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Bluetooth dropping

31K views 17 replies 12 participants last post by  jdsher 
#1 ·
My 2013 (Hybrid) Limited has developed a Bluetooth problem after almost 2 years of trouble-free usage. It connects to my Galaxy S4 normally when the car is first started. After a few minutes, the connection drops, and attempts to reconnect from either end are unsuccessful. Turn the car off and on, and Bluetooth again connects for a few minutes. The fact that the phone works with a Bluetooth earpiece, and the correlation to turning the car off and on, seems to point to a car problem. I'm bringing it to the dealer on Wednesday.
 
#2 ·
One thing to check is state of charge on the phone. I usually have my S3 charging while in the car. BT can burn charge rather quickly and I have had connection drops with a low charge. Do you have your "BT ear piece" also in use when in the car? If so perhaps there is a conflict. Other than that, a S4 should not have compatibility issues. My S3 works flawless in our 2014 TAH Touring. Have you rebooted your phone lately to clear cache and install any updates that might be an issue? The other day at home my wifi and Pandora were having issues. It kept dropping Pandora. I rebooted the phone and the problem went away.


Just some thoughts. Good luck.


Let us know what you find.
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the suggestions. The S4 worked flawlessly in the car from June 2013 until today. Yep, I rebooted it, and it's fully charged. Ruled out interference from BT earpiece which sits powered off in the lower left dashboard cubby. Also tried re-pairing, and repeated connection attempts from the car. I finally realized that the only way to get the phone connected is to turn the car off and on again. Then it automatically connects (i.e. I can make a call from the car's screen), but it drops after a few minutes. Since powering the phone off and on doesn't help, and powering the car off and on does help temporarily, it sure seems to be a car problem. The problem appeared by surprise this morning when I was getting ready to leave for a 5-hour trip. Fortunately I don't depend on Bluetooth for music, rather I have a USB-connected iPod.
 
#4 ·
I have the same phone and TAH Limited but haven't encountered any issue with the bluetooth connection. Have you installed any new apps recently? Or updated the Android OS or Samsung software? Maybe unpair the phone and then re-pair it again. Perhaps that will correct whatever is causing the phone to disconnect??
 
#5 ·
Hi mostater. Believe me, going to the dealer for an electronics problem, especially one they could blame on my phone, is the last thing I want to do. I'd rather go to the dentist. But I'm very convinced that it's the car, and that no amount of fooling with the phone will fix the problem. When the Bluetooth connection drops, and I go to the car's phone screen and select Connect Phone, it tells me the phone is already connected, even though the number buttons and Speed Dials button are dimmed out. So the car's Bluetooth software and/or hardware are in a messed-up (in the software business we'd call it "inconsistent") state. And turning the car off and then on again fixes things enough so I get a usable Bluetooth connection for a few minutes. To me this points to the car as the problem. I did try unpairing and re-pairing to no avail. Besides, a Bluetooth earpiece still works fine with the phone.
 
#6 ·
I have had this happen but only occasionally, so I have not investigated it. However, I have a Touring with the Display Audio system, not the upgrade that is in the Limited. Thanks for keeping us posted on what the dealer says.
 
#7 ·
I have read on other Forums regarding BT phone issues, that having too many address entries, text messages, emails can cause issues. Some folks, as I recall on a Subaru forum, reported connectivity issues going away after clearing some messages. Some also turned off the text/email features when re-pairing and had success. That may be a way to rule out the issue without deleting messages.






Just thought I'd pass that on before you head to the dealer just in case.
 
#8 ·
The good and bad news is I had just one Bluetooth drop this morning, with no further problems during 5+ hours of driving today. I don't know why it's gotten better. Temperature-related hardware failure and the weather is warmer, maybe? Because car was parked for two days? The phone hasn't changed (didn't even update any apps while I was away). I don't want to make a special trip to the dealer if I can't show them the problem, so I'm cancelling the appointment for Wednesday. I'll bring it up next time I'm in for regular service. Sorry to everyone who's interested in this problem.
 
#10 ·
Exact Same Bluetooth Problem




Also in a 2013 Avalon Hybrid, the exact same problem has started, with exactly the same phone (Galaxy S4).


Since my vehicle is an XLE Touring, I think this rules out that the problem is Limited only. Upon seeing this, I'm thinking that there's a significant Bluetooth problem that's going to develop for all Avalon Hybrid owners after about 2 - 3 years of ownership.


I'm disappointed - I use my Bluetooth extensively for traffic information to the car's GPS system.


Just like noted below, I can get a Bluetooth connection early on, but, after a while I lose it.


I don't currently know of a solution.


Best regards,


Bill
 
#13 ·
Also in a 2013 Avalon Hybrid, the exact same problem has started, with exactly the same phone (Galaxy S4).


