Hi all, my wife's 2023 NX350 has had this weird issue since the day we bought it. when we are driving and listening to the radio, sometimes it automatically switches to Spotify. Anyone experience this? we asked someone in the Service department of the dealer and he said he's never heard of this problem. big surprise there.

 

Its likely the phone, not the car (unless you are accidentally hitting the mode button on the steering wheel while driving).

Are you using Android Auto or Car Play for Spotify? These services typically have a music autostart setting on the phone, make sure its off. Is the source phone (ie the one with Spotify on it) being used while driving? I've sometimes seen a phone actively being used cause AA to suddenly start playing the sounds thru the car. This happens mainly on my wife's Forester as her phone connects via AA automatically in that car and while I might be driving it, listening to the radio, she'll be using her phone and suddenly her phone sounds start playing thru the car. I have to keep turning the radio back on. This doesn't happen in my NX because her phone doesn't connect to it, and I don't mess with my phone while driving other than thru the AA interface on the NX screen.

 

yes the car is paired with my wife's phone which has Spotify on it. so she is using Android Auto. But spotify is not running on the phone at the time.

 

If Spotify is playing, then Spotify must be running, even if not visible via the phone's interface. Normally Spotify will show up active in the notification bar on an Android phone when it is running via AA. But that might not always be the case if notifications for that app are blocked.

 

ok i'll look into that. thanks

 

FWIW, the radio system in my 2023 NX 350h has been doing strange things since I bought it new in 2023. For a while in 2023, even though the radio was playing when I turned off the car, when I next started the car the radio would not play. Nothing I did, switching it on and off, changing channels, etc. would cause it to start playing. Then, after about 10 minutes of driving, it would suddenly start playing. That behavior continued for a few months, then disappeared and the radio functioned normally. The dealer could find nothing wrong during the period of misbehavior. Normal function continued for a couple of years. Then, recently, when I started the car, the radio would come on (it had been on prior to the prior shut-down), but then would stop and show "unknown device" after about 30 seconds. I did suspect that this was due to something that the phone, linked through Android Auto, was doing. After a couple of weeks of this behavior, it stopped happening and all was back to normal. Then, today, the initial behavior of 2023 began to occur again, where the radio is on, selected as the audio mode, but muted when the car starts and begins playing after 5-10 minutes of driving. I've just learned to live with these peculiarities...

 

Android Auto "feature". Android Auto chooses one of your media apps to be the default (it can be Spotify, Pandora, Youtube - typically it's the last one you selected manually, but not always). No matter what media app you're using or just listening to the radio, Android Auto will jump to the default media player every time you touch the volume control. Alphabet (Google) wants to control your life, lol.

 

Sounds to me like a communications time out issue. Your infotainment system is likely trying to communicate with another device and is not receiving the expected responses (unknown device often indicates a corrupted response as opposed to no response), so it waits until a time-out occurs before the systems gives up and finishes its normal initialization process (ie the radio begins to work). As you probably realize, the infotainment system is heavily networked and integrated with the rest of the car, from being able to display TPMS readings, adjust climate controls, display fuel and trip stats, etc. If this was my issue, I would (for testing purposes):

• make sure no USB sticks, cables or other devices are plugged into any of the USB ports. These may initiate additional communications with potentially faulty external devices.
• make sure no accessories are plugged into the OBD2 port such as fancy gauges or other after market devices (immobilizers that may be direct wired to the network too potentially). If not well programmed these can compete with the car's normal network devices and slow down / interfere with portions of the network.
• turn BT and Wifi off on the phone (eliminate wireless connections as a possibility)

If doing so eliminates the issue every time, you know its related to an external device. If it doesn't, then its an internal issue. Next steps. If during any start the system is acting up see whatever else might or might not work:

• Put in reverse, does the rear cam view show up immediately
• Can you access the settings screen or drive stats / fuel eco screens
• See what happens if you reboot the system (ie hold the vol button for a few seconds), does normal function return or just repeats the issue
• Are you able to turn on or off any of the Driving Assist functions
• Are you able to turn on or off any climate control functions
• Does it matter what radio source was active when the car was turned off (AM, FM, Sirius)

The goal here is not necessarily to find how you can fix things yourself, but instead see if you can find a pattern of actions that can fully demonstrate and reproduce the issue as consistently as possible, and potentially point towards a potential network device component that is acting up if not the infotainment system directly. If you can, then that's when you return to the dealer and grab the service advisor by the ear and drag him out to the car to demonstrate. If they can reproduce it consistently, they should be convincible to start replacing components. It may be a hit and miss affair though which could require some stamina on your part. I think probably out of all the dealership techs out there, only a small percentage are gifted enough to diag network communications within cars. Most know how to hook up scan tools and read service manuals, but intermittent network issues might require the guy they fly in from "X" once a month to handle the tough stuff. The parts canon isn't necessarily the best, but under warranty where you aren't paying, at least its someone else's dime.

 

My wife has a podcast app on her android and it will randomly jump in over whatever we’re listening too. Wireless connection. If she force closes the app it will not reoccur during the same trip.