Is350 Bluetooth Problems

[supe]

Picked up my lovely new IS350 F Sports in January and love it, just love it, but have been having one odd problem with it.

Quite often when I start the car the bluetooth will connect to my phone and then immediately disconnect, this happens more in the hot weather I've noticed.

I've called my dealer a couple of times but it seems now the sale is made they don't care for such fiddly issues and my calls are not returned even though I had given them very high ratings in the post-sale Lexus survey which makes me a little bitter.

So I was hoping someone out there may know if there's a fix for this problem as I formerly had the IS250 and it never dropped the bluetooth connection once, so I know my phone is ok.

Any input would be welcome, thanks.

[JTMILLER]

What is your phone? We had issues running old phones on new cars and vice-versa due to different versions of the bluetooth protocols installed on the devices.

[supe]

It's a Nokia N85.

I haven't tried any other makes or models of phones to try and replicate the problem.

[iS_w3z]

N85 auto connecting can be a little temperamental at the best of times IMO. but yeah a family friend of mine has had some issues hooking up the auto connect on her nokia to a GS430 so could be a handset issue.

[Lharris]

we have quite alot of lexus customers with nokia phones who have bluetooth issues.


bluetooth has a very large amount of different protocols, their not all the same.




it'll be the phone which is the problem, not the vehicle.

[egotzm]

I work for Toyota and have had this problem with the Toyotas a lot when the radio was upgraded about 6 months back. I reccomend a software update to the latest software version. That should fix your problem but if it doesnt then try hooking up other phones to make sure its not the radio/ sat nav that is malfunctioning.

[supe]

Did some more testing and unfortunately it happens with other phones of different types as well so it's looking like the car's fault.

[egotzm]

Yeah i've had about 5 radios in 3 years that have had bluetooth issues from factory. Usually its the Samsungs that play up with the units, Nokia/Iphone are our control phones at work we use to make sure it isnt the actual unit playing up as we never have issues with a correctly paired Nokia or Iphone.

Check in the bluetooth menu on the phone your phone is set as 'shown to all' in visibility and the device isnt accidentally blocked. If you're using a satnav unit i think take it back but if your car has a separate radio then make sure when you are in pairing mode you are using "Phone/ Audio" or "Int. Audio" setting on the radio when pairing the phone, if you are trying to pair to the radio using 'Phone Only' then you will run into problems.

If you had the car here in Melbourne id have a look at it for you, i run into these problems all day every day at work.

[supe]

Thanks for the advice, but yes unfortunately it's the built in system, if it was just an add-on one I would have just replaced it for sure.
All I can do I suppose is mention it at the first service while I'm actually there with the car and see how I go, perhaps there will be a software fix by then.

[egotzm]

Mention it at the first service or just take it back if you've got the time for the guys to look at it out the back. It is very uncommon for faults to be with the inbuilt system, usually it is phone incompatability but i have seen faulty units with the Toyota system which is identical to the Lexus one.

[jdm.racing]

have you tried turning the phone off and on again?

this normally fixes most of the problems with pairing.

if its voice quality its in the unit and you will need the dealer to set the correct mic gain level with your phone to get the best results

hope that helps

cheers josh

[supe]

Thanks for the reply Josh.

Yes, the one thing I've found that helps is turning the bluetooth in the phone off, then back on again when this issue happens. It seems to be the only thing that gets it talking again.

[jdm.racing]

not just turning the bluetooth off, turn the whole phone off and on againit should help things even more

[supe]

It's funny, since we've had the colder weather it almost never happens, for example in Summer it happened every day or every 2nd day, but now it's less than once a fortnight.

[supe]

Update - Jan 2012 - I changed phones from the Nokia to an iPhone 4GS and the problem is gone. I can only assume the bluetooth in the Nokia was out of date for the newer car.