Ford vows not to rush Sync 3

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. gained a lot of technological insight from consumer reaction to its bug-ridden touch screens. It also learned a hard lesson about promising a specific rollout date before an important new feature has been fully tested.

In announcing Sync 3, the replacement for MyFord Touch, last month, Ford said only that it would come to market starting in the 2016 model year, without saying exactly when or in what vehicle. That's a change from five years ago, when it unveiled MyFord Touch and promised it would debut on the 2011 Ford Edge.

Joe Hinrichs, Ford's president for the Americas, said the company won't make that mistake again. It now realizes the importance of "having a backup plan if the technology's not ready at the time of launch," Hinrichs said at the Automotive News World Congress.

That's why Ford isn't linking the release of Sync 3 to a particular nameplate, even though Hinrichs said he's confident the new system is ready to go.

"Every product or technology launch that you have has some inherent -- hopefully very small -- risk to it, because there's no way possible to have the same type of feedback that you get from millions [of customers] from all your testing," he told reporters after his speech. "If you have a backup plan, you can wait until whenever you think the right time to launch that technology is as opposed to tying it to a product program specifically, and that's something that we incorporate into all of our technology programs going forward."

Early reviews of Sync 3 have been mostly positive. Even Consumer Reports, which bluntly said MyFord Touch "stinks" too much even to wish it upon an enemy, likes what it has seen so far of Sync 3. After spending some time with the system at the International CES show in Las Vegas, associate autos editor Jim Travers called it "a big improvement" over Ford's first effort.

"We're cautiously optimistic that this latest infotainment system could be a winner," Travers wrote.

After issuing a number of software updates and abandoning designs that had eliminated many of the buttons and knobs with which drivers were familiar, Ford is just now regaining some of the ground it had lost in its quality ratings since MyFord Touch was launched. Product development chief Raj Nair said last week that internal metrics showed Ford's quality improving in North America for the first time since 2010, before MyFord Touch came out.

But for all of the trouble MyFord Touch caused, Hinrichs said he thinks Ford is better off now than it would have been if it had taken a less risky path, saying the feedback from some 10 million customers with either MyFord Touch or Ford Sync in their vehicles can be a competitive advantage.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," Hinrichs said. "We've learned a lot."