SouthernBoy

So last week, Monday to be precise, I had the wife meet me at a Verizon store in Manassas. Her 4 year old cell phone was breaking apart and in need of replacement which made a new cell phone a good Christmas suggestion. So there we are, looking over 4 years of technological improvements. One thing I had convinced her on was to get one that was Bluetooth compatible (she has an '05 TL). She makes her selection and we get it and go back home. Then we sit in the garage and pair her car to her new phone.

WOW! This is really cool.. as in way cool! Here's this serious feature she's had for a year and a half and she (we) never took advantage of it.

Well, last Friday (4 days later), I figured that my '04 TL needed to be introduced to something like this. So I upgraded to a new cell phone (same model as my wife's). Got my '04 TL all set up and Oh boy.. what a nice feature!! I don't particularly like phones anyway, but this is one nice feature to have in our cars. Found out something new this afternoon about this feature. The wife called my while I was on the way home. I was listening to a CD and about 4 minutes into the call, I hit the XM button so that I could stop the CD from continuing to play while muted. After I hung up, the CD started back up at the spot where it had been interrupted by the call. Another WOW due here.

Anyway, 2 1/2 years and I am just now using this feature in my TL. Crazy.

pohljm

Yes it took nearly six months of me dogging Sprint before they finally could not take it any longer and gave me a new Samsung A900M to replace the POS original A900 blade that they stuck everyone with. Bluetooth works great and my life is good!

kennyc

hehe... I can't live without BT now...

trancemission

hahah thats great SB, I actually bought a new phone just to use that feature like a month into owning the car....

MaFreCoLa

Haha...I had my car 9 months before finally upgrading my phone.

JAB00

It took me about 6months into my new car before I upgraded my phone. I'm not a phone person but it's a nice toy to have.

SouthernBoy

Yeah, nuts, eh? After seeing, and using, my wife's BT a few times, I figured I've GOT to get one of these for my TL. It's especially cool since my TL is a manual and I do not like driving and talking at the same time with a hand-held phone. Now I don't have to. Life is good.

SouthernBoy

I'm not wild about phones, either. Years ago in my last profession, I worked for an electrical wholesale company (I was the Residential Lighting manager). I averaged 43 calls a day.. and many of them were from irate customers. So it wasn't long before I came to dislike phones. In my current profession (software engineering), I have worked for two phone companies, though I was involved in data communications.

But as you said, this IS a nice toy to add to the array of toys which come with the TL.

drdug27

yeah the blue tooth works great in the cars

MTVtec

What kind of phone did you pick up?

drat19

Count me in as another one: My "free phone upgrade" is due in April...I've been DYING to upgrade my non-BT early to use this feature with my '06 TL, but so far have resisted.

Counting the days...

Will Y.

Same here. Changed my phone about 6 months after getting the TL-- Bluetooth HFL is a LOT better than the wired earbud & mic setup I used before!

SouthernBoy: I learned early not to resist the wife since it's difficult to look manly while being "dragged kicking & screaming," especially in malls.
Plus she's right way too often...

Actuary

It took me a while to get bluetooth phone but I ordered one from France.

The only phone at the time telus had was Moto V710.. what a sucky phone

King of Pain

HAHA

I purchased a new phone just to use this feature within a month of buying the car.

But I realized half way through winter last year that I had heated seats

G2Teg2TL

I bought the TL so that I can use a hand me down Razr from my brother in law...
plus a handful other (more important) reasons.

mn2trance

I bought a BT enabled phone BEFORE I could afford the TL. And you don't have to mute your music in order for the call to come through. It'll do that for you any way. Also, if you've reached your destination already and want to use the handset, just press the TALK button and say transfer. You'd do the same for wanting the conversation from the phone to the HFL in the car.

SouthernBoy

Sorry I'm just now getting back to you.

I got a Verizon (made by LG) VX8300. I'll never use all of the features of this phone. All I care about is communications and the Bluetooth link. But the phone is very nice and appears to be quite sturdy.

SouthernBoy

Hey, you just gotta slack them around every so often.. they like that.

(heh, heh.. now watch me get attacked by our lady members).

Seriously, the "dragged kicking and screaming" was me dragging myself into a newer technology. Not that I'm adverse to this. It's just that once you get comfortable with something and see no need to change.. you generally don't. Hell, I've never even used an ATM machine! And get this.. I'm a software engineer. You'd think I'm know better, eh?

SouthernBoy

Not picking on you friend, but did you know that our TLs also have sunvisor extenders? And heated outside mirrors? You'd be surprised the number of people who don't know this. As for the sunvisor extenders, you just pull the sunvisor out, as in slide it out on its rod. It will extend about 4". This feature is NOT in my owner's manual that I can find.

trancemission

that aint no lie SB, i just learned our wipers are speed sensitive

kenny5

Honestly, I didn't really need a new car, since my other car is an 03 Maxima with only 15k miles. But since I have a BT phone, I "force" myself into buying an 06 TL just to have a BT-enabled car. Hehe ...

mlody

My phone is an old POS Nextel BlackBerry 7520 that I had before I got my TL so the first day I got the TL I connected it and since then I can’t imagine holding phone anymore, especially I have to change gears myself (6MT here)

leedogg

set up your phonebook in the tl then you can press the talk button and say "call <name>"

or when finding a place in the navi menu, you can easily call that place.

