[Guide] Upgrading Sync Module to show Bluetooth track info

[lwatson99]

Before this starts, I take no responsibility for this going wrong for you or if it in anyway breaks your car. This is done at your risk and your risk only. It is also your responsibility to check your car's compatibility. 

For this upgrade, I had a Fiesta, early 2013, with the Blue LED text screen but NO track info on bluetooth. I have taken photos and illustrated as much as possible, any questions drop below. 

When playing music, this is what it should look like BEFORE the upgrade

This is for UK Cars

I replaced an AM5T module with a D1BT module to make this work. (Pictured) 

First thing I did, was to double lock the car with me inside it and make sure that the radio and SYNC system were off (completely black screen). Some people disconnect the battery however I decided not to simply for the convenience of it. 

I kept the doors shut to prevent anything turning on, and I lay on my back with my feet on the passenger seats in the rear, and bent underneath the footwell. (Bring a flashlight)

As the photo shows, you want to remove the two little black screw things, I recommend using a small key or perhaps a knife. Once you have pulled it out about half an inch, you can do the rest with finger work, however the first little bit requires a bit of effort. You want to do this for both sides, so you have 4 little bits in total (pictured) 

Once you have these out, the panel should fall away. You'll then be able to see the black box module, this is what you are replacing. 

 

Remove the two cables. The larger and wider cable, there is a small notch which you need to push in, this will then allow it to slide from right to left, allowing you to pull it out and remove it. Do not pull it until the grey/white band is out of the way

As pictured, push that notch down, then slide the band/plastic to the left hand side. Don't force it, it should feel easy. Doing this will raise the cable/eject it slightly, allowing you to remove it with ease. 

For the other cable, there is a small notch to push in, once pushed in, wiggle it out and it should come just fine. 

Now you have the cables free, flip the little tray/shelf over and remove the two larger black screw items, they're fairly easy to get out so just use finger nails and you'll be fine. This then releases the black box, so don't drop it as they're fragile inside!

Remove those two black large circles to release the box. 

Once released, I recommend TESTING your new box simply by plugging it in (read the end of this post for my experience, you won't regret it) and seeing if it works. 

Once you've checked all is good, or you're just going all out, then you want to reattach everything. Follow this guide in reverse, however one little bit of advice is, the wider you make the gap between the two little grommets (pictured below) the easier it is to slot it in before pushing upwards and sealing it. You'll know what I mean when you do it yourself. 

 

With everything back together, and all in place, my car display now looked like this.

This, to me, is a much needed improvement! 

You will need to re-add your phone to the bluetooth settings and all that stuff. 

 

And there we have it, SYNC is fully upgraded.

 

Read if you have issues / These were my issues: 

So I plugged the new module in and turned on the ignition, and it wouldn't recognise the module at all, it refused to go onto AUX mode and just wasn't working. I unplugged it, plugged in the old one to test I hadn't broken a cable. This worked fine so I plugged the new one back in, first time I had no joy. Turned engine off, waited for it to turn off and then turned it back on and it showed minor signs of life with blank screen on AUX instead of refusing to go onto it at all. 

I can't guarantee this will work for everyone HOWEVER, what worked for me was going onto MENU --> And clicking SYNC Settings. This brought up a 'SYNC initialising' and after hitting AUX a number of times to cycle through USB, Line in etc, it finally woke up and worked. I simply added my Phone and the bluetooth was fine. 

 

Hope that your install goes to plan and if not, drop a question and I'll do my best to help.

[Luke4efc]

Looks nice and simple to do with this. Lot's of pictures and detailed description, great stuff! Getting more convinced to try this now I know it's that simple.

Maybe your issues were down to the fact you didn't disconnect the battery, so the stereo didn't fully reset? Just a thought.

[Banana Co]

Great guide, i'll be giving this a go soon. Hopefully at the weekend!

[lwatson99]

21 minutes ago, Luke4efc said:

Looks nice and simple to do with this. Lot's of pictures and detailed description, great stuff! Getting more convinced to try this now I know it's that simple.

Maybe your issues were down to the fact you didn't disconnect the battery, so the stereo didn't fully reset? Just a thought.

Perhaps. I'm always twitchy fiddling with batteries or anything that could majorly muck the car up. I recommend doing it, as being able to use Siri (if you have an iPhone) and also getting track info is surprisingly changing to the way you drive, and also a lot safer I've noticed as you never need to look at your phone now. 

13 minutes ago, Banana Co said:

Great guide, i'll be giving this a go soon. Hopefully at the weekend!

Go for it! Took me about an hour. Good luck.

[Banana Co]

is there any reason not to disconnect the battery? is it best to leave it? hoping to give it a go tonight.

[lwatson99]

9 minutes ago, Banana Co said:

is there any reason not to disconnect the battery? is it best to leave it? hoping to give it a go tonight.

I didn't disconnect, i just made sure that the system appeared to be Off by double locking myself in and waiting for the screen to go blank.

If you're really worried about blowing a fuse/ causing damage then do disconnect it, however i chose not to disconnect mine due to the gremlins and issues a bad disconnect can sometimes cause. 

[Banana Co]

Works! Thanks to your guide. It was so simple, no tools needed (well I did use the flat of a screw driver for the clips) but it only took about 10 minutes. Like you I had to re-start the ignition as at first it didn't seem to respond. Second time it came online and I had to delete 'bobs iphone'. Once done I connected my phone and then downloaded the spotify applink and tested it out. So now if my son asks for his cbeebies playlist I can just tell sync to play it.

