we recently got a new dodge durango with a uconnect 430. we were told by the sales guy that we can use our phone through the bluetooth in the car. we have syncd our phones and can press the button and make calls and answer them via the bluetooth on the car, but it doesnt alert me to anything else (ie, texts, messages, emails, vm or anything else). any ideas on how to get it to work?
I currently own a 2013 Dodge Durango, and previously owned a 2012 Dodge Durango. Both with UConnect.
Using an iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, I've found that the UConnect in the 2012 Durango allowed for using phone calls, Siri, navigation, voice mail, and more, but the music playing via the BT setting in the car gave poor audio quality when playing with the iPhone 4S. Didn't try with the iPhone 5 for the BT music playing from the device.
Using the same iPhone 5 with UConnect in the 2013 Durango, I've found that I can still use it for phone calls, but Siri, navigation, and voice mail no longer play through the car as they did before in the previous model. The sound quality when using the BT setting to remote play from the phone has much improved quality and clearer. The sound quality may be due to being an iPhone 5 over the iPhone 4S, as I had read on a Dodge Forum that the iPhone 4/4S had an issue with audio with streaming music to BT with the UConnect.
The main difference between the 2012 and 2013, is that the 2013 has the GPS/Nav in the stereo system, which was not part of the 2012. This may be part of the reason that only the phone part works. It is annoying to say the least, as it defaults to UConnect as the output audo source, so I have to manually change to iPhone each time I go back to voice mail to hear anything while the car is on. As well as have to manually change Siri's audio source input, as it too defaults to UConnect, as it doesn't switch from satellite radio to input speaker mode in the 2013.
I think I found a fix. It's not perfect but it works to get Siri, google maps and phone calls working all at the same time which are the most important things to me. After you start the car, go to settings on uconnect. Scroll down to the bluetooth settings. There are 2 tabs here. 1 for voice and 1 for audio. I'm doing this from memory so someone call it out if I have that wrong. Each will say "connected" in red once your iphone automatically pairs to uconnect. In the audio tab, press on the name of your phone. This will disconnect only the audio portion and leave the voice portion connected. You can now use Siri through your car speakers! Calls will still work too. Google maps will also give directions.
This all works great until you turn off the car at which point the setting will be forgotten and will have to be repeated. It's important to keep in mind that if you now play music or a podcast off your iphone it will emanate from the phone's speaker, not your car speakers. This doesn't impact me as I'll usually be listening to sirius or fm radio when I'm driving anyway. Just like when you receive a call, siri will silence sirius until you're done with sirius. Same with google maps.
What this tells me is if Apple or (less likely) Chrysler ever add an option to save your bluetooth device as a voice only and not a voice&audio bluetooth device that uconnect would finally be usable with siri. I guess this means we can be more specific in our requests to apple and chrysler to resolve this issue. Hope this helps!
I have not been able to find where to do these uconnect settings / bluetooth settings. The menus are pretty short. I am trying to do this on 2014 Durango.
2013 durango with uconnect and iphone 5
