A colleague picked up a brand new S class Jag a couple of months ago. It's one of the fully loaded end of line 2.5 versions (the 2.5 petrol engine has since been dropped from the range).
Part of the package was full bluetooth kit working in conjunction with sat nav display screen. He was given details of compatible phones when he bought the car.
Upgraded his phone, but bluetooth only worked for some functions.
After much toing and froing between Jaguar dealer and phone supplier it has become apparent the bluetooth chassis installed in the Jag is already two generations obsolete! When he asked for a list of phones compatible with his chassis every one is an old model and no longer available.
Jaguar are to install the latest bluetooth chassis FOC, but beware that if you are considering bluetooth as part of a new car it may only be useful for the life of your current phone.
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Phones and cars do not mix very well.
Car manufacturers live in a world of timescales measured in years - mobile companies cahnge their range every few months.
Hence you may buy a new - 2 year old car and find it only works with a 6 year old phone.
My son has that problem with a BMW 330Ci which is 3 yrs old now but the Motorola phone is 5/6 years old and impossible to get apart from E-bay sellers and at that you are limited to basic phone/txt msg type phone.
You can afford to run a BMW330Ci and you can only use a phone that the your paper boy would hide from his friends.
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"You can afford to run a BMW330Ci and you can only use a phone that the your paper boy would hide from his friends."
Great - It won't get nicked, it's dead easy to use, nothing will go wrong and you can buy three of them off Ebay, refurbished for about £60. I'll go down that road. I have returned to a Nokia 6310i from a 6230i just for the reasons stated above.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Car manufacturers live in a world of timescales measured in years - mobile companies cahnge their range every few months.
I can see the problem if it requires a proprietary interface with a particular type of phone, but bluetooth is an open standard for intercommunication, and there's something pretty crazy going on if it dates that quickly. If the bluetooth standard really is developing that fast, then the manufacturers of the car end of the kit should allow for software upgrades. They can be a bit of a pain -- I had to do one to my PC's motherboard when I bought new disk drives -- but still a lot easier than having to replace the hardware.
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Nokia now do a lead which allows you to update your cradle so you can update your phone available at Car Phone wharehouse,but as both Nokia and Sony Ericsson bluetooth car kits [with the latest firmware] can be bought on e bay for £60 whats the point
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Mercedes have had some bluetooth capability in their cars for years - but it dosn't do anything. They're just about to bring out blue-tooth phone kits.
MB's phone cradles have only just been updated - until very recently Nokia 6310i was about the most modern phone you could have. Kits more than a couple of years old are not upgradeable.
Friend of mine has a brand-new A4 and the integrated blue-tooth kit is rubbish. No one can hear him talk. Dealers (tried 2) are useless - just shrug their shoudlers.
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