Entune trouble... "LET'S GET IT FIXED"

[rigtec]

G'day team,

Very recently I've noticed an exponential upsurge of member concerns and questions about their 'Entune' navigation and audio systems. There are just tons of posts and exchanges from people trying to make sense of the fact that, instead of making life a lot easier, these systems have become the source of much anguish and frustration for most of us.

About 5 weeks ago I posted this: http://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-gen-t4rs/162771-2014-entune-problems-2.html#post1760269 ...a TS-B (technical service bulletin) regarding Toyota's 'flawed software' design that drives our multimedia function touchscreen head unit. I've been to my local Toyota dealership (where I bought my 4R ltd) many times in hopes of getting some resolution to this problematic system.

I was asked to call "Toyota Corporation of America" to advise them of my particular nav issues and to find out what's being done about this. The last time I called, they generated a case number for reference during a potential on-going service ticket. But when I called them today (9/4/14), the first girl that spoke to was asking a million questions, then constantly putting me on hold; what she was doing I couldn't tell you because all of the details of this problem were already documented during the previous call.

At some point I could feel my blood begin to boil. This "7'th grade drop-out" was trying to make it appear as though she was being very through, taking all these specific details e.g., "what kind of cell phone do you have sir?" Who is your service carrier?" "How often do you cycle your phone?" "Have you tried removing your battery before restarting?" yada, yada, yada! That's when I yelled... "STOP!!" Then said... "First off, Toyota has already generated a case number, which means that they have already collected all of this information from me!" "Further more... The problems that I'm experiencing w/my 4runner ARE NOT germane to my particular vehicle.

The people that this problem affects are using "Android, iphone, Galaxy 5, Black berry, Sprint, Verizon, At&T, T-mobile... So don't waste my valuable time pretending that this is the first time that you're hearing about this issue; and if it is... then Toyota needs to hire some qualified service people who are able to hone in on a problem using the tons of information that has already been collected... you're in WAY over your head here sweety! PUT SOMEBODY ELSE ON THE PHONE" She says: "Hold on"... Believe it or not, I had the very same conversation with the next "6'th grade" office girl (Heather) that picked up.

Here's the thing. I think we have a much better chance of getting Toyota's attention if we start hitting them as a group; we've certainly got the resource here to do it! I'm posting toyota's "Contact Us" information here. Contacting Toyota | Plug In America

'PLEASE', over the next couple of months if we swamp their "CSR's" with an overload of calls about this, and stacks of emails to sift through, it'll get upstairs to the BIG-WIGS and CEO's (on the golf course). Toyota is totally image conscious, and highly motivated to keep customer complaints from becoming "wide spread or viral"! This may be the one opportunity we've needed to get something done about this 'epic fail' on Toyota's part; please call, write (snail-mail) or email them until we get their attention! This is "The largest Toyota 4Runner forum", so let's use that to our full advantage! Together we can do it! :grouphug:

rigtec, cheers!

 

[rigtec]

For those who are interested in this subject (Entune), I received two calls today (Fri 9/5/14); one from toyota corporate, and one from toyota of Hackensack, the dealership where I purchased my 4R. Apparently there's been some discussion regarding our 'Entune issues' (w/o any further prompting from me). I spoke with the service mgr (Louie) over there because he wanted to know what's been happening with this situation; he heard about my rant w/ corporate yesterday and wanted to find out for himself exactly what's happening.

I explained just why I flipped out on the phone with the untrained "Service personal" and he was somewhat 'put-off' regarding the lack of training of staff and understood completely. I also explained to him what you all have been experiencing with your 2011 to 2014 entune systems. I told him who you are e.g., first time 4runner owners, long term 4r owners, and very loyal and committed toyota customers. He asked me for a link to your entune forum posts, so I gave him... THE MOTHER LOAD! He likely hasn't read your posts yet as we just got off of the phone moments ago, so I'm hoping you'll let your voices be heard through your posts here; Whatever you say here WILL GET BACK to corporate so don't hold back... "just say it!" I'll be checking in here to keep you posted of any progress w/ Toyota corp!

Greg (rigtec) cheers

 

[T4Argh]

Thanks for looking into this. Entune for me has been :yell::cry2: I'm looking forward to seeing what's going to be done about it.

 

[crackiswack]

Thanks for looking into this, but did you really have to be such a chauvinist to the CSRs?

 

[Kenworth]

I think he did! I myself am about sick of dealing with cust service people that
Don't have a clue.

 

[rigtec]

We'll just keep poking away at their "Blind eye" and deaf ear 'til they hear us! A group can be a very powerful tool ** if it's focused **. I think it would be a tragedy if all of these people here, with legitimate problems with these toyota trucks had an opportunity to have the attention of "Toyota corporation world wide" and did nothing... just slept on it. I've already got their attention and a case number because I made some phone calls and won't go away. My objective here is to make sure that Toyota recognizes you as well. So we "Group-up" so that Toyota can assess the scope of the problem properly. If this entune issue had been a safety issue, it would have been resolved a long time ago; not because of 'SAFETY' in and of itself, but because it would have gained the attention of the public which could potentially compromise Toyota's family friendly 'IMAGE'.

