I bought from this seller, he was great and it worked first time. He asked for VIN before shipment.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FORD-SYNC-3...72.m2749.l2649

 

Thanks for the link. I sent him a couple of questions. Probably just go this way rather then the dealer.

 

I thought the dealer was replacing a range of 2016 APIMs under warranty even outside of the 3 yr / 36k warranty

 

Just got mine replaced again after a year on my '17

 

These seem to fail very frequently. My 18 had a failure and it was even a new APIM built in 18. The one that works that’s in there now said mfg 2016

 

Thanks for the link, if you buy one off of EBAY without the VIN programmed in, do you know how difficult that is after the fact? Is it a trip to the dealer or FORScan?

 

I believe it can all be done with Forscan.

 

I questioned the service writer about that. Said it wasn't covered. Didn't feel I could argue it if the Sync 3 wasnt included it the original campaign.

 

Try referencing SSM 47288 and bring a copy of it to the dealer.

Read this:

https://ford.oemdtc.com/3675/auxilia...8-ford-lincoln


Here are more 2016 TSBs https://www.truedelta.com/Ford-F-150-tsbs-87,2016

 

There is no customer satisfaction program for covering the cost of bad SYNC3 APIMs. There probably should be on the early ones (made in 2015/2016) and perhaps eventually Ford will do that just like they did for some early MFT/SYNC2 modules (search customer satisfaction 12M02).

As far as replacements for vehicles that originally came with SYNC3 and go bad...the units built in 2015/2016 are known to have cold weather issues and high failures rates. If you have been sold one of these as a replacement, cross your fingers and hope it lasts a while and/or doesn't have issues. A true replacement will be accepted by OASIS during dealer programming and you will continue to receive proper wifi updates (yes I know Ford has issues with this but it works for some) and owner site USB updates will continue to be correct for the module in the vehicle along with ensuring the unit has the lastest firmware and software update (yes these are two different things). If you stick any old APIM that is not correct for that vehicle, wifi updates will never work and the owner site will not provide the proper update file for that specific APIM. Yeah you could get lucky and it might be the same file but you never know and you could mess up your APIM.

Too many sellers out there just want to sell you anything (even old known crappy APIMs) saying yeah it will "work" and make money rather than ensure the customer gets what is right.