All for the grand total of £28. I'm going to try and flog the other unit now. See if I can reduce the deficit a little more.

[Rob2017]

Nice guide, will follow this myself! 

[lwatson99]

1 hour ago, Banana Co said:

Works! Thanks to your guide. It was so simple, no tools needed (well I did use the flat of a screw driver for the clips) but it only took about 10 minutes. Like you I had to re-start the ignition as at first it didn't seem to respond. Second time it came online and I had to delete 'bobs iphone'. Once done I connected my phone and then downloaded the spotify applink and tested it out. So now if my son asks for his cbeebies playlist I can just tell sync to play it.

All for the grand total of £28. I'm going to try and flog the other unit now. See if I can reduce the deficit a little more.

So glad it worked and my guide helped you :) 

dont forget to update to 5.9 (download file is on another topic) if you haven’t already and enjoy!!

[Cragrat]

Hi,

I swapped my AM5T-14D212-ED for a E1BT-14D212 HA module as it was cheap £26 inc P&P and from a 2015 Focus. Thought I would give it a go. It did take 2 reboots and fuse remove / refits but I now have BT track listings. The software appears to be 04.00.10 is this current for this module? Hope this opens up options as to what will work. Photo's 1 and 3 show the installed FPN of the 2 modules.

[lwatson99]

54 minutes ago, Cragrat said:

Hi,

I swapped my AM5T-14D212-ED for a E1BT-14D212 HA module as it was cheap £26 inc P&P and from a 2015 Focus. Thought I would give it a go. It did take 2 reboots and fuse remove / refits but I now have BT track listings. The software appears to be 04.00.10 is this current for this module? Hope this opens up options as to what will work. Photo's 1 and 3 show the installed FPN of the 2 modules.

There is an update that is linked elsewhere in the forum somewhere which updates it to support iPhone voice control and a couple of other updates.

[Fiesta1.25]

Does anyone know if there’s any upgrade for a pre facelift? I have a 2010 1.6 titanium

[Pebbleheed]

Excellent guide. 

I presume this would be the same on my MK3 Focus to swap from 1.0 to 1.1?

[Cragrat]

After successfully upgrading the bluetooth module I have now updated the software to 5.9.

[Pebbleheed]

3 hours ago, Cragrat said:

After successfully upgrading the Bluetooth module I have now updated the software to 5.9.

Did you have to play with any settings with a cable for this or was it just a case of rebooting a few times to get it to work. 

My 1.1 module has arrived. I’m taking it the other way around, from a Fiesta to a Focus. Hoping it’s straight forward as I don’t want to have to play with settings that can potentially brick my car. 

[lwatson99]

17 hours ago, Pebbleheed said:

Did you have to play with any settings with a cable for this or was it just a case of rebooting a few times to get it to work. 

My 1.1 module has arrived. I’m taking it the other way around, from a Fiesta to a Focus. Hoping it’s straight forward as I don’t want to have to play with settings that can potentially brick my car. 

All it took was some rebooting - I never plugged in a computer or anything.

best of luck!

[Cragrat]

Same here I just had to reboot a few times. Nothing else.

[ThaiFiesta]

So I went to follow this guide and found my Bluetooth module is already a newer version (part number CN19-14D212-LE , manufactured 19/01/2016 ). My onscreen display, however, is listing the module as a AM5T-14D545-LF. 

How do I get the radio to recognise that I have a newer bluetooth module?

[Pebbleheed]

What year is your car?

Didn’t the newer fords have a different design of sync module?

Could be wrong though. 

[ThaiFiesta]

1 hour ago, Pebbleheed said:

What year is your car?

Didn’t the newer fords have a different design of sync module?

Could be wrong though. 

Mine is a 2014, so the Bluetooth/Sync module seems to have been replaced. 

[drward1]

On 19/10/2017 at 3:39 PM, Cragrat said:

After successfully upgrading the Bluetooth module I have now updated the software to 5.9.

How are you viewing the software version in your car? I just searched through what seemed like all the system info sections and could not see it... Could you tell me the file path you took to get to this screen? Thanks!

[Luke4efc]

On 05/11/2017 at 4:19 PM, ThaiFiesta said:

Mine is a 2014, so the Bluetooth/Sync module seems to have been replaced. 

It changed in April 2014 I believe. That doesn't mean cars registered, it's cars built before April 2014.

[Cragrat]

Hi, The path to find the software ver on my DAB radio is Turn radio on, press menu, scroll to SYNC Settings, press enter, system info and it should be there. It was different before I changed the module and updated the software but the principle was the same. I think the screen you need to look for is called VMCU. Look at my earlier post for a pre software update screen.

[ebarnes.uk]

Hi everyone

i have been trying to update my bluetooth on 14 fiesta st for two years with no luck, ford themselves can’t find an upgrade even for money and downloads from web not worked. All despite my 2009 being able to display track names. 

Resultantly just found this thread and very excited! And nervous! Any potential negatives from this - what is this module  where do I buy from and is it ready to go from box. Will it affect anything else such as sat mav

[Luke4efc]

2 hours ago, ebarnes.uk said:

what is this module? 

It's the Sync module that controls well sync lol. That's your bluetooth connectivity and so on. The newer ones support applink (google it, I have no idea either) and track names over bluetooth.

2 hours ago, ebarnes.uk said:

where do I buy from?

eBay usually. Shouldn't cost more than £60. Breakers yard may also sell you one (many post stuff like that on eBay now aswell).

2 hours ago, ebarnes.uk said:

is it ready to go from box.

Should be. Most people above said it was just a reboot to get it working.