Since my vehicle is an XLE Touring, I think this rules out that the problem is Limited only. Upon seeing this, I'm thinking that there's a significant Bluetooth problem that's going to develop for all Avalon Hybrid owners after about 2 - 3 years of ownership.
My problem went away when last year's cold weather did, and hasn't returned. So I'm pretty sure it's a hardware failure that shows up in the cold. This year doesn't look to be so cold here in Maryland, so I don't know if I'll see it again and be able to show it to the dealer. They did make a record of it when I mentioned it to them last year, even though I couldn't demonstrate it then.
 
#11 ·
My older Samsung had this problem and I fixed it.
I recently got an S6 and it's the same, that remove, reload and all is OK.


Removed the phone and all contacts from the car.
Removed the car from the phone.
If I remember it's the remove data for resale?


Start from the beginning as the Owners Manual says and load the phone and then the contacts.


I had a conversation with the Sprint techs and they said the Samsung was linked to Google and it regenerates more phone numbers.\
The Samsung (before the S6) don't like the contacts transfer more than 300 contacts.
Because of multiple phone numbers it makes my contacts to have 800 numbers.
The car has a problem loading all of the numbers.
 
#14 ·
After 2 years my XLE premium V6 developed a weird problem. I could receive calls OK, but when I placed a call there was no audio either way. They reloaded the software with latest version. I wonder if the software locked up somewhere or the firmware got corrupted. All this high tech stuff is open for problems. Worked great for 21 months.
 
#15 ·
hi x475aws and all,

This is not just a small problem for just you, I have a 2014 Avalon (Canadian, no Entune).
I had a blackberry that would stay connected for all phone calls and streaming but would only sometimes update emails and texts. I went to a Samsung note 4 (after checking with the US web site as the Canadian one does not show compatible phones). This phone would work well for months and then not for many, it would stay connected for a minute then drop, exactly the same as x475aws. I presumed this was a phone issue, and could not find any posts here or elsewhere ;).

I sent the note 4 back to get maintence twice, before I again changed the phone (at significant cost as I do require to be in my car driving and talking) to a S6. This phone again was on the US web site as compatible, but this phone has not worked beyond paring.... So after 3 years I have replaced early my phone to get better compatibility twice at significant cost.

Toyota, changed the radio twice, and did one patch.

After 7 dealer visits (and two phone calls to Toyota, where they said it would be fixed) for this problem, Toyota finally said my phone was not compatible with the radio, and to change the phone. They have a password protected site that shows the compatible phones.

I wonder why they do not show this site on their main web site..... like US and UK websites?

I do not expect to get this fixed (anymore) and after a number of Toyota's if this does not get fixed, this almost awesome Toyota will be my last. TOYOTA is CULPABLE for not giving the info to us, and for making me spend many, many hours driving to get this fixed when they knew this was not able to be corrected.

Please be very careful if you require to talk etc on your phone while driving as Toyota Canada, DOES NOT warranty the compatibility of phones, but do keep the information private about what is compatible and the US and Canadian radios, nav systems are not the same, even beyond Entune.

you are fairly warned.... I will update this is they do come through.....

Roy
 
#16 ·
Hi Everyone;
I have 2013 Toyota Avalon Touring for last 2 year. Since last two days I am facing exactly the same Bluetooth issue as x475aws that it would stay connected for a minute then drop, and turn off the car and on, it will connect for few minutes and drop.
I never had this issue since last 2 years. I am using Samsung S5.
It is pretty sure that this is car problem and may be Bluetooth software/hardware issue.
Toyota is now using cheap stuff on high end cars to save some cost and increase profit margin. They don't care reliability anymore. which was the main reason everyone prefer Toyota for.


Please keep posted if anyone find any solution for that issue.
 
#17 ·
Testing possible solution for Bluetooth Dropping

Background: I have a 2014 Camry SE and a Samsung Galaxy S6 edge. I love the car and the phone, but had the same problem with the Bluetooth connection dropping after a minute or 2; just on the display, not the phone. The only way to get it to connect again is to turn the car off and back on.
I update my phone (not because of this) to a Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Same problem was happening with this phone. BTW the Note 7 has been a great phone so far, but I am turning it in due to the recall.
I updated the firmware with the latest version, unpaired the devices, and re-paired them. I even went so far as to perform a factory data reset on the S6 Edge, but the problems kept returning.

I have a theory that I am testing now. I was trying to figure out what would was happening every one to two minutes that was causing the link to break. The only thing that I came up with was that messages could be updating. It is not a big deal for me not to be able to access my messages on the car display, so I disabled the message link on the phone for the Bluetooth access to messages. Actually, I unpaired the display and the phone, then when pairing them again I declined the permissions to access messages.

So far, It has been working flawlessly for over a week:grin:. I will post an update if it starts dropping Bluetooth again.
 
#18 ·
Started experiencing the same problem as the OP right after updating the software on my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Tried soft reboot, wiped cache, re-pared with no effect. Sent an enormous amount of SMS messages to archive and we are back in action. Next stop was a factory reset, thankfully I didn't have to go that far.
Jon
 
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