[llninja]

I've had my 2017 Volt since November and love it. Besides the service it needed due to blown fuse at 1500 miles, my only gripe is that about 30% of the time there's no sound when I play music through my iPhone. Doesn't matter if it's plugged into the charge cord or not. Just - nothing. If I have flexibility in timing sometimes I will pull over, turn the car off and on, and try it again, and sometimes that works. I haven't found any specific pattern or circumstances that exist when it doesn't work. I just cross my fingers now when I turn the car on that I can stream music through my phone.

Is this an iPhone problem, or a Volt problem?

With my gen1 and iPhone using Bluetooth, I found that starting the car and waiting 30-40 seconds before trying to change audio source to Bluetooth and hit play on the phone causes audio to flow every time. Any time I hurry it, the music doesn't work. But a workaround when you get into this state is to swipe up from the bottom, swipe right to left to get to music, and in the lower right is a triangle where you can select iPhone then back to the volt for audio out, and the music should play.

I blame the crappy infotainment system. I had a Nissan Altima car rental over the Christmas holidays and just loved hopping into the car, starting it, and the car remembered my last audio source and streamed music from my phone almost instantly. why can't GM be on par with that?

 

[KenC]

You didn't say what model iPhone nor what version iOS you were using. I've never had BT problems connecting to the Volt with my iPhone 6. With CarPlay, I've had issues with my USB cable. Changing it to a new one fixed that problem, but when I was having problems, it did make a difference which way I connected the Lightning connection. I figured the connector was just worn out. I also used compressed air to blow out any dust bunnies in the Lightning receptacle on the iPhone. You'd be surprised at how much dust it can collect.

 

[llninja]

You didn't say what model iPhone nor what version iOS you were using. I've never had BT problems connecting to the Volt with my iPhone 6. With CarPlay, I've had issues with my USB cable. Changing it to a new one fixed that problem, but when I was having problems, it did make a difference which way I connected the Lightning connection. I figured the connector was just worn out. I also used compressed air to blow out any dust bunnies in the Lightning receptacle on the iPhone. You'd be surprised at how much dust it can collect.

Sometimes it takes more than just compressed air. The dust bunnies get compacted to a smushed goopy thing. I've taken a thin toothpick to my lightning connector and pulled out a bunch of the stuff. Reminds me of the old days when you had to pick out mouse poop off the wheels of mice with balls, in the days before the new mice with non-mechanical sensors.

 

[KenC]

Funny, I did use a toothpick first to get the bigger bits out, but then used compressed air to get all the final bits. I figured I could have just used the compressed air to start, but you may be right.

 

[aclark76]

It's an iPhone 6. Thanks for the responses. llninja, the car finds the phone and immediately starts playing it IF it was playing when I turned the car off. Are you saying I should turn it back to radio before turning the car off, so that I manually bring it back to media a little while after turning the car back on?

 

[llninja]

It's an iPhone 6. Thanks for the responses. llninja, the car finds the phone and immediately starts playing it IF it was playing when I turned the car off. Are you saying I should turn it back to radio before turning the car off, so that I manually bring it back to media a little while after turning the car back on?

I wish my gen 1 would automatically remember it was last playing Bluetooth, it doesn't. But if it looks like your iPhone is paying but the car is not streaming audio, on your iPhone swipe up from the bottom, then swipe right to get to the music control panel. On the lower right there is a small triangle that allows you to select the audio out. Select iPhone, then select the volt again, and it should start paying.