czha

I purchased a new 2011 Lexus ct200h in October of 2011. The problem I am having is that when I use iPhone (or another Motorola Smartphone) to play some music using both BT and USB connection, it crashes the audio system in the car. Not only the car “refuses” to play the music, it erases all radio station preset. As a local Lexus technician puts it “ as if the fuse was pulled”.

The trick part is that the audio system doesn’t do it all the time. Most of time BT and USB connection work fine with Smartphones. Only when I play certain pieces of music as if a “bad track on a hard disk”. Likely when those pieces of music were played, the signal caused audio system to crash.

I have worked with local Lexus dealer and they even asked a Lexus engineer from Lexus US headquarter to look at the problem. Their conclusion is that the problem is in my phones not in the car. I disagree with them. To me, Lexus audio system is at fault. If the car can’t play a piece music, it can simply not play it and give out an error. But it should not erase the entire preset. Any engineer will tell you if a system crashes because of a bad input, it is a bad system design.

Any one experiences similar problem?

hdave

SAME ISSUE!!!
I only use audio from my iphone a few times but have noticed this!

bobcpa

Just purchased a 2012 CT 200H. This just happened to me this morning; however, I did not assoicate the playing of BT Streaming from my Iphone and the losing of the preset stations....I will monitor this and see if this is the cause.

I just thought that the presets were erased due to a random issue....just another of the issues that I am keeping track of when I bring the car into service.

Bob

tsopranoMB

i"ve yet to see this issue...I'm surprised they didn't swap out the radio head unit...

Dez

Happened to me as well. Not sure what caused it, however I do use my iPhone 4 to play BT audio. Also, my audio settings (BASS, TREB, etc) reverted back to default.

lexuslover

that sounds really suspicious.

we got our CT in July 11, so it's even earlier than yours. i use BT audio w/ the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 with no issues. i also use USB with an old iPod nano. i use those fairly regularly.

have never experienced loss of presets or crashing of audio system. so i tend to think it's not your phone's fault ...

czha

More information:

I went into my local Lexus dealership on Wednesday (12/5). I tested iPhone and BT with a Lexus service adviser in 2 CT200h models. In the model with navigation, BT worked just fine. When we tested in a brand new ct200h without navi ( iike my car), we can reproduce the problem: audio crashed and erased all preset.

I think the test result showed:

1. the music file itself isn’t corrupted. Otherwise one of the CT200h won’t able to play it. The Lexus guy was thinking that the music file is corrupted.

2. The problem is in the version of software/firmware in the model of car I have.

From the replies i see here, I am not the only one having this issue. I am in contacting with Lexus Customer Service to see what they have to say. Local dealer can't do anything. I will keep you posted.

lexuslover

good to know. i should add to my post above that i have NOT experienced that issue with multiple iPhones over BT , however i do have the Nav.

so that supports your conclusions. i think you have just started a technical service bulletin!

alanplum

I had this problem after downloading a new song from iTunes.

I have 2011 CT200h with iPhone 5 using Bluetooth Audio.

Everytime I play this one song, radio turns off and I lose my preset radio stations.

I decided to investigate this myself and I think I have found out why this is happening.

Can anyone else confirm, that the radio crashes ONLY when you play a song that has a / (frontslash) in the title of the song?

Alan

holstonsp

I have had a number of issues with the base model CT200H - very poor XM radio reception, poor to fair FM radio quality, a dampening of the XM radio volume, and now this. Needless to say the CT200H radio in the base model is not what I would consider to be a luxury radio.

That said I found an easy solution - for me my radio turns off and resets to factory settings every time the title of the song is too long. (Alan - it was not having the "/" in the song, mine work just fine with other shorter titled songs).

For instance: When I tried to play "Bellas Finals: Price Tag/Don’t You (Forget About Me)/Give Me Everything/Just The Way You Are/Party In The U.S.A./Turn The Beat Around" my stereo reset. When I changed the title to "Bellas Finals" it plays just fine. When I changed a completely different song's title to "Bellas Finals: Price Tag/Don’t You (Forget About Me)/Give Me Everything/Just The Way You Are/Party In The U.S.A./Turn The Beat Around", that song then caused the radio to crash. Change the title back and viola, it works.

Anybody else find this fix to work? Let me know.

Now the better question will be will Lexus replace the radio now that it is one more thing to indicate we are not dealing with anything close to a luxury radio....

aznbo187

I've had the same issue! Radio will just disconnect and turn off randomly while being paired via BT.

Also, radio reception is terrible on a lot of stations that my older cars did not have any issues with, despite the age difference and also not being a "luxury" car.

Newhybrid

I have a 2014 ct and this happened to me as well. I have the std radio and no nav and use an iPhone 5. It has only happened twice and it was on the same day. I use the USB plug in the console so my phone charges while I drive. At the time I was using an aftermarket lightning cord and every time I plugged my phone in, it would give the std message on my phone that it may not be compatible with my phone, however it had worked fine girl the first few months that I used it. I changed cords to an original apple one and I haven't had the problem since. Not sure if that was the cure or just coincidence since the other cord worked fine at first. I hope this helps and may solve your issues as well.

orangedrin

happened to me twice while playing music via bluetooth. seems to happen on certain songs (i stream from my google play library), i deleted the one that crashed it the 1st and 2nd time and havent had a crash since.

maxfacto

s\Same same! Worked fine the first time I paired BT, then the next time, crashed and erased all saved radio stations and settings. Pretty much crashes every time. I can pair it, it starts to play a podcast and then crashes.

Has anyone made contact with Lexus or come up with a solution?

Armeeze

Just had this issue come up this morning while listening to a podcast via BT. Searched online and found this thread.

HolstonSP - I will try your method of shortening the track title and see if it works. Did you make any progress on Lexus swapping out your radio?

Thanks!

Update: I looked into it last night and the podcasts causing the radio to crash had unnecessarily long names. Not only were the names of the podcasts long, but the individual episodes had long names as well. I shortened the names/episode titles and listened to both on my drive this morning without the radio crashing. Seems like that did the trick. Real test will be when a new episode is released, will iTunes overwrite my shortened version of the podcast's name with the full/elongated name. We shall see. Thanks again holstonsp for the suggestion!