I had my first BT setup in my (new-departed) 2006 Infiniti M45, and with my new Cingular RAZR, it basically sucked. Okay, not sucked real, real bad, but it was sorta basic communication ... the sound quality at the caller's end was hollow and a little weak. On the car end, the sound was okay, except it was too bassy and had a little echo. It just wasn't natural-sounding at all.

I was pretty much writing off BT as half-baked.

Then I got my Lexus IS350, and I was amazed at the sound quality on both ends. So were the people I called, who said they couldn't even tell I was on hands-free. Yippee!

So a couple of weeks later I got my TL, and I'm happy to report its BT is as good as the Lexus's. Yeee-HA!

So I'm a BT convert for sure. It is soooo nice to be able to say "Call home" or "Call Bill" or whatever, and then talk to people in a normal tone of voice and be totally understood. No earpieces, no holding a handset. Sweet. And the integration with the Nav is golden.

You can have your satellite radio - just don't take away my Bluetooth!
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So wait, you've had a 2006 M45, a 2006 IS350 and now a 2006 TL? What do you do

 

And why did you get rid of the M45?

 

LOL. Actually, I'm retired. I drive 30,000 miles a year, so I spread it over 2 cars to keep from getting too many miles on one car.

The M45 has a longish story behind it, but I'll sum it up like this: it had a "flaw" of sorts, in the form of a rough torque converter (TC) lockup. When I'd let off the gas the TC would unlock, then when I re-applied throttle, the TC would "slam" back into lockup. It felt kinda like when you get tapped in the rear bumper by someone at a stoplight. Or like bad U-joints. And when using cruise control on the highway, it would give the car a series of bumps like that every time I started down an incline ... like one every 3 seconds or so. VERY annoying in a $50k+ car.

After 15 months of this, and many complaints to the dealer and to Infiniti, they finally told me it's just the way they're built. That was unacceptable to me, so I worked an early termination of my lease and now they own it again.
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Wow, that is crazy for a car of that level. How is the 350? I liked it a lot (drove a 250, saw the 350) but it actually seems small for the money. Since you have both the 350 and the TL how do you compare them?

 

my sister has a 350 waiting for pick-up at the dealership, it's actually not that small. I'd say only marginally smaller than my TL. But that thing can really go

 

I prefer compact (but fast) cars generally, so I sat in an IS350 after it came out to compare to my 2005 TL. The front passenger space is marginally smaller than the TL, but the rear seating area of the IS is much smaller than that in the TL. The front space of the IS I can live with, as I'm short and trim, but I have 2 kids that have to fit in the back of a car comfortably with their school backpacks, etc. Sometimes I have adult passengers in the back, too, who would be uncomfortable in the IS. I didn't test drive the IS350 as I was keeping the TL.

Oh, and on the subject of Bluetooth: the HFL on my TL rocks!

 

Yeah, I really liked the is250 when I drove it but it felt WAY too small and the is350 doesn't look much larger.

 

It looks like this thread has deviated from Bluetooth to another IS vs TL thread. If you would like to continue the IS vs TL discussion, please refer to this thread:

TL vs IS

 

I'm a partial believer of Bluetooth, only because my phone(Samsung A900) isn't fully compatible with HandsFreeLink The phantom ringing gets annoying fast.

 

I tried the A900 and got annoyed and ditched it for the Sanyo Katana this past weekend. The thing works like a charm with all features.