Focus 2009 Zetec stereo and ipod integration - problem?

[scotartt]

Hi all

We've got a 2009 Zetec, bought in December 09 brand new (so < 2 mnths old at this point, not a demonstator, car built in August). I have a question about the mp3 integration on this model (which on this year/model Zetec is not the aux line-in in the glove box style integration found on the lesser models but an actual USB port inside the center glove compartment). It will also apparently play mp3s off a USB stick but I've not tried this.

Anyway, I ask a problem? with a question because I'm not sure if there is one or not.

Basic function is OK, i.e. plug an ipod and select 'aux' and the stereo will play whatever was selected on the ipod before it was plugged in. When you plug the ipod in you lose all control of the ipod from it's own controls and have to use the stereo's, which are adequate but not something that ever should be done by the driver whilst in motion (apart from skip track and volume on the control stalk).

However two things I have found with it that seem to be buggy software in the head unit. First, at least once we were travelling, I was the passenger with my wife driving and I tried to use the navigation of the ipod from the stereo controls and the damn thing just would not play the song selected. It was like it got "stuck" on the first play list.

Even at this point, turning the stereo off and disconnecting the ipod, selected the desired track on the ipod and playing it, then plugging the ipod back into the stereo's USB, and turning the stereo back on, which would normally result in the selected track being played on the stereo, did not work - the stereo unit insisted to play the original playlist. At the next convenient place, stopping the car and turning off the ignition seemed to reset the unit and thereafter it behaved as expected.

Today coming back home after a bit of a drive, we realised the stereo was only playing tracks with song titles that started with 'A'. A bit weird I know. Let me explain.

We bought an ipod 'classic' (the only one still sold with a hard disk) over Xmas, so that it our entire music collection could be in the car. I've only got an iphone and I don't want to try it blasting out a phone call over the stereo while we are driving and the other standard ipod we had was only an 8GB nano so didn't want to have to be continually adding and removing tracks to it depending on mood.

Anyway there's a lot of tracks. We realised quickly that using the stereo's built in navigation of so many tracks leaves a bit to be desired! Also we had that problem mentioned before. So we made a great big playlist with all the good driving music on it and decided to use it in shuffle mode. I think it's about 2000 songs.

Anyway today we found that really only about 200 or so are read in by the stereo unit on shuffle, in this case it was only tracks with titles starting with 'A', I guess the default sort order of the playlist is by track title.

Also, once or twice before we've had some other random glitches using the unit with an ipod attached. The navigation sometimes class out in weird ways. Once, when we had first got the car, the stereo went into a weird thing when it said it was "scanning CD 1" (2/3/4/5/6) even though there was no CDs in it and never have been. I put this down to maybe me having played with the controls 'cos we were still learning the various functions. But in light of other behaviour it has had intermittently it makes me wonder if there's some sort of software glitch in the unit.

Does anyone have any information about this stereo unit and its operation with the ipod integration because the manual is extremely light on in this regard?

Should I mention (and maybe try to demonstrate) this behaviour to the mechanic when the car goes into for its courtesy service in about 800 kms?

Any thoughts appreciated. It's the only issue with the car so far; otherwise all is happy.

thanks
scot