I had already had one my 2 trucks from 2018 with an APIM replaced. The second one now needed one. Out of warranty so I ordered one from 4D-tech. This truck was a STX so I ordered the one with the maps in it this time after giving the vin for programming. All went well and now a STX has the navigation. A bit steep at $1100 but that was the price of admission. The other way was to have Ford check out the APIM and get a failure code, submit that plus the vin, wait several days, then install. I figured it was bad when the clock, radio, and dark screen at times appeared. Reset it with a battery disconnect only to have different issues after that. So far the new one is working fine. Dealer told me that Microsoft wanted 2 hard drives in the unit when they were designed. Ford only wanted to put in 1. Said Toyota uses the same type of system but uses 2 drives and has no problems. This is my 3rd APIM in 3 vehicles since 2014. They seem to suddenly fail without warning. Perfect one day, bad the next.

 

Sounds like a built in money maker for Ford. Hope the new one last as it should

 

You can find them cheaper on eBay or from a scrap yard and copy the AsBuilt over yourself with Forscan. Then it would have been one bit change to enable Nav.

Several people on this forum also sell them for much cheaper than 4DTech.

As for the drive thing, I hate to tell you that the dealer doesn’t know what they are talking about. Sync 3 is no longer made by Microsoft, it’s a QNX operating system which is actually based on BlackBerry. As for the one or two drive thing, Sync 3 APIMs do have two partitions, just not two storage chips. I really don’t see how another drive chip would have corrected the failures people are seeing. If you have an issue with chip A and chip B is the exact same chip, would that not have the same issues?

 

Took it apart for giggles. Two circuit boards with a connector between them with pads on the aluminum finned side to transfer heat from the chips.
Had to pay the premium since I had a very small window to fix the truck before it left the state again over the weekend. So far so good.