Good evening all. Bit of a long one to explain the cause and symptoms, but here we go. I have an issue with the Aux and Phone functions of my Sony DAB radio unit. 

Issue started when I had an electrical issue on the motorway. Driving along and I got a few warnings, beginning with "Hill start assist not available", and also included something about a voltage issue (maybe more relevant). This put the car into limp mode, but pulling over, stopping, waiting a bit, and then starting put everything right with the exception of the radio etc., which was all dead (no screen, nothing). The issue has occurred neither before nor since, and there have been no other symptoms. 

Fast forward a radio-less year, and I eventually bought a second hand unit with LCD and buttons off ebay. I replaced the radio unit. No joy. Replaced the buttons, no joy. Replaced the LCD, and everything sprang back into life. I even reinstalled the original radio unit and buttons and it turns out that the LCD was the only issue. 

Hooray, I have a radio. My phone connected via Bluetooth, and I could hear calls through the speakers, so I can be 100% sure that there is a Bluetooth connection. 

However, if I press the Aux button, it mutes for a fraction of a second, the menu flickers, but returns immediately to radio. The phone button does nothing. (see video here: https://1drv.ms/v/s!An6VJFGGmT1Cp_Z3HAEse4d9KxcHaw)

If I try and pair a phone, I get the audible "enter the pin displayed on the screen into your mobile phone" message, but still the display remains on radio and so I cannot see the pin. 

I simply cannot fathom the issue and I'm hoping providing this detail can trigger inspiration from someone with more talent than me for these things. 

Can I reset the system? I've tried to research how to reset the SYNC system but cannot find anything that seems to be relevant to this model. 

I've disconnected the battery for an hour to no avail. I feel like there should be a simple fix but it escapes me for now. 

find out what the system is and check if they had issues - its a mk 3 ? ( sounds a bit early for me...) - I'm guessing this early its a sync 1  that was I believe soon updated to newer hardware with sync 1.1 - which def had updates) - I would have thrown in a skip and moved to sync 2 with a big screen when buying new bits

 

this post goes round the houses saying if you add a Sat Nav version BT goes stupid (which could be your new problem)... till you swap a link connector to a dim wit one for basic cars - see bold below

 

https://www.talkford.com/threads/mca-sat-nav-upgrade.396143/

 

Quote

Can anyone help me ?. I have a titanium 2011 mondeo estate with sony dab stereo.I have now fitted the MCA Sat Nav thinking this would be a great upgrade........

Now voice commands do not work and android bluetooth streaming does not work any more . Does anybody no why and is there a fix ? .Definitely does not fell like an upgrade.

 

1. The Sony-Soundsystem.

It consists of the radio itself, of course. The Sony radio was available in many different versions, even on pre-Facelift. But let's only look the facelift version. It has two aerial inputs (black and white Fakra plugs), both located on each rear side window of your car. If the Sony is equiped with DAB (not to mix with DAB+ which is different) it has a DAB-receiver inside the radio. To get more gain out of the aerials, there are two amplifiers put inline to the cable. They are different for DAB than for normal FM/AM broadcast.

Most Mondeos are built with voice-control and hands-free-speaking for making phone calls. You see this by the buttons on the wheel stalk. For this to work, there is a additional module located behind/above the glovebox, let's call it the Bluetooth-Module. The car's microphone, located in the glasses compartment in the roof is directly connected to this module. The audio output of the module is connected to the AUX input of the radio. The module itself has a Bluetooth modem where it is able to couple a smartphone for handsfree. Also, the module is connected to the car's Multi-Media CAN-Bus (MM-CAN) where it can communicate with the central processing unit (BCM) and other parts of audio.

Now if you press the voicecontrol button on the stalk, the BCM is sending a command via CAN through the cluster instrument (which in this case is the gateway between the car's multi-media-bus and the comfort-bus, MS-CAN) to the bluetooth module. This sends a CAN command to the radio, telling it to switch into AUX mode, so the driver can hear the voice-command audio output. The drivers speech is taken from the microphone into the module, get's digitzed and result in different CAN-commands going back into the cars module to e.g. turn up the cabin temperature by one degree. If you doing a phone call, it's similar to this.

Cars without the advanced Sound&Connect package only have this simple Bluetooth-module. Those modules have 19G448 as their middle partnumber. The later more advanced modules with 19C112 or 14D202 can also be used as music-player using the A2DP standard (music stream over bluetooth) and can also use a USB-stick to play MP3 music files from it. The module itself is connected in exact the same way, so it could be changed by plug-n-play replacement.

One last important thing to know is, that because the system is integrated into other parts of the car, the central car configuration is set in a way, that other modules know how to handle the commands comming by CAN.

