Hi guys, hope you are well. 
 

This year I treated myself to paying off my 2015 focus as I was paying finance on finance due to an early upgrade, I decided to start with upgrading the old sync 2 system and upgrading to sync 3.4 

 

I had a look about and I found 2 places that would fit it for between £1300 and £1600... not a chance I was paying that. So I took to AliExpress, and found and upgrade kit for £530, fully programmed and ready to fit. Paid and delivered in 10 days so I can’t fault that 

 

fitting was an absolute doddle, following this video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V8PFLSHwD0

 

take off a few trim bits a few screws, take the old and replace with the new and it was done! Absolutely made up with it. F9 maps, very very snappy and mostly for me Apple car play! 
 

This is the first time I have ever done anything to a car. Other than fitting bulbs. If I can do it I hope that gives someone to confidence to upgrade their system (and safe a few quid in the process) 

 

Well done, the newer Sync 3 systems are so much nicer than the clunky Sync 2.

@Diastolic - Nice one, Sync 3 is a major upgrade from Sync 2. 👍

recent article on road safety found apple car play to be the most dangerous and long winded way to work between your car and phone, taking something like 40% longer than is safe

andriod auto was only just better

all car systems where less bad, with BMW's iDrive being vastly superior and much safer than any of the joke touch screens.  It goes on the say the plateau on the decline of UK road deaths is clearly linked to touch screen use in car and we need to legislate change

the output is both will be made illegal and are far too dangerous to use, and sensible owners should stop being so foolish now

As I can’t edit my post, 

 

here is the link to the Aliexpress seller I used Link to seller

On 1/8/2021 at 1:49 PM, Diastolic said:

This year I treated myself to paying off my 2015 focus as I was paying finance on finance due to an early upgrade, I decided to start with upgrading the old sync 2 system and upgrading to sync 3.4 

Nice job there mate thanks for all the information, that AliExpress Kit looks amazing,
Had my 2015 ST nearly 18 months and a Sync3 upgrade was on my radar before I even bought it,
Sync2 is clunky as f*** and I'm sure the upgrade is well worth it, but the way the world is at the minute it's an expensive upgrade that has to wait for now,
I do actually like the look of the Sync2 main screen more, I'm usually not playing with the screen and I like the 4 simple panels giving me information.
Not a fan of the Sync3 blue/white display (esp in an ST) I would have to do something about that,
This video shows how to change the theme, but doesn't look permanent.

 

9 minutes ago, RAIDER32 said:

Nice job there mate thanks for all the information, that AliExpress Kit looks amazing,
Had my 2015 ST nearly 18 months and a Sync3 upgrade was on my radar before I even bought it,
Sync2 is clunky as f*** and I'm sure the upgrade is well worth it, but the way the world is at the minute it's an expensive upgrade that has to wait for now,
I do actually like the look of the Sync2 main screen more, I'm usually not playing with the screen and I like the 4 simple panels giving me information.
Not a fan of the Sync3 blue/white display (esp in an ST) I would have to do something about that,
This video shows how to change the theme, but doesn't look permanent.

 

Sync 3 is amazingly snappy, but for me it was mainly the addition of Apple car play. You are right, changing the theme that way isn’t permanent however using forescan it will change the theme permanently. And the kit comes with the ODB programming cable too. Which was great as I was going to buy one anyway to activate Led daylight runners. For me, it was worth every penny. 

Hey, do you think the 8GB Version of this could be used to just make use of Android Auto?

Seems quite a bit cheaper than the 64GB version they ask for EU Maps (£364 vs £531)

Half tempted to try that and ditch the ford stuff and use the manual buttons to adjust anything i need for the car.

Waze is super useful with the most up to date maps/live traffic.

10 hours ago, Botus said:

recent article on road safety found apple car play to be the most dangerous and long winded way to work between your car and phone, taking something like 40% longer than is safe

andriod auto was only just better

all car systems where less bad, with BMW's iDrive being vastly superior and much safer than any of the joke touch screens.  It goes on the say the plateau on the decline of UK road deaths is clearly linked to touch screen use in car and we need to legislate change

the output is both will be made illegal and are far too dangerous to use, and sensible owners should stop being so foolish now

Just come across this article referencing that,
https://www.carthrottle.com/post/huge-in-car-touchscreens-are-a-distracting-problem-we-need-to-solve-now/

I'm not a fan of screens that look like phones with apps, as I said earlier I like the look of the Sync2 quad display, shame it's just so slow,
and I absolutely HATE climate controls on a screen, never gonna use it through Sync as it does take more concentration than touching buttons.

36 minutes ago, effortless3 said:

Hey, do you think the 8GB Version of this could be used to just make use of Android Auto?

Seems quite a bit cheaper than the 64GB version they ask for EU Maps (£364 vs £531)

Half tempted to try that and ditch the ford stuff and use the manual buttons to adjust anything i need for the car.

Waze is super useful with the most up to date maps/live traffic.

I don't want to say it would work, but the theory is there, but you'd never be able to make the Sat Nav work later,
an extra £167 is a lot of money, I noticed the huge difference just for the EU memory upgrade (looks like Apple pricing),
But one way to look at, you might get your money back when you sell the car by having Sat Nav enabled, options like that help a sale.

2 hours ago, effortless3 said:

Hey, do you think the 8GB Version of this could be used to just make use of Android Auto?

Seems quite a bit cheaper than the 64GB version they ask for EU Maps (£364 vs £531)

Half tempted to try that and ditch the ford stuff and use the manual buttons to adjust anything i need for the car.

Waze is super useful with the most up to date maps/live traffic.

Hi there, the thought crossed my mind. However, the on the Ali express link provided, In the reviews section the other U.K. reviewer purchased and installed the 8gb non nav version and seems to be working fine. You can see this in his pictures that there is no nav button, along with a simple compass on the main screen. 
 

The only issue with buying a smaller gb version such as the 32gb (us version) is that the EU maps wouldn’t fit.... the 8gb version wouldn’t need this, as it would have no maps. The 8gb would just be used for the software for sync itself.

 

I went for the nav version for resell later down the line. Nothing more than that. I’ll get that money back I’d think.