We have had this car since May and seems like we went with false economy not getting upgraded sync and assuming CarPlay would work. We have had endless problems connecting with CarPlay, mainly but not exclusively on my Wife's iPhone 13 but also on my phone and my sons. Its been into the garage for a full system reset and update and they say there is nothing more they can do as at the time it carplay worked with phones they tried. Since we have had some success by 'forgetting car' on phone each time we start, but not always working. Sometimes the screen says 'indexing phone' and sometimes it doesn't. We have ruled out the cable and ports, since once connected it works fine with no drop outs until we turn car off. Phones all updated, had hard resets / software updates. Seems like it is a software based connection issue but who's fault - Ford or Apple, or both!  Help really appreciated, completely spoiling enjoyment of the car

Ford Sync is pretty mature now, and provided you have the latest Sync firmware then on the car side there is not much you can do.

One of the biggest failings is usually the choice of cable, look for MFI certification, and test with a genuine Apple cable. Some cheaper cables are great for charging but struggle with the data rates CarPlay demands. Use the shortest cable you can get away with usually 3ft / 1m. 

Personally I’ve not had issue with either the USB port, by the gear stick or the one located inside the armrest. But I’ve seen reports that the port by the gear stick can be “more reliable”.

 

As mentioned above, only use genuine Apple cables and ensure the charge ports in your phones are not dirty. Iphones suffer from fluffy holes😀

On 12/16/2022 at 11:23 AM, RubyLegros said:

Ok, thanks. I will try that.

If you are having this same problem, I might have at last found a fix after a long chat with apple support - turn off 'screen time' in settings on the phone. so far the phone has connected first time 5 times in a row ( I never really use the screen time thing). Fingers crossed. For some reason sync is sensitive to this. Having VPN on is another thing that can cause connection problems. My Honda CRV CarPlay does not seem sensitive to either of these settings.

On 12/6/2022 at 8:13 AM, DaveT70 said:

As mentioned above, only use genuine Apple cables and ensure the charge ports in your phones are not dirty. Iphones suffer from fluffy holes😀

Nothing worse than a fluffy hole🤣