PS: Please... use those numbers/addresses that were posted and contact Toyota corp; let them see that you mean business!

 

[gm350reratliff]

I appreciate your hard work on this. I do believe if enough folks get involved, changes will be made.

Fortunately, I don't have any issues, yet. If and when I do, I will definitely join the cause.

If you really want to see worthless system, go play with a 2011-2012 f150 with SYNC. That is probably the worst stereo/blutooth unit I have ever seen. I hear Ford is still working on it but they are the kings of the cold shoulder. Entune is light years ahead of that system.

 

[rigtec]

"...Fortunately, I don't have any issues, yet. If and when I do, I will definitely join the cause."

Hi gm,

Thanks for your reply... and your interest in seeing this resolved if only for the others; that's totally unselfish!!

If you really want to see worthless system, go play with a 2011-2012 f150 with SYNC. That is probably the worst stereo/blutooth unit I have ever seen. I hear Ford is still working on it but they are the kings of the cold shoulder. Entune is light years ahead of that system.

That's pretty hard to imagine, a system more problematic than ours! But I do understand that Ford is, and has 'always been' complacent about their failures that have caused many deaths... "Until it hits the news"; then they're all about the safety of the public (damage control!). Thanks again for your inspiration!

Greg

 

[03_4x4Runner]

I sure miss the good old days before all this Entune stuff was even invented. It is a sad day when this technology pisses us off this much. The complaints used to be my fan belt is slipping or my choke is stuck etc. and many times you could easily fix it yourself. I hate to see what cars evolve into in 20 years. What a nightmare they will be. I have a Galaxy 4 but never even turn it on let along try to use it with the entune system. It helps being retired and not have to call or listen to anyone.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

I have to agree I am rather tired of dealing with inept people from Toyota... the TAS personal half the time don't even sound like they know anything about the cases we call in on. Because when the technicians can't figure it out and we call TAS and it always instills confidence when they sound like they barely understand the component system.

Both Toyota & Entune are another source of major frustration on the technician side as well. The way information is organized, doled out, held back, ect. is down right infuriating at times; it also doesn't help that Toyota is replacing so many head units that now TAS wants most every head unit "swapped with a known good vehicle" before they will authorize a new one. Try getting a "known good unit" for a vehicle that we probably don't even have on the showroom/lot anymore... we end up having to swap them from customer's vehicles sometimes. We had one customer who had to come back 2 weeks later because we finally got a '14 Trail Edition with the particular head unit the customer had; needless to say the customer was frustrated as well with us & Toyota (as was I and my coworker who had been working on that vehicle and told we couldn't do anything else until we swapped the head unit with a known good unit that we didn't even have in stock!)

So I'm with Rigtec on this one, try and be as diplomatic as possible... but sometimes you just gotta stir the hornet's nest if you want something to happen.

 

[Orbital Debris]

We'll just keep poking away at their "Blind eye" and deaf ear 'til they hear us! A group can be a very powerful tool ** if it's focused **. I think it would be a tragedy if all of these people here, with legitimate problems with these toyota trucks had an opportunity to have the attention of "Toyota corporation world wide" and did nothing... just slept on it. I've already got their attention and a case number because I made some phone calls and won't go away. My objective here is to make sure that Toyota recognizes you as well. So we "Group-up" so that Toyota can assess the scope of the problem properly. If this entune issue had been a safety issue, it would have been resolved a long time ago; not because of 'SAFETY' in and of itself, but because it would have gained the attention of the public which could potentially compromise Toyota's family friendly 'IMAGE'.

PS: Please... use those numbers/addresses that were posted and contact Toyota corp; let them see that you mean business!

I have a 2013, and it has Entune has NEVER worked as advertised. I've put in cases before, and they were just blown off by telling me to re-pair my phone, and the service advisor just tells me that it doesn't work with iphones.

After reading this, I put in another case: 140905-000376. I hope you can get someone to fix this lousy product.

 

[rigtec]

I sure miss the good old days before all this Entune stuff was even invented. It is a sad day when this technology pisses us off this much. The complaints used to be my fan belt is slipping or my choke is stuck etc. and many times you could easily fix it yourself. I hate to see what cars evolve into in 20 years. What a nightmare they will be. I have a Galaxy 4 but never even turn it on let along try to use it with the entune system. It helps being retired and not have to call or listen to anyone.

Hi 03_4x4'

I'm somewhat of an ole' timer myself; a dinosaurus to be real honest. I still like the way we did things back in the old days. Back then, if your car broke down it was either the carburetor, the fuel pump or the points needed