2009 IS250 with navigation.

Iphone 11 has been working fine with connecting to the head unit. Yesterday, that stopped. No software update on the phone or to the vehicle. I deleted the current phone profile and a few other older phone profiles from the car last night. I was able to pair the phone again after.

Get in the car this morning, start it...can't connect the phone.

Any ideas?

 

I had similar issues, so I just stopped using it and use my aftermarket bluetooth dongle.

 

Interesting! Wondering if it's a somewhat common issue. Oddly enough, it worked yesterday leaving work and this morning going to work. I have an aftermarket Bluetooth unit I use for streaming, so that could be Plan B if the stock setup remains unreliable.

 

I think it's an IOS13 bug. I use the car Bluetooth for calls, and a kinivo BTC 450 external adapter for music. This combo has worked flawlessly for me with various flavors of Android, but has been rather problematic since I bought an iPhone 11 Pro.

The main problem that I'm seeing is that after receiving a phone call, there is about a 50/50 chance that my music streaming won't work for the rest of the drive. The phone thinks it is playing, and I can control it (pause, skip songs, etc.) with the buttons on the kinivo, but no sound comes out.

Also, more rarely - maybe one time in 20 trips, the car Bluetooth just doesn't connect when the car is started. I've taken to waiting until I see the "Bluetooth connected successfully" on the nav display before driving off - if it fails I'll just shut off and restart the car.

The sound quality of the external adapter for handsfree calls is much worse than the car's built in system, so I don't use Gville350's approach.

I've seen threads on the macrumors.com iphone/ios forums people with lots of different brands of cars having similar issues, which is why I think it is an Apple thing. Fingers cross that they'll eventually fix it.

 

Bichon,
Thanks for the update! Sounds like it may be a widespread iOS issue. What's odd, it just started happening this week for me. I've had the phone for about a month now and no issues with the calling on the IS250. I don't think my wife has an any Bluetooth problem with her 13 RX. However, she doesn't have a long commute and uses handsfree on rare occasions.

On another note, no Bluetooth connection to the IS leaving work yesterday, but it worked fine this morning. Also, I did notice my Bluetooth audio (through the adapter) has been making slight clicking noises lately.

 

Bumping this one up. Despite an iOS update or two, this issue still persists. When the phone won't connect to the Lexus, my aftermarket Bluetooth unit (that I use for streaming) sounds extremely choppy; to the point I have to disconnect it via the iPhone and reconnect.

Is there a way to shut down the head unit without shutting down the entire vehicle? There's got go be a better way then shutting off and restarting the car 2-3 times just to get Bluetooth working again.

 

I go into setting and reconnect it.
tomorrow I’ll see exactly how I do it.
every once in a while my phone won’t connect. It’s android. My apple I use my Bluetooth adapter. I don’t ever have an issue going from calls to music or the other way.

 

For me, I can't get it to connect via the iPhone or the headunit if it does not pair correctly when first starting the vehicle. The only way to get it to re-pair is to shut the car off, wait a second or two and restart. I've tried re-pairing the phone from scratch as well. That was a bear! Took multiple attempts.

 

I don't know any way to shut down the head unit without turning the car off. The choppy music issue happens when the aftermarket Bluetooth adapter connects to the call audio function instead of the car.

Solved it a different way. My old Kinivo BT adapter had developed an intermittent problem where one of the channels would cut out (broken wire issue, not BT related), so I replaced it with a Besign BK01. Initially I had the same problem when the BK01 connected phone audio before the car did, but fortunately I found a work-around. With the BK01, if you hold down the multi function button on the adapter when starting the car, it remains powered off. Then after the car's BT connects to the phone successfully, I just press the multi function button on the BK01 again and it powers up and connects for music. Initially a pain in the butt to remember to do this, but it has eventually become second-nature to me, and has completely eliminated the problem.

 

I can't figure out the rhyme or reason for the way it connects or doesn't... I ran errands after work yesterday; initial connection was fine so were the 2-3 connects after that. It worked normally! I get in the car this morning, phone would not connect.

 

Despite not driving as much these days, this issue still persists. And the only way to get it to reconnect is to shut the car off completely and restart. It's a bit odd to have to do that to get the phone to reconnect. Maybe the new iOS update coming out in the fall will help. This one has been a real challenge.

 

No issues with Android.... Just sayin....