Hi all, My 'phone was connected OK to my Ford KA Edge 2014 then, suddenly last weekend it tells me no phone is connected. When I first connected all I did was made my phone bluetooth visible and everything was OK but now my car won’t recognise it. I’ve tried downloading various apps to my phone but nothing works as they all seem to want SYNC which my phone doesn’t recognise.
Start by trying a different phone. If that one doesn’t work either the problem is with the vehicle. At that point I’d suspect the Bluetooth transponder is failing. Depending on the vehicle it might be in the dash, the center console, built into the radio, or somewhere else completely. A car audio place is a good bet for someone to solve the problem.
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@Carole25 I had the same problem recently that occurred after software updates on my cell phone. Per tech support from my phone service I did the following which worked to get my phone recognized by my car and reconnected to the bluetooth by following this sequence:
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Double check in your cell phone’s settings that bluetooth function is enabled/turned on. Sometimes phone software updates disable bluetooth pairing requiring you to turn it back on.
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Power off your cell phone for a full minute or more; not just a restart but totally powered off. Then turn it back on. Wait a full minute then repeat. Then repeat for a third time.
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Start your car.
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Follow the protocol in your car’s manual for how to pair a bluetooth enabled phone to your car.
Hope this works for you. Good luck.
EDIT: Adding what should be the FIRST step; delete your phone from your car’s memory so that when you go to pair the phone the car is searching for it as if for the first time.
See post #8 for the corrected complete sequence.
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+1
My phone–which is about 5 years old–will turn off Bluetooth if the power reserve of the battery goes below 40%, apparently in some sort of power-saving mode. I will be buying a new phone w/in a few months, but until then I have learned to check every morning whether Bluetooth is enabled. If not, then I do a full recharge and then re-start the phone. That works every time.
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+1 My previous phone’s battery got where it discharged rapidly but recharged very slowly. All sorts of things quit working properly. Turned out the battery was swollen! First thing that quit working was the bluetooth function.
Marnet, thank you but that’s the first thing I checked.
@Carole25 Sorry it wasn’t a simple fix on the phone rather than the car.
There are many very experienced, knowledgable contributors here on the forum. Hopefully their input will help you solve the problem.
Good luck.
@Carole25 One more quick note. The sequence I gave worked one time when the phone setting was still ok, still had bluetooth enabled. Just rebooting the phone once didn’t work.
I had to go through the entire three reboots of the phone with the car turned off! Only after the hard reboot of the phone start the car.
When I tried rebooting the phone with car still running it wouldn’t pair. It required:
- delete your car’s memory of the phone (I forgot this first step earlier)
- car turned off
- phone out and away from the car
- three powered off, then powered on hard reboots in sequence of the phone
- then start the car
- then go through pairing process
*** be sure to have deleted the car’s memory of your phone and have it looking for the phone as if for the first time. I forgot that in the first set of instructions
This may not work for your situation but I hope it may. Good luck. And do keep reading here for the advice on this from other far more knowledgable and experienced contributors have to offer.
If you haven’t done this already, unpair the car from your phone and vice versa, then reboot your phone and restart the car, then try the pairing from scratch. If that doesn’t work, tell us exactly what you observe at that point.
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If all else fails, find a teenager.
But seriously, if you and your tech help can’t get it to work, drop by the dealer’s service department, they should be able to check out whether it’s a phone or a car problem.
If all else fails, find a teenager.
That would be the easy way and possibly the best way.
My old phone had a bit of confusion a times trying to connect with my 2013 Sync equipped Mustang. My newer phone has no issues at all and connects each and every time.
But my new will not connect to my old BlueTooth headphones…
The multiple generations of the BlueTooth protocols sometimes will not connect to the older versions. And 6 years is a looong time in the computer world. The best I can suggest is to second finding a teenager to fiddle with it.
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Teenager? Find a 2-year old. If you hand an unlocked smartphone to my grandson, he’ll find videos to watch. It’s amazing. Kid videos are readily available on the phones he gets access to, but he still has to open the application and do a little navigation to get there.
totally not car related, but be careful about that. some of the big streaming kids channels don’t monitor what gets posted to their “kids” channels and some of it is amazingly un-kid friendly…
regarding the original post- I echo unpairing both car and phone. “Forget” the car on the phone, and start from scratch.
We are, especially his parents. He doesn’t get unsupervised TV time, as he calls it. And thanks for your post. It never hurts to provide a reminder like that.
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Makes sense. Bluetooth uses juice from the battery even when the phone isn’t paired with anything. I leave it off unless I actually need it, which isn’t often.