With all their advantages, touch screens have lately taken center stage in the entire modern technological landscape. The history of car touch screens goes back decades when Buick equipped its 1986 Riviera with a touch panel. Decades later, in 2023, the touch screen has become a non-negotiable feature for every to-be car owner. However, the experience of touch screens on cars is often not completely glitch-free.
If you own a Ford four-wheeler and have been experiencing an unresponsive touch screen for a while, know that you are not alone. Many car owners experience this issue more often than you might imagine. In other words, a faulty touch response is a fairly common issue in cars.
So, hang on tight. We will explain the issue in detail and provide the appropriate fixes. Read on to learn how to fix an unresponsive touch screen in your Ford vehicle.
Ford Touch Screen Not Responding to Touch? Try these fixes
We have talked enough about the problems. It’s time for the solutions. Depending on the underlying cause responsible for the touch screen issue, you can adopt different ways to fix the issue. Here are a few fixes for the problems we have just discussed:
Fix 1: Check the cables, display, and fuse box
External issues like wiring and blown fuses can be easily diagnosed, albeit with care. If your touch screen is not working at all, or if it just doesn’t turn on, it’s likely because of a connection issue stemming either from broken, loose, or burnt cables or from power issues like blown fuses.
We don’t recommend you try to fix these things yourself if you don’t have a sufficient idea. It’s best to contact a Ford professional for help. But if you think you can try this, refer to the user manual of your car to locate the fuse box and see if any fuse has blown off.
If you find any cable or fuse issues, you can get new cables from a nearby official service center or ask the professionals to repair them for you. If you choose to do it yourself, make sure to buy the original spare parts from a trusted dealer.
Fix 2: Reset your vehicle’s system
If the issue is due to a software problem such as bugs, glitches, or outdated software, your touch screen will go unresponsive occasionally instead of failing to turn on. In these situations, resetting the system is an easy and effective way to solve the problem.
You can reset your Ford vehicle’s system in two ways: by performing a soft or a hard reset.
As far as a soft reset is concerned, it’s fairly simple:
Step 1: Press and hold the Power button on the control panel.
Step 2: Keeping the Power button pressed, press and hold the Seek Forward (>>|) button you use to skip forward songs. You have to keep holding the two buttons until the screen turns black. This will only take a few seconds.
Step 3: Once the screen turns black, wait a few minutes. The system will turn on automatically once the reset process is complete.
A hard reset is a bit more complicated and hands-on; it involves sucking out all your vehicle’s power by disconnecting the battery. Once you disconnect the battery, let the vehicle cool down for a few minutes before reconnecting the battery again. Then turn on the vehicle again and see if the issue gets resolved.
Fix 3: Update SYNC
Soft and hard resets can help debug your system. But if your software is outdated, merely resetting your system might not help. You will then need to update the software.
You will find the specific update instructions for your vehicle on the vehicle’s user manual. In general, you first have to download the updated SYNC version into a USB device from Ford’s official website. Then, you will need to go through the instructions in the user manual to arrive at the update screen of the system.
The update might take up to 30 minutes to complete. Once SYNC is up to date, the problem will likely get fixed, and you should be able to use the touch panel without any issues.
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