iPhone 16 Users Report Bluetooth Issues with the Toyota RAV4

Article Comments
1

Originally published at: iPhone 16 Users Report Bluetooth Issues with the Toyota RAV4 - TidBITS

Have you been considering upgrading to an iPhone 16? Worries about extreme tariff hikes forcing Apple to raise prices recently triggered both Tonya and Lauri Reinhardt, who does support for TidBITS, to buy an iPhone 16 in April. Tonya’s experience has been almost entirely positive—she quickly transitioned from her previous iPhone SE’s Touch ID to Face ID, and while the iPhone’s physical size is larger than she’d like, she immediately appreciated the extra screen space.

In contrast, Lauri returned her iPhone 16 Plus, replacing it with an iPhone 15 Plus. She was driven to such a seemingly nonsensical move by insurmountable problems getting the iPhone 16 Plus to pair via Bluetooth with her 2019 Toyota RAV4. The iPhone would initially pair with the RAV4 with no problem, but when she turned the car off and back on, the iPhone would connect and disconnect repeatedly. It continued like that for a few minutes each time, sometimes managing to keep the connection and other times failing. Toggling Bluetooth off and back on sometimes helped, but not reliably.

Needless to say, having intermittent connectivity issues while driving is a significant safety hazard. Lauri’s new iPhone 15 Plus paired instantly and remained connected across multiple trips with no problems, just as her previous iPhone 14 Plus had.

Lauri has done tech support professionally for many years, so I’m confident in her troubleshooting steps, which included forgetting the devices on both the iPhone and the car, resetting network settings, and even restoring the iPhone 16 from the last backup of her previous iPhone, which had no problems pairing with the RAV4. She also reset the RAV4’s infotainment system multiple times. The iPhone did pair successfully to her husband’s 2019 Toyota Tacoma, but a Toyota technician said it uses an entirely different head unit.

After her own troubleshooting, Lauri had an “intense” interaction with multiple Apple support reps that included screen sharing, installing logging apps, and providing videos and screen recordings, to no avail—her ticket remains open. By the end, Lauri was outside Apple’s no-questions-asked 14-day return window, but Apple support authorized an extended return window because of the Bluetooth failures.

On the other side of the equation, the Toyota technician told Lauri that this is a known issue between the iPhone 16 and the RAV4 in particular, and said that Apple would have to address the issue before Toyota could update its system.

Others have experienced similar problems when pairing an iPhone 16 with RAV4 models from 2016 and 2022. A Reddit thread identifies conflicts between the iPhone 16 and several other Toyota models that presumably share a similar head unit. These threads don’t have a lot of traffic, which suggests that the problem is fairly focused.

The main workaround is to rely on CarPlay, if it’s available. Lauri’s 2019 RAV4 has wired CarPlay, which provided most, if not all, of the features she could access via Bluetooth. She wasn’t accustomed to using it, though, due to the need to plug and unplug the iPhone repeatedly (which would be hugely annoying with multiple stops when running errands around town), the lack of apps like Libby early on, and a cell plan with minimal data. Plus, CarPlay requires more interaction with the touchscreen—Lauri felt it was a more involved experience than using Bluetooth for audio and calls.

Wireless CarPlay would provide a significantly better experience. One RAV4 owner reported success with a third-party wireless CarPlay adapter, though it costs $70 and adds another point of failure. Amazon shows a newer version from the same manufacturer for $50 and numerous options from other no-name Chinese manufacturers.

Nonetheless, if you’re considering buying an iPhone 16 and currently rely on Bluetooth connectivity to a Toyota, particularly if you have a RAV4, try CarPlay, perhaps with a wireless adapter, and always remember that you can return the iPhone within 14 days for a full refund if it doesn’t work.

1 Like
2

I can confirm that. After reading your article, I went out to my 2016 HiLux and checked. I receive no Bluetooth signal from the car. I only use this car for long trips, and this is my first long trip this year. I use the USB connection for music playback and turn-by-turn directions from Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps. I’ve had no problem with that. I had forgotten to set up Bluetooth, but now I see that it doesn’t work.

I wonder if my Apple Watch Ultra has a loud enough speaker to use as a hands-free receiver.

1 Like
3

We have a 2023 RAV4 Prime and had a different problem a couple of times with my wife’s 13 Mini. The audio system computer would get into an every 30 second reboot loop, even after occasionally connecting wirelessly and starting CarPlay for a few seconds. The first time I had read that “forgetting” the device in BT settings in the car (and then on the phone) and re-pairing would fix it, and I was able after a few reboots to finally do this. The second time was in February after she returned from three weeks away from home, and this time it was impossible to forget the device before the system rebooted. I read a recommendation somewhere (Reddit?) to disconnect the battery and then reconnect, and this ended up fixing the problem this time. On the RAV4 Prime the battery is in the trunk rather than under the hood, so that was slightly annoying, as you need to remove the trunk liner and a couple of internal panels to get to the battery, but a standard gasoline or hybrid engine should have the battery under the hood.

I’m just posting this in case somebody else runs into this problem, but it sounds like a different problem, as the phone generally has a very solid Bluetooth connection when it works. I no longer BT pair my 15 Pro with the audio system because the car somehow “decides” to connect to my phone before hers, so I just use wired CarPlay when I drive the car alone. But the system was fine with the 15 Pro when it was paired.

1 Like
4

There are many reports in the comments on this YouTube video describing the problem. https://youtu.be/g7mtuYNaa60?si=9Dj1mdmuyfe6KJCn

My car lacks CarPlay, so that is not an option for me and I believe the USB connection does not work for calls.

1 Like
5

For connecting my iPhone 16e reliably to my 2024 Prius, I had to get and set up the Toyota app (the one with the red icon from Apple’s App Store).

Setup included adding the VIN of the vehicle to the app. Then pairing the iPhone with the vehicle (and authorizing the connection on the vehicle’s Media Center).

Toyota’s app seems to do at least part of the authentication between iPhone and vehicle. Strange but true: WiFi is partly involved during authentication (and periodic re-authentication) to ensure a good connection. [Found that out the hard way; in our family we often turn WiFi off when driving anywhere.]

2 Likes
6

My iPhone 11 Pro got a prompt to connect at once when I turned on the ignition and works the same way as always.

1 Like
7

I’ve verified that —at least using my iPhone 16e with my 2024 Priius — if you pair with zBluetooth, you must also allow the iPhone 16 to acccess with the vehicle’s WiFi network. I’m not sure which step (on the Toyota or Apple side) of the association setup actually made it happen, or how the password was determined, but the car WiFi network that my iPhone is associated with is named

Smartphone_connect_c29d36

So if you’re having intermittent Bluetooth connection problems, check to see if WiFi is active and if there is a “Smartphone_connect_[something]” active when the car is running… and that Auto-Join is enabled.

1 Like
8

Great point about WiFi. Settings / WiFi and turn off “ask to join networks” to prevent notifications to join other WiFi networks from what you use. Otherwise iOS uses a random MAC address as it scans for networks, so leaving WiFi turned on no longer leaks any sort of private information. There is little reason anymore to turn WiFi off these days - it doesn’t save much battery - and it breaks a lot of things like this.

See Wi-Fi privacy with Apple devices - Apple Support

I’m not a fan of the need for the Toyota app, though at least we don’t get constant prompts to subscribe to all of the services they offer; that said, occasionally the car’s display won’t switch to CarPlay so it can show the subscription offer. But CarPlay is running and media plays, and it’s just a simple tap on the upper left of the screen to show it.

1 Like
9

On my 2025 Corolla Hybrid, the above is what happens (wireless CarPlay). But other times, the CarPlay logo in the upper left corner of the screen is replaced by the location symbol (angled arrow), and tapping on it does nothing. It effectively locks me out of CarPlay. There’s much online discussion about this, but I haven’t found anything that allows me to dismiss the Drive Connect offer and use wireless CarPlay.

10

I have the same problem with my 2015 Ford C-max. BT connectivity comes and goes. It works OK for months and then suddenly I cannot see the cars BT.
Resets, rebooting, forgetting etc. sometimes helps, but not always, and I can’t find any pattern in the problem.
My iPhone 16 Pro has no BT problem with other cars: Kia, Mercedes, VW…

11

Bluetooth is usually fairly reliable because manufacturers just buy a chip that has the antennas and a computer to run the protocols. It makes you wonder if there is something faulty either in the iPhone or the head. Maybe not faulty enough to cause it consistently to fail but enough for intermittent failures.

12

Auto manufacturers don’t care about the reliability of your phone connections. They know you’re not going to try and invoke your state’s “lemon law” (assuming there is one) over a problem with the radio.

And this is nothing new. My iPod Classic, for example, would glitch and crash when connected to several different popular cars (including my 2012 Honda Civic and a Chevrolet Impala from around the same time), while working just fine when connected to other cars (like a Kia Sedona). At some point, both the iPod and the car stereo would crash, forcing both to be rebooted (and rebooting the car stereo requires shutting off the engine :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:).

Neither Apple nor the car manufacturers ever did anything. Apple completely ignored my bug report. I assume they decided that the iPod Classic was too old to bother with, even though they were still selling them at the time. And the car manufacturers said “we’re using software from Apple, so it’s their fault”.

So I think you would be safe to assume the same here. Apple will probably say nothing. Maybe they’ll silently fix a bug in the future. Or maybe they’ll blame the car maker for violating some standard. But they will probably say absolutely nothing.

And the car manufacturer? Unless you somehow manage to stir up a protest large enough to impact their sales, they couldn’t care less. They probably didn’t design any of the software in the radio, so they are incapable of diagnosing or fixing its bugs, and the third-party contractors have long since moved on to other customers. And we all know that you’re not going to get rid of your car because of a problem with the radio. You’ll do what I did - use an analog audio cable to connect the device to the car’s line-in jack so you can continue to listen to your streaming music and complain to your friends about the crappy car stereo.