2. The satnav system from Bosch/Blaupunkt (MCA)

For the facelift there was only the MCA available, as the most advanced kind of this navigation/radio system. In most cases it comes with Sound&Connect. Now, there was some slight, but very important differences in compare to the relative simple Sony radio. First, this is not only a radio and a navigation system, it is also used for climate controls instead of the separate standalone-module, which is used with the Sony or other simple radios. For this there is a climate control module mounted under the radio-case, but having no direct connection to the radio. It is some kind of headless-system for the MCA, which only communicated via CAN-Bus with it.

Another difference is, that the developers of the MCA built an own voice-recognition into the satnavs electronics, where it is able to control everything, even navigation with it. To get this working, the microphone needs to be connected to the radio first and will then be routed via a special output towards the bluetooth-module to be used for handsfree-phonecalls. And of course the satnav gives it's voice output directly through the internal amplifier to the speakers. That is, the voice control function of the bluetooth-module it not used at all, it's completly bypassed. For using handsfree, there are connections for audio-in and audio-out from the module to the satnav. Also the audio from streamed music via bluetooth is routed into the satnav.

Now, you should have a slight impression that both audio systems are differently connected and beneath the fact that the audio signals are routed differently, you can imagine the car's module needs a different setup to cope. This is done by the so called Audio-Adaptor (Loop-Adaptor) which is placed in the wiring harness of the audio systems and is located near the bluetooth-module. It is different for each combination of audio-equipment (you find a list of available types here in my Wiki: https://mk4-wiki.denkdose.de/artikel/audio_navigation/audio-codierstecker).The one needed for MCA to work properly is the one having BA in it's partnumber <a>(https://mk4-wiki.denkdose.de/artikel/audio_navigation/loop_pinbelegung_ba).</a> It's purpose is to corretly connect the periphals (mic, etc.) with the radio and the bluetooth-module.

And at last you need to program your cars configuration (called "CCC", central-car-configuration) to reflect those changes.
 

 

Bosch stupidly called this Sat Nav feature some car's have "MCA" you could if you've now got the Nav version, update its brain via an SD card - it seems to update when you load later maps - but seems here you can do a stand alone service pack to 2015

 

https://fordcom.de/download/update-mca-mca-plus-sp2015/

@Botus Thank you for all this information, your reply is very much appreciated. 

It is a Mk3 with what I think is early SYNC version. 

I replaced the parts like-for-like thinking it would solve things cheaply, but the more I read about issues with this system, the more I think that spending on an aftermarket 3rd party system is worthwhile!

For now, I at least have radio and clock back, so the worst case scenario is that it remains like that. I will read through your suggestions and see if there is any more I can look at but that won't be before this weekend. Thanks again. 

So for now I think it's a case of put up with radio only, or look to replace with an after market upgrade. I've tried all sorts of suggestions, but not being able to get to Sync menu is limiting. The third possibility of taking it to Ford fills me with dread, given their initial quote of £700 to fix something that cost pennies on fleabay. 

59 minutes ago, JNolan said:

Ford fills me with dread, given their initial quote of £700 to fix something that cost pennies on fleabay. 

Upgrading to Sync3 wouldn't even cost you that much

trying to make sense of your first post

something died - then after a year you bought a whole set up and went about playing...

nothing worked until you'd ended up fitting the whole secondhand setup - AT THIS POINT DID IT ALL WORK CORRECTLY ?   you then refitted your orig headunit and now its not behaving correctly

there is likely a simple software clash - in today's world just coz components seem similar and clip together - doesn't mean the hardware is the same - and almost certainly the software was a malfunctioning joke when it left the building and highly likely no one ever updated it to a slightly less buggy iteration - and even so configuring the stuff to suit each car is normal

I'd go back to the set up of all the spare bits you bought and check that - I don't know enough but I expect its a tiny bit of set up in one module stopping canbus signal going round

my initial reply - was related to the small issue of the mic seems to be out of circuit...    but just now you wrote - "I can't get at the sync menus" (see bold)

 

 

Having bought the components it turned out that the only failing hardware was the LCD screen, so this was all I replaced. Swapping out any of the items (radio unit, button fascia) yields exactly the same symptoms. It didn't work correctly even when I had the whole 'new' set of components installed. 

I will get beck to it and methodically check things out and note the symptoms and see if I can fathom it. 

33 minutes ago, JNolan said:

Having bought the components it turned out that the only failing hardware was the LCD screen, so this was all I replaced. Swapping out any of the items (radio unit, button fascia) yields exactly the same symptoms. It didn't work correctly even when I had the whole 'new' set of components installed. 

I will get beck to it and methodically check things out and note the symptoms and see if I can fathom it. 

If you have access to FORScan you can run a master reset of the modules and see if that fixes it