Try two things: make sure your phone is up-to-date, and restart it.

 

Tried that. No difference.

 

https://www.techlicious.com/how-to/h...comments-/CP8/

 

Installed one today in my 2004 with Nav.

Finally retired the Sony cassette adapter, which by the way worked great for all these years. Problem was with charging iPhone and listening to music at the same time. This solved it.

Love the automatic bluetooth connection and start the song where it was left last time without fiddling with anything. Being able to use steering controls and see music info on screen is great too.

I also ran Phone charging cable with USB and AUX cable for occasional passenger use.

 

I almost pulled the trigger on a BT45-TOY, but after reading through the reviews on Amazon, I am not so sure. It looks like there's a 1 in 5 chance it will straight up fail in a short period of time, or not work properly anyway.
Also, it looks like you will be out of luck on service/replacement if you buy through Amazon vs. direct.

 

Not sure anyone on here has had one fail, and definitely not a 20% failure rate. Ive been using mine for a while now, and has been worth every penny

 

I haven't had one problem with mine. Super simple to install.

 

I'm late to thread, and this might already have been covered. Apologies if so. How much of the wood trim and so forth below the ML factory head unit do I need to remove? I'm a little skittish about removing trim that probably hasn't been touched since the car was built approximately 15 years ago. The interior of my new to me 05 LS is essentially perfect, and I'd like to keep it that way. Thanks in advance to anyone who might care to respond.

 

same here, mine has been in for almost a year I think and works great.

 

I have a Vais SL-3 for satellite radio on my '06 ML with Nav. Can I use the USA Spec BT-45 in addition to the Vais? I have emailed USA Spec and am waiting for a response but I thought someone might know the answer. Thanks.

 

Did you ever get an answer about this BT-45? I would like to add this to my Vais MML.

 

Yes, I have the USA Spec BT45 in both my LS and LX. Works great. LX required an adapter harness, LS doesn't. It's a direct fit. Sat button operates the bluetooth.

 

I have. Works GREAT! I still take my calls through the stock system though sounds better.

 

Did you ever get an answer about this BT-45? I would like to add this to my Vais MML.

Yes. They said "just make sure the the BT45 is the first one into the radio and "piggyback" VAIS after that." So, I am going to give it a try.

 

I don't know if 20%, but we had a BT45 in our 4Runner and it stopped working after 13-14 months. We also have an LS430 and just to see if it was any better, I bought a Grom unit. Same basic thing but a little bit simpler. The Grom is so so fast to make the phone connection to your car once the ignition's turned on ... maybe 2 seconds. There are no DIP switches on it. There is no voice that says "Connected!". It just displays "AUX" on the CD screen when it has connected. The steering wheel controls work fine to answer your phone and hang up, and they also work to jump between tracks.

Anyhow, either one should work fine. It's such an easy installation that I have no idea why people put aftermarket head units in their Lexi ... that's a fireable offense in such a beautiful car (plus you'll never get your steering wheel controls to work with one). Just get on YouTube to learn how to get the radio out (it's very easy). You can easily mount the mic at the top of the A-pillar trim, and running the cable down behind the weatherstripping and through the dash is trivially easy ... there's tons of room in there to work.

With either the BT45 or the Grom gadget, for a few dollars extra you can get a dongle to hook your charging cable to (or better yet, do like I did and use a magnetic wireless-charging mount). Using your phone as a nav device is far and away better than an in-dash nav unit. And Carplay doesn't do anything the phone's not already doing, so what's the point?