SouthernBoy

Yep. And they get confused when you're backing up and moving forward when getting out of or into a parking space.

HEK

isn't great to have this feature, the best thing is that when you have your wife drive your TL and vise versa if you did pairing correctly the vehicle knows which person is at the wheel....
Now I have to buy a GPS unit with BT that I can install on our new addition our Rubi since Jeep has a button on the radio but is just there without any connections on the back of it...any suggestions??..

SouthernBoy

Manual tranny here, too. Would never have bought my '04 if a manual was not available.. regardless of all the neat toys. If it doesn't come with a manual, it ain't worth buying (in my opinion, of course.. my wife would disagree.. but then, I'd have to slap her around some more (heh heh)).

SouthernBoy

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Suddenly the "Send" widget is now activated.

SouthernBoy

Yeah, the TL is crazy cool. Currently, we only have paired out individual phones. But the posibilities are nuts.

Mansa24

I hate talking on phones as well. I even downgraded my minutes because I never used my phone, but every since I upgraded my cell phone to work with the TL I find myself using my phone all the time. It’s one of the nicest features of the TL.

jupitersolo

This is one of the best features of the car. I drive on Gov't properties all of the time, using a handheld is illegal when there.

When I have clients with me and the phone rings, it's picked up on the BT. After I hang up their a getting a little kid. One guy told me his wife had to tell him to SHUT UP about the damn thing, when they were eating dinner one night. He was talking about getting a new car and kept telling her he wanted to get a TL.

I see many people driving their TL's holding a phone. I want to put them in my call for 5 minutes.

leedogg

One drawback is I dont really know whos calling sometimes if I cant get to my phone and just have to pick it up blind. On the other hand, I would never know somebody was calling most of the time without it muting my radio and ringing.

mlody

Before I got TL I did not know a single number. Since I got the TL, i have learned many phone numbers since that is the only thing displayed on the MID. Sometimes it is funny that I have to think before I pick up since I am not familiar with a number or it takes me half a minute or so to recognize a person on the other side hehe

Centrum

how do u setup the phone book?

bmaczo6

iTrader: (1)

This is one of the nicest features in the car. I was looking for a car I could use for business and this was a huge plus. I would not want to buy another car without it.

leedogg

I think it was something like "phonebook" "Setup" "Add" then you add the name + number

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

haha, the day i ordered the TL, is the same day i ordered a new BT celly from EBAY worst part was the phone got to me first, the wait for the car was excrutiating after receiveing the phone. Anyways its a great feature the only thing that pisses me off is every phone seems to have different bluetooth capabilities. I go through phones like water and its a bitch because i have to research everyphone now to make sure it works because i cant live without this feature now. I think its so stupid that the phone companies limit the bluetooth profiles availible on each phone they offer. Simple put by advertising a phone as bluetooth compatible it should include all the profiles neccesary to work with ANY bluetooth device, to me anything otherwise is false advertising and bait and switch, what' the point in saying its BT compatible when it doesnt work with ALL BT devices. Worst part is it doesnt cost them anymore to include these profiles as its the software that defines these profiles abilities. Sorry about the rant i had to get it out.
P.S. LG chocolate= POS with BT capabilities (atleast in canada).

evantec

I upgraded my phone to a BT one about 3 months after getting my TL. It's great not needing to reach under a wintercoat to find the phone and dial it. (Even with a side-mounted voice-dial button on my old phone, it was a pain.) Now if I could just teach the voice-recongnition that "Home" is not the number "0" I'd be fine!

Since you and your wife both have BT phones, did you pair both phones to each car, so yours will work even if you drive her car? (Maybe this never happens, so you didn't need to bother.) If you did, how does the car know which BT phone to use? Does it guess the phone that was paired-with 1st, or is there a way to set priority? Not a big deal, just wondering.

SouthernBoy

Yeah, I seem to see the same problem when I "call home". The reason is that the system interprets an "O" for a zero and home sounds a lot like "O". Maybe it would be better to change "home" to "house".

Our TLs can be paired with up to 6 cell phones. I'm sure that all it does is scan the frequency ban until it finds the phone you are pairing and links that to the number it asks you to enter. What might be confusing for it is if it was paired to the husband's and wife's phones, then both of them got in the same car, each carrying their phone with it on. Seems the car would pick up on both of them and handle them individually.

Might be good to try this.

Johnny Canuck

My new cell phone is Bluetooth capable or ready but nothing in car owner's manual about Bluetooth for my 2003 TL-S. What is first year for Acura/Bluetooth? And if I had it what would it do for me? My cell phone has hands free earpiece and mike. JC