot or just not misunderstanding the real time display when freeway driving. I felt that every time drove manually on the freeway that according to the real time display my mileage really dropped off, but that if I kept it in cruise control that the mileage was higher and was much steadier. Is there a secret to freeway driving? We got a little over 38mpg on a 400 mile trip just completed with three adults and a full trunk and driven primarily at freeway speeds. I am actually happy about that since we just got the car and figure it will probably get better as the car breaks in.

Just got back from a 400 mile round trip. Filled up the car at the half way point and the odometer read 503 miles and 14 gallons of gasoline for 35.9 mpg. Coming home on mostly interstates (Hw5, Hw80, Hw680) we averaged 38.3 mpg and so for just having the car for a little over a week I am pretty pleased with the highway fuel economy. I don't really have an accurate around time measurement. Although, if I don't run into a lot of stop lights, it is getting pretty easy to go quite some distance in EV mode at speeds between 35 and 40. At 45 it gets pretty tough to stay in EV mode.

I think you will find that technically it is the PZEV (Partial Zero Emissions Vechiles) that qualify for not having to have smog checks and it just so happens that most hybrids meet that standard, but I am not at all sure that some of the 'light' hybrids do. You also get a 15 year warranty in California on the emissions system an something like 10 years on the electrical portion such as the electric motor and battery. To get the PZEV rating the manufactures had to provide those guarantees. BTW, there are several other Ford vehicles that are not hybrids that meet the standard.

You are probably right on that. There also is another little glitch in that to use the services it appears the phone that uses them needs to be declared the "active" phone. I guess you can declare up to 12 phones on your sync account, but only one can be active at any one time unless you pay a $95 yearly charge. You can switch the active phone on syncmyride.com. It is not clear to me if "active" and "primary" are the same? If they are the same and if there is a voice or radio command to change the primary phone in the car, then you would not need to pay the $95 for an extra phone(s), just register them and switch them when you get into the car. For those of us that share the car, this would be very nice. Anyone know if the acitive and primary phone are one and the same and what the command to make a phone primary is? Jim

That is just it, in the promo demos that I saw the Ford techie clearly stated that with the advance services they went with the phone. That is your preferences were remembered. So for instance, if I got into your car with my phone and connected thru Sync, Sync would know my preferences for say Sports was or where my home was. I could be wrong on this, but I don't think so. It also explains a bit on why a $95 a year extra charge for extra phones. Again this only applies to the new Sync services that are just about to become available.

The per phone charge is kind of interesting. I remember seeing some earlier promotional videos from back in January where the Ford person demoing sync was saying that the services were tied to the phone and that you could use them from any sync equipped Ford and sync would remember your preferences. Jim

The 3 year 'free' sync web apps applies to all 2010 fusions. I am not sure what happens with earlier cars with Sync, but without the GPS chip in it. The GPS chip is needed for the directions and maybe it is used for weather and traffic, but I don't know. For those services which don't use GPS, they may become available in earlier models if there is no technical preventing it???

For those of you without a Nav system in your FFH you will be happy to know that it appears that Sync 3.0 is close to release. I saw one news story saying it would be released on May 18th, obviously that did not happen but if you visit SyncMyRide.com you will see that they are making major changes for the internet services that Sync 3.0 will provide - Traffic, Directions, Business Search (14 million businesses) Sports, Weather and News. You get 3 years of 'free' service with your 2010 FFH.

Just to add that in California where the car is considered a Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV) there is an added warranty of 150,000 or 15 years on the emissions and I believe that the car is exempt from smog checks. I think the battery is also warrantied for 10 years as it is considered part of the emissions system. Jim

I really don't know how often shipping information is updated. I would have to assume that it is updated when ever a significant event occurs, such as being transferred from one location to another. I was told by my dealer that they receive a couple of messages telling them that the car was shipped and then one a few days before expected arrival. Now the last information that I have about my car is for May 5th which is a Tuesday. I think the whole reporting thing is probably event driven and as opposed to reporting only on a specific day of the week. This is all pure speculation on my part, but what I do know is that the quality of information you receive from Ford Care is highly dependent on the CSR that you talk with. What ever they do to check on the status of a car is obviously not very straight forward and some are just better at using the system then others. Jim