I purchased a V551 from Cingular to use with my new RL back in December. I was having some problems with the phone not always working with Bluetooth.

It turns out that the V551 cannot be used for Bluetooth if the phone is connected to power. In battery mode, all works fine, but when connected to a power source it looks like the Handsfree interface is not functioning.

I contacted my local Cingular office about this, and we tried 3 separate V551's, which all suffered from the same problem (we also checked a Razr, which worked fine). This problem is made worse because the Bluetooth consumes a lot of power and will drain the battery very quickly when run in battery only mode.

So, for any new RL owner thinking of the V551, make sure that you are aware of this problem. I am still trying to get either Cingular or Motorola to respond to this...each keep on pointing at the other as the resonsible party...Cellular sold me the phone, but Moto has the warranty.

For any existing RL and V551 owners, please check this out...I am trying to find out if this was just a batch of V551's, or the complete production line.

Pete

 

gee- i hope it's not a universal problem. I just bought a V551 in the hope that it will be compatible with the RL. I'm planning to purchase the RL this fall.

 

My cousin-in-law works for Motorola as, guess what, a cell phone designer. The V551 is one of her phones, so I called her and asked if this was a known issue...it was not. If I get any resolution from her, I will let you know.

Pete

 

I have a V551 and it works fine on battery with the RL. In the beginning, I was setting the bluetooth as always on, and it seemed to really drain the battery. Now, I have the bluetooth off and I set the up arrow to be a quick link for bluetooth. Now, when I get in the car, I hit the quicklink...handsfree....yes to set up temp connection...and I am good to go. When the car is turned off, it automatically turns off the bluetooth. Battery life is much longer now.

Now, I will have to connect the phone to my in-car charger tomorrow and see if it works. I'll let you know what happens with my V551.

 

Well, I tried it this morning...it works!

I started the car, powered on my phone and powered on the bluetooth, plugged in the car charger and waiting for the phone to say "charging". I then hit the handsfree button on the steering wheel, and I placed a call. Everything worked fine...tried it 2 more times during my drive....everything fine.

Did you turn on your bluetooth prior to hooking up the charger so the car and phone could link before charging? That could be the problem.

If this is your problem and the phone is dead, I guess you could charge it for a few minutes and then take off the charger...power on and link up...then reconnect the charger.

Good luck!

 

Thanks kph3, at least we now know that it's not every phone, or at least the phone is actually meant to work Bluetooth with power connected.

My initial tried were exactly as yours... I linked the phone on battery and made sure the Bluetooth was working OK by placing a call, then I connected the power and the call failed. I might try the same experiement again, and see what happens if I take the phone off power...Bluetooth should work again, I guess.

Someone suggested that it may be something to do with the actual power cord itself, so I plan on visiting my Cingular store again tomorrow to see if we can try another cord.

Thanks for trying to help.

Pete

 

Well, my cousin who works at Moto got back to me with an interesting twist. She said that they are aware of a problem associated with car chargers, and they fixed the Moto car charger because of this. She said that it is likely that other car chargers have not been fixed, and that may be the cause of the problem.

I will be going to my local Cingular store again (who said they have Moto chargers) to see if it makes any difference. The chargers I am using today are from Belkin.

kph3, can you check the make of your charger? If it is Moto, then the story holds up, but if it isn't then maybe I shouldn't get up hope with a different charger.

Thanks

Pete

 

Up until now I didn't even know I had a problem. I never charged my V551 in the car.

Here are my mixed results.

When I follow the following sequence my phone works when it is charging.
1. Turn on the engine.
2. Plug in the charger.
3. Turn on the phone.
4.Activate Bluetooth (using my newly programmed -changing home keys ala kph3).
5. plug the phone into the charger.

It doesn't work when I follow the following sequence.
1. Start the car w the charger plugged in.
2. plug the phone into the charger.
3. Turn the phone on.
w this sequence the phone never even powers up completely but it does charge.

BTW. my charger has a cingular logo which glows when plugged in.
It doesn't have a mfg name anywhere.
it has a small tag on the cord which reads something like 'plug in after the car is started".

 

Petemc,

My charger is a Cingular charger...it has their orange logo that lights up on it just like Speedyg's. I don't see any other markings either.

Also, just came back from an out of town trip. Had the phone on the charger while driving several hours. Made a couple stops and left the phone plugged in. When I turn off the engine and open the door, I hear the phone make a sound which I think is the Bluetooth disconnecting. When I get back in and start the car up with the phone connected, I also get a sound for it reconnecting....have made several calls after this and no problems.

Hope you find a solution...try and have them switch out your charger for free.

 

I have also purchased a V551 phone and I am having the same issues with the car power cord. I spoke with my dealer and they are ordering a Motorola brand car power cord for me. I should get it tomorrow, so I'll let you guys know if it changes anything. Too bad I didn't visit this site a couple of weeks ago before I bought the phone - DOH!!!

 

Good news!! My dealer got a Motorola Vehicle Power Adapter (model VC600) in today and I exchanged my other generic power adapter (odd that I wasn't given a choice of which adapter to buy when I bought the phone since they were the exact same price). I plugged the Motorola Adapter into the phone and the accessory power outlet inside the console of my RL and it worked flawlessly - ie. the bluetooth connection remained intact even when the phone was plugged in. This allows me to leave the phone plugged in and turned on so that it is always available with the handsfree link and the battery is always charged up should I need to take the phone with me. As a small side benefit, the Motorola logo lights up in a blue colour when the car is on which matches the other blue courtesy lights in the car. I hope the rest of you have the same success with your phones. Sincere thanks to Petemc and the other people in this forum, without whom I would have just accepted my phone the way it was and been pissed off constantly.

 

Thanks for all the responses. Unfortunately I have been really busy just lately between my work and my kid's baseball, so I haven't had the chance to see if the Moto charger works for me, but hondamore has now got me very hopeful

I should have time this weekend, and I'll post my results when I get some.

Pete

hondamore, thanks for the compliment There are many like me on this forum that like to try to help others...makes a change from some of the other forums I used to visit where everything seemed to end up with an argument.

 

A small change since my previous post. If I leave the phone plugged in and turned on, the constant bluetooth connection drains the phone battery when the car is turned off. I now leave the phone in "charging" mode and just turn it on completely when I know that I am going to need to use the phone. This is simpler for me than turning the bluetooth connection on and off since I really don't use the phone a lot and most of my driving is short trips in the city which doesn't give the phone battery time to charge up fully if I leave it on all of the time. Others who use the phone a lot may find it easier to use the temporary blue tooth connection function. Most of you are more knowledgable than I am when it comes to this bluetooth stuff, so you will probably find better methods of making it work with your handsfree link. Good luck.