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Advice needed on Bluetooth issue

6.2K views 23 replies 13 participants last post by  RafflesNH  
#1 ·
Hi all

For those that have had this issue I need your advice please.

We have had our 2019 discovery sport for 10 months from approved Land rover dealer with the 12 months warranty.

Since day one we have had issues with our Bluetooth connectivity on our Sony phones.
It keeps disconnecting during calls or music playing.

However recently we have noticed that if we select the Bluetooth reconnection for 4 times after each Bluetooth drop, the connection will remain stable for the rest of the trip and will not drop out until we restart the car.

We had the dealer look at the car 8 months ago and said they could not find anything wrong with the unit and that as our phones where not one of the old ones on the land rover compatible list then it was not guaranteed to work. (that list only included phones up to 2018 and nothing newer)

They said they could put a request in to land rover UK to look in to it but if it turned out that the unit was ok as per their findings, then we would have to pay for the work as they would not be able to claim from land rover for the man hours which makes sense.

Do you think we should take the risk?

If the connection remains stable for hours after we select connect 4 times would this be a unit issue instead of a phone compatibility.
Phone compatibility would mean it would fail all the time and would never have a stable connection I am thinking ?

I am not sure what to do before warranty runs out as we don't want to be landed with large bill but at same time having to reconnect 4 times every time I get in the car is a pain in the back side as it can take a few minutes of waiting for the Bluetooth option to come back up on the screen.

Strangely we tried Samsung phones which have the same issue but the iPhones we tried connected perfectly 1st time and every time with a stable connection on this unit.

Not sure what to do as I want it fixed but don't want to landed with a bill 😔
 
#2 ·
The only question I'd ask is where do you put your phone? I've found at times that if my phone is in the wrong pocket, my leg seems to block some of the signal in my Jag and whilst fine 99% of the time, I do get the odd drop out. If I put the phone on the centre console it works perfectly.

VERY doubtful there's a 'mechanical fault' to find so warranty isn't going to help you I'm afraid. I'd ask the dealer to ensure that the bluetooth system has the latest available software. After that, my best advice would be to swap your old phone for something more up to date. Generally go for something popular - so IPhone, Samsung etc that's likely to have been tested by LR. That is always going to be the least painful path.

Bluetooth isn't as simple as people think. Every few years there are changes to the standards - normally to support a new feature, and everyone has to update their software accordingly. Only cars rarely get updated and phone manufacturers can't test against every car, so some things stop working (or if the phone is old then the standards the car was built to don't match what was around when the phone was made).

I've had everything working great, then phone updates have come along that have made bluetooth dodgy for a bit, then a new update comes along (probably after complaints) and it's all fine again. It doesn't take much to make it unstable.
 
#3 ·
Thank you for the advice. 👍

Normally we put the phone under the unit in front of the gear selector but still happens when holding the phone in the hand in the car.

The dealer checked and said it had the latest software version on the unit.

We tried 2 different Sony phones approx 3 years old, latest Samsung galaxy s24 and a Google pixel 8 from friends and the unit still disconnected on all of them.
Checked each of these phones where up to date on software as well.


The Bluetooth crashes on the unit every time loosing the Bluetooth connection option for about 20 sec. 4th time of manually selecting the Bluetooth option on the unit it becomes stable until we restart the car next time and have to reselect Bluetooth 4 times all over again.

The iPhone worked perfectly.

Reading your post makes me think that it's most likely the Bluetooth software on some of the android phones aren't compatible with the Land Rover 2019 unit.
We could not get any of the 3 android makes to have a stable connection until the 4th attempt which took approx 2 min each time.

The dealer did say that the easiest fix would be to install an android box to the unit and use that for the Bluetooth connection to the phones.


I think buying the android unit and having it installed will be the best option to fix the issue for good.

