'Why Not Just Use Apple CarPlay?:' Woman Buys Ford Escape. Then She Notices an Unusual Infotainment Screen Glitch

A Ford Escape driver says her SUV’s Bluetooth system is pulling up strange stock photos and random internet pictures when she plays music.

Turns out, it’s happening to other drivers too and there’s a simple reason why.

In a trending video, content creator Carolyn (@xcaxgx) shares that she recently bought a 2020 Ford Escape after her previous car was totaled in a hailstorm. It has a strange quirk and she’s not sure why.

“Please does anyone else with a Ford Escape notice this???” she asks in the caption.

Carolyn explains that her Ford does the “funniest thing.” When she gets in the car and connects to Bluetooth to play music, it'll just show a random picture.

“It’s like a Getty Images from Google,” she explained. “It’ll just show a random picture of the artist. Or, like, sometimes it won’t even be the artist. Sometimes it’s, like, just a stock photo of a woman with a microphone.”

Carolyn scrolls through examples to show viewers. When playing Tyler, The Creator, her car screen displays what she describes as a “random Google photo.” The same thing happens with Kacey Musgraves, Miley Cyrus, and even Renee Rapp’s new album.

“Okay, here’s the funny one,” Carolyn says as she shows her screen. 

“Renee Rapp’s new album. What the heck?” she says, showing a picture of a random blonde teen singing dramatically into a microphone.

Why Does Ford Have Album Art Issues?

Ford’s SYNC infotainment system, first launched nearly a decade ago, is designed to display album artwork on the dashboard screen when drivers connect music via USB. But many users have reported problems with the feature, particularly with artwork not showing correctly, BlissHQ reported. 

SYNC has two ways of sourcing album art: pulling it directly from the device or relying on Gracenote, a third-party music database. Experts recommend prioritizing the device to reduce errors, but that requires the album files to follow SYNC’s strict rules. 

To display properly, artwork must be:

• Embedded in the music files
• No larger than 500x500 resolution
• Stored in an ID3v2.3 tag format

If the artwork is missing or doesn’t meet those specifications, SYNC often fails to display it. 

Is This Common?

“Yesssss and the photos are like 10+ years old,” a top comment reads.

“Spotify is to CarPlay as Pandora is to GraceNote. At one time GraceNote CD Database was the industry leader but they got left behind,” a person pointed out.

“Haha my Ford did this too and it was usually food or someone eating food,” another shared.“Why not use Apple CarPlay,” a commenter asked.

Motor1 reached out to Carolyn for comment via TikTok direct message and comment. We’ll update this if she responds.