One of the features I'm really excited about is the Sync system, with the ability to play MP3's from a flash drive. The position of the USB jack is a little awkward though, in my view. It's in the storage console under the armrest, which is fine. But instead of putting it close to the left or right edge of the storage box it's kind of in the middle of the forward wall. So every time you put away your sunglasses, radar detector, or whatever else you put in there, you'll have to be careful not to bump your flash drive and eventually ruin it's connector or the car's USB jack.

Here's my solution. I found an adapter called FlexUSB that you plug your flash drive into, then plug the adapter into the USB jack. It's hinged in two axis' so you should be able to fold your flash drive flat against the forward wall of the storage box instead of having the drive sticking out 2 or 3 inches. I ordered mine from Cyberguys but I think Amazon also sells them. Here's the link at Cyberguys.com.

www.cyberguys.com/product-details/?productid=5482

 

You could also just use a USB extension cable and leave the flash drive laying on the floor of the compartment.

 

I agree with DM, I would rather have one of these

http://www.amazon.com/Female-Extensi.../dp/B000YQQ9HI

EDIT: actually this one looks the best to me only 3 feet and looks more solid

http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-F.../ref=pd_cp_e_1

 

I have NO idea if you can do this but can't you just copy the songs to the hard drive that's part of the stereo? I thought USB jack was kind of a "temporary" use input. Maybe the standard Sync doesn't have a hard drive?

 

You guys can do it however you want. For myself I was looking for a solution to shrink the amount of space that the flash drive intrudes into the limited space. A 1 meter cable isn't exactly my idea of space saving. Besides, the end of the cable is going to protrude about 2" into the space before it starts to bend down.

 

I use a micro 8GB USB flash drive. Hardly gets in the way. Also pretty similar in color to my car

 

Here's the way it works. The hard drive only comes with the Electronics Package. The navigation system is hard-drive based so Ford lets you use the leftover disk space - 10GB - for storing music on. You cannot copy music from a flash drive or MP3 player to the hard drive. The hard drive is only for ripping standard CD's to. It's a feature for people who don't have a computer, or who don't understand how to create MP3's. It allows the borderline non-technical people to take a bunch of CD's into their car and copy the music to the hard drive.

If you already have music in MP3 format, there's no point in saving it to the hard drive, even if you could. Just play it directly from your flash drive or MP3 player.

 

That's what i'll be doing, does it come in Kona blue?

 

If you could copy the files to the hard drive...
1. would not have to worry about finding an adapter to avoid damaging the USB plug / MP3 player or drive in the consul
2. would not need to have the USB drive / MP3 player always in the car, and could use it for other things.

 

Yep, I'm with SteveO. If I have 10GB of storage, I'd like to copy my USB stick to it. I'm anti-iPod so any iPod interface is just garbage to me. But if I can take my Sansa running Rockbox and copy the songs over, I'll be a happy camper because I won't have to worry about when to charge the battery in the Sansa.

No biggie. I can burn a CD with 20 tracks and then copy them to the hard drive. Extra effort but one way or another I'll have a bunch of songs on the HD and the USB port will just be used for "one-offs".

 

I see your point, but even if it were an option to copy to the hard drive, I'd rather play from a flash drive anyway. Then I just have to copy the songs I want to my flash drive and play them, rather than also having to copy them from flash to the hard drive. For many people 10GB wouldn't be enough anyway. I'll need about 18GB for music, although after a while I may decide that certain music I don't want in the car. I'm going to put the comedy tracks on a second, small flash drive because I figure most of the time I'll just be playing everything on the music drive in shuffle mode. I don't want a Bob Newhart comedy bit in between songs.

I guess that's another reason that I like the idea of playing off of flash drives. You might have two different sets of files that you don't want mingled together. And if a couple has different tastes in music and shares a car they can each have their own library on inexpensive flash drives.

 

I like the extra space the hard drive affords. In my mind, if it's there I might as well use it. The biggest problem though is the database that is in the car used for identifying a CD. It's not updated and will miss a lot of newer albums. They show up as unidentified. There's a work around for it, but it's certainly not for the less technically inclined.

I suppose if there was some music that I didn't want to have with me all the time or say a book on CD, I could rip it to a UBS stick and use that instead of having to 1. Rip all the CDs onto the hard drive or 2. Keep swapping the CDs out when they're done.

 

FWIW... I just made up a USB stick of music the other day. First time I plug it in, it says it's initializing... then that it's initialized... then that SYNC doesn't support USB music or some similar message. When I then go back to the SYNC menu and start over, it sees it and plays fine and displays title/artist as you'd expect. This happened in both cars, each with a different version of SYNC (Taurus is higher version than my Mustang for now).

First time I got the 'doesn't support message' I thought I'd done something wrong and wasted 90 minutes re-ripping the music again to a different stick.

I haven't taken it out of the Taurus and put it back in the Mustang yet... so is it gonna work the first time or error again like before? That would be frustrating.