At least that way we don't run the risk of JLR not finding any issues with the unit and we get hit with labour costs and still have the same problem and have to pay out more for an android unit 👍😊
 
#23 ·
bonjour, je confirme moi aussi j'ai un Discovery sport de 2015 et j'ai le même problème J'insiste sur la connexion pour que le téléphone reste connecté jusqu'à 4 fois pareil comme vous et depuis que j'ai changé le téléphone et plus récent à partir de 2020 que j'ai eu ce souci ça confirme que c'est pas un problème de Bluetooth et c'est bien d'une mise à jour pour radio, Merci à vous au moins je sais que maintenant je suis pas le seul qui a ce problème Mais la solution chez Land Rover une mise à jour elle coûte un bras pour juste avoir la connexion avec le téléphone
 
#6 ·
Probably find it's the same software 🤣
I've always had Iphones so little experience with Android. Surprising though as lots of people do have them so you'd think if it were a frequent problem, they'd have seen it before.
I think if it were me, I'd speak to the service manager and if it's a consistent issue, ask to 'borrow' for an hour, a similar used car from their forecourt. If it's a compatibility issue, you'll have the same problem with that and you'll know. If it works seamlessly, they'll need to explain what the difference is.
 
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#7 ·
I´d say it´s a Bluetooth module hardware issue rather than software. Since 2017 when I bought my car I´ve used only Samsung Android phones (S8, S10, S23) and never, not once the connection dropped, regardless where I keep my phone - usually in my left pocket close to door. But on other hand, also Sony is not what it used be once, so hard to tell.
 
#9 ·
Thanks all for the help.

it's appreciated.

I am going to take it to another dealer before the land rover warranty runs out for them to take a look.

Even my friend joked that his 2002 mini Bluetooth works with all phones.. Valid point I said.. 😞

Worst case I am thinking of buying a 2nd hand phone on the land rover compatible list for this unit and see if that works or has the same issue.

If it's still cutting out with a phone from that list then it's definitely the unit... not cheapest way to do it but could be worth a try.
 
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#11 ·
I had to replace my head unit to get everything working again. I just searched eBay for in my case "2017 Discovery Sport HSE Radio" and bought one for about $125. Took less than 90 minutes to install. You have to pull up the center console, shifter, and the front plate around the AC head unit. The radio box sits directly behind the AC console.
 
#13 ·
Hi, same issue here and I have read about it a lot. iPhone 15 Pro Max no issues whatsoever. Nothing Phone 2 the same story as yours. I bet Android 15 got a Bluetooth update which ruined older types of connections. iOS does not update much of the settings, so it still works. Anyway, I've recorded logs with Bluetooth crashes and sent to Nothing Support, the quite clever there, so fingers corssed :)
 
#15 ·
This issue of device compatibility will become an increasingly difficult. I have a MY20 DS with a built in wireless charger. It never worked on my phone and eventually I discovered that iPhones after model 12 had some changes made which rendered it incompatible. I borrowed an old iPhone and sure enough it worked. Now who is responsible for getting that fixed?
 
#17 ·
I purchased a 2017 Disco in February 2025 and from my journey home from the Dealership I have had the same experience, and despite my 6m warranty I was advised it's a Bluetooth update and sent on my way. The Bluetooth connection will literally appear and disappear multiple times when I get going. It's fiddly and the frustration is unreal because I never know how many times it will take before it settles (which most of the time it does if my journey is long enough - around 10/15 mins). On the extremely rare occasion I enjoy full connection from start to finish - like once every 30 journeys (I drive x2-3 per week) I have a Google Pixel 8 and my husband has a newish I-Phone (within 2 years). I so wish I was more tech savvy but I'm not so scour the net for advice to try instead haha Hope you managed to get your issues fixed, and that there is hope for me yet!
 
#18 ·
I didn't find any fully working solution. I switched from Nothing Phone 2 to Pixel 8 Pro and issue occured again. Obviously Land Rover Bluetooth and Android settings compatibility issue. I suggest everyone with same problem to send a feedback from your phone, that's what I did with hope one of Android updates will solve the problem.
I found a partial solution, in the settings of the phone, connected device, device details. When Phone calls are disabled, media stream works just fine without disconnections and connects 95% of the time automatically when engine starts.

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