[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note 3] Bob Simons:
tried resetting the car radio and it crashed the phone

So I got in the car, and reset the car radio. There was a reset command and also a revert to factory settigns commands. In the interest of redundancy, I did both. Then I went to read the phone, which still was pointing to the car.

After the car radio reset, I went to aux, system, input devices, add device and tried entering the car's code but the old pairing was there and it wojuld not easily let me unpair it. When I tried to delete the phone BT profile, the settings app hung. I could go back to home, but settings was stuck on BT and was unresponsive. It finally timed out after maybe two minutes, and I could then get into details, where it showed parings for Phone and Media audio. I then unpaired it and then tried to repair it.

So before re-adding it, I edited the phone name, deleting "Samsung" and left "Galaxy Note 3." I entered the code and the car said it was paired. I then got the question of whether I wanted to synch the phonebook. I okayed the car request and the phone crashed and rebooted. When it came back, it was unpaired and the name had reverted to Samsung Galaxy Note 3. This time, all went OK and I paired it and drove away with the radio playing A2DP.

I went to the store and stopped the Neutron player before getting out of the car. The radio was on the player screen, paused showing an arrow to restart the player. I get into the car, wake the phone and start the engine. Although I didn't go anywhere, it went downhill.

First, the phone pops up a message saying Bluetooth sharing has stopped, with OK the only choice, so I OK it. Behind it is a phonebook sharing request. Not that it matters, since BT pairing is disconnected, I approve the sharing request. That's when I see a message stating that there's been an error initializing USB. No wires anywhere, the phone is still in my hand, and I haven't put the car in gear. My crushed fantasy was that the car would revert back to Bluetooth AUX input instead of always starting up as line input, a choice I've never used, but the Ford apparently cant be set to either have a default input nor to remember the last used input.

So now I try to reengage the connection. I shut off the car, take out the key and open the door. the radio reset, and so restarted when I restarted the engine. had I not opened the door with the key out, it would have continued the prior session. But no joy. So I go into BT on the phone and turn it back off and then back on again. Now the radio plays.

No more phonebook message, but then, I hadn't started the car while the phone had an available connection.

I don't know any other people with cars similar to mine, which is the best non-nav Ford radio of that model year. But I see no sign that the radio is known as a POS, nor is there much hate for it out there so I presume it pairs and holds a pairing well enough to satisfy the masses.

All I can say is that it's rough as the radio can't really be changed in a car like this. the display is part of the dashm, not the radio, which has no display and has knobs similar to the heater/AC. You can screw with the inputs and outputs but you'd have to change the car to change the head. from what I can tell, swapping the hard to the nav unit would still leave the "Microsoft Sync" back end which is where the BT is so I'd just have a lot of junkyard pain and I'd change nothing. My other car has no BT.

Main take away: not happy with bluetooth

I just bought one of these aptx receivers just to have another thing to test.

http://www.amazon.com/VicTsing-Bluetooth-NFC-Enabled-Hands-Free-Technology/dp/B00E5CBHCE