Good morning, my name is Mike and I am a long time ford fan.

Passed my test in 1990 and have had many Fords from Capri's to Escorts, to Kuga's and Focus's etc.

I have a question about my current car. Its a Mk4.5 Focus, mHEV 155 but seems to be a crossover model. It has the latest shape (which I really like), but still has the sync 3 system and dials in it? It is an ST line car. Was told at work that it is a sort after model as it has the preferred dial heaters and smaller info screen, dials on the dash instead of full digital too. I prefer dials to full digital if I'm honest... I'm 53, so just prefer the ashetics more. Whats the story behind having the older interior? My workmate has the same car but with the 13.2" sync 4 system. He prefers mine to as it easier to use he says. Rumour has it that the Russian invasion is to blame!

Cheers for listening to the babble, glad to be apart of the Ford owners family.

All the very best. M

6 hours ago, Tackleberry said:

Rumour has it that the Russian invasion is to blame!

Hi Mike, welcome.

You're possibly right there, a lot of odd things happened about that time, particularly as it was following on from the effects of Covid, global chip shortages, etc. However it does sound as if you have a very late example of a pre-facelift (Mk 4) registered in early 2022.

Focus facelift (Mk4.5) was announced late 2021 for 2022 model year:

https://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/129926-mk45-new-facelift-focus-revealed/

Hi Mike welcome to the forum 😁

Thanks for the welcome!

Had a look a bit deeper into it and well.....it IS to do with the war in Ukraine! Apparently the Ukrainians were doing a lot of work for Ford when the Russians kicked off at them. So a shortage of parts threatened to stop production of the new Mk4.5. Ford made the decision to use older interior parts so that it didn't halt production. Turns out that the crossover I have actually is a bit soaught after as it has the preferred manual dials for the heaters instead of them being integrated into the new Sync4 screen. Stroke of luck as I dont want to be faffing about with a digital screen to change the heat when I'm driving. The start stop button is in a poor positong though 😂

Cheers lads.

All the bes.

M.

If I remember correctly, there were two unrelated problems at the time. On the one hand, there was the global chip shortage, and on the other hand, the war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine mainly affected the production of wiring harnesses. There is a strong possibility that the global chip shortage was the reason for reverting to SYNC 3.

To prevent the production lines from grinding to a halt due to vehicles that could not be completed, and to clear the large number of unfinished vehicles from parking lots, Ford eliminated several options and modified various configurations at the time.

Customers who ordered a new vehicle were confronted with SYNC 3 instead of SYNC 4 and other missing options, while other vehicles manufactured at exactly the same time were built according to the originally ordered specifications. Many orders were canceled and vehicles were rejected, so a significant number of the MK4.5 versions with SYNC 3 ended up as dealer stock.

In my opinion, SYNC 3 is still the better choice. SYNC 3 is far more mature in its development, and it appears that SYNC 4 may not have a long lifespan, as Ford is switching to Android-based systems.