£135 for a plastic case? Save a fortune on Ford SYNC2 map updates
It's possible I'm being too hard on Ford here - maybe the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes, as always... But I acquired a new car recently, a 2016 C-Max, with Ford's SYNC2 entertainment and sat-nav system built-in. All's fine, but the road maps are out of date, with several new roads on my regular routes not included. So... how best to update them?
It turns out that the SYNC2 sat-nav system accesses road maps via a special (48MB) SD card, which slots in neatly into the central console. This stays in situ and the sat-nav application in the SYNC2 uses the card as local read-only storage.
Which means that one can put in a newer map SD card to get newer maps, right? Indeed. My C-Max came with the 'F5' card/maps'. Now, on Ford's official site, we have this product:
i.e. the F8 card, three years newer and labelled as '2019'. The card is in a plastic case, the likes of which you can buy on eBay for 20p. £152 though!
Now, on the aforementioned eBay, there are truck-loads of sellers (e.g. here) offering the card in a smaller plastic case for - get this - £18:
It is - ostensibly - the exact same card, with the exact same contents. And I should know, I bought it, put it into my Ford and there are all the new roads. Boom.
So... how can Ford charge an extra £135 for the same product, over seven times more? That's outrageous.
Now, the raw cost of a 64GB SD card isn't that far off £18, so this lower price is perhaps a bit too low, given the cost to Ford of paying TomTom (etc) for the map data and formatting it all for SYNC2.
I'd have guessed £15 for the card and £15 for the software work and licenses would end up as a £30 official upgrade. That sounds about right to me. And I'd happily have paid Ford that.
But I'm not going to ignore the actual price difference of £135 - and neither should you.
I was half expecting the F8 card that arrived to appear to be a clone or copy of the official card, but it's not - it's identical in materials and presentation to my existing F5 card. And it works perfectly.
It turns out that the SYNC2 sat-nav system accesses road maps via a special (48MB) SD card, which slots in neatly into the central console. This stays in situ and the sat-nav application in the SYNC2 uses the card as local read-only storage.
Which means that one can put in a newer map SD card to get newer maps, right? Indeed. My C-Max came with the 'F5' card/maps'. Now, on Ford's official site, we have this product:
i.e. the F8 card, three years newer and labelled as '2019'. The card is in a plastic case, the likes of which you can buy on eBay for 20p. £152 though!
Now, on the aforementioned eBay, there are truck-loads of sellers (e.g. here) offering the card in a smaller plastic case for - get this - £18:
It is - ostensibly - the exact same card, with the exact same contents. And I should know, I bought it, put it into my Ford and there are all the new roads. Boom.
So... how can Ford charge an extra £135 for the same product, over seven times more? That's outrageous.
Now, the raw cost of a 64GB SD card isn't that far off £18, so this lower price is perhaps a bit too low, given the cost to Ford of paying TomTom (etc) for the map data and formatting it all for SYNC2.
I'd have guessed £15 for the card and £15 for the software work and licenses would end up as a £30 official upgrade. That sounds about right to me. And I'd happily have paid Ford that.
But I'm not going to ignore the actual price difference of £135 - and neither should you.
I was half expecting the F8 card that arrived to appear to be a clone or copy of the official card, but it's not - it's identical in materials and presentation to my existing F5 card. And it works perfectly.
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