MikeS

The 2010 Ford Fusion blank (no integrated remote) worked great. My locksmith sold me the cut key for $35. He offered to program it for $20. No need, cause it takes only about 20 seconds. These instructions worked for me on my 2011 Fusion SEL: Just wanted to share my great, money saving experience! Mike

My dealer wants $110 to make me a 3rd key (no integrated remote). My local lock smith says he'll do it for $60, but says his blanks say up to 2010. He wasn't sure if the 2010 is the same as 2011 for the Fusion. So I guess the key Question is: Did the key blanks change between 2010 and 2011? Thanks, Mike

no problem, and just for any other readers, CSV is a standard format for importing and exporting data. It stands for comma separated values. Many applications support that format such as Microsoft Outlook, Excel, and even the old Palm Pilot PIM, as well as google contacts. If Garmin GPS's support CSV, that means you could use the same technique: (in outlook or google contacts, create a category called IN_GPS, associate the desired contacts with that category, export that category as a CSV, then import it into the GPS, to spare yourself from having to enter each contact manual onto the GPS. Mike

Are you sure about this being only relevant to cars with nav? Can't a non-nav car upload a custom address book if the auto address book downloading is causing a problem? (BTW, by problem, I mean a problem every time - not intermittent).

I was truly heartbroken when my Android phone (EVO 4G on sprint) could not maintain a connection to my new FF. The solution was to disable automatic address book uploading. What I eventually did was one by one, upload individual contacts via bluetooth. This was actually not bad because of the 500 contacts I have in my phone, I routinely call 10, and at most, 50. When a bad itunes library caused my car to go crazy, and temporarily delete the pairings with custom address books, I researched a much better approach (outlined below). Instead of one by one bluetoothing individual contacts, try this: (these are from memory from a few days ago, so the exact language my not be 100%, but it does describe the basic concepts) 1. Go to gmail (or other email client). 2. create a contact category (I called mine: in_car) 3. I associated the 50 contacts I wanted in my car into this new category. 4. export that category of contacts to a CSV file 5. download & install the sync my contacts utility from syncmyride.com 6. import the CSV file. 7. using the sync my contacts utility, prepare a flash drive so you can install the contact to the car. The advantage of this approach is you only have to categorize your contacts once, and if you ever have to do a master reset of the car (one of the first trouble-shooting steps), you can easily get your custom address book back. Just wanted to share, Mike

Everything was running fine for the first month, but then after copying two itunes libraries to a new 32 gig flash drive, it started taking about 5 minutes before the car would respond to voice commands. Eventually, it really went brain dead and would no longer see anything plugged into the USB port (even previously working flash drives), and it lost all phone pairings (and the one by one manually created phonebook). The problem was bad tags in the itunes library (repaired with the sync my itunes utility from syncmyride.com). But here's one trick: start the car with NOTHING in the USB port. When I was having problems, I was plugging & unplugging while the car was on; instead, I should have turned the car off, unplugged the USB device, and WAITED. Eventually, the phone pairings came back. Just wanted to share. Mike

OK. Here's the solution: there were bad tags in my itunes library. The odd part was my library on my flash drive worked ok, and my partner's library on his flash drive worked ok,, but when I bought the 32 gig flash drive and copied both libraries to it, that was the problem. After running the sync my itunes tag repair utility from syncmyride.com on both libraries, formatting the flash drive, then copying the music to the flash drive, it worked perfectly, and it was able to recognize voice commands immediately (not after 5 minutes). -Mike

I recently got a 32 gig flash drive, and copied 29 gigs of music to it (20 gigs to the root (top level) of the flash drive, 9 gigs in a sub-folder, one level down), not sure that part matters. When I start the car, after my FF connects to my phone, for several minutes, I am unable to use voice commands to call anyone (although it works if I click phone and dial manually on my nav), and I cannot play music with voice commands like "play artist XXX" After several minutes, I eventually am able to do it. This has happened the last 3 or 4 times I got in the car. As to the other times, I don't remember if I tried it, or just listened to whatever was playing. I don NOT think it says "indexing", though I'll double check this later this morning. I've had the flash drive a week, and driven lots, so it certainly has had plenty of time to index everything. Question: Is this because the flash drive is soo big? Has anyone used a USB portable hard drive (which is likely 10 time bigger) ?? Does this happen to you? Any ideas? Thanks, Mike

My 77 year old mother was in the car, and my mom kept referring to our car as "her" and "flow", it was very fun. We had a fun time using voice commands requesting various artists from our 32 gig flash drive with 6,200 songs (some of which she actually knew) Glad I named the Fusion !! Mike

My entire music library is in iTunes, and although it's bloated and slow, I find the benefits out-way the negatives. On the plus side, it's very good at downloading podcasts and syncing to my many ipods is of course easy and seamless. One tip: use Amazon MP3 to buy music because it's cheaper, stored as MP3 which will play on nearly everything. One thing that wasn't obvious to me (and I might share as a separate thread) is that sometimes, there are inconsistencies in the itunes library which cause problems for sync. There's a repair utility 'sync my itunes' at the syncmyride.com site which fixes this. Once I fixed one of my 20 gig libraries, all 6,200 songs indexed and I was able to use voice commands on the usb stick. Mike

Just checked: my phone button only as a left function (nothing to the right). Ratz: I was hoping it was there, just not marked. I wonder why they did away with that? PAUSE would be really handy if a passenger asks you a question. Mike

I had no idea a blade key was even a possibility for the fusion. Awesome! My taurus owning friend needs a key.. I'm going to let him get this first, and check it out. Thank you for sharing this link! Mike

Here's my picture:

Nope. the right side of my phone button is not marked. (I'll check to see if there is a right-side of that button to press, but it's certainly not marked ok) I have a picture. I'm trying to figure out how to attach it to this post. Mike

Just for the sake of closure for all these open threads, in my view: using an iPod via line-in is MUCH better if you listen to podcasts because the nav screen doesn't show which podcasts have already been listening to. Pasted below is the hack I found for goofy 2011 line-in / USB conflict: PROBLEM SOLVED! (or at least 95% solved). Here's the trick: Unplug the USB memory stick. Change the source to Line-In THEN plug in the USB memory stick. If it's on Line-In, it won't auto-detect the USB. It will stay on line-in (even with the USB stick plugged in, EVEN if the car is turned off and back on!). For me, who wants to use my ipod as line-in 95% of the time, this is awesome! If another user gets in the car (or I forgot my ipod), I just say USB and I have access to 32 gigs of music! Since I won't have to unplug my USB every time I get in the car, I no longer am concerned about wiring in a disconnect into my USB extension cable. I also have the benefit of leaving the USB stick under the arm rest (instead of convenient sticking out from the arm rest, which although convenient, made me nervous about a smash-n-grab for my memory stick). Just wanted to share my great hack with anyone who was following this saga. Thanks again for everyone's patience, Mike