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The car is a Subaru WRX 2012 with the base radio.

It did reconnect automatically for the last two years until I changed phones, deleted the old phone profile, then paired the new phone. It does work correctly when phone is selected, but when I restart the car I have to manually select the phone's profile in the car's bluetooth menu. In the past the phone would always connect and music would play within a few seconds of restarting the car, and I didn't have to do anything manually.

I have tried other phones to troubleshoot and still have same problem: the phone will pair, and everything will work, but after restarting the car it won't switch to the phone automatically and I have to manually select the phone in the car menu.

I want the old behavior back where the car "sees" the phone and switches to it right away when I start the car, continuing a phone call in-car or play music over the speakers seamlessly.

geoO
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1 Answers1

27

OK, a month later I figured it out!

Here's what finally worked:

  1. Delete all duplicate audio devices in the Bluetooth menu
  2. Pair the phone using the hands-free system via the steering wheel "off hook" button

This seems arbitrary but it solved my problem. See the owner's manual page 5-38 for the exact procedure.

If you start pairing using the the radio controls you are pairing as Bluetooth Audio (page 5-33) and the car treats this differently. Puzzling.

I have the base radio so I can't speak for the up-level radio that includes navigation, but it's something to try.

Googling using different terms to reflect what I now already know I found this link which contains a lot of people with similar problems and it also explains very well:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4334614?start=15&tstart=0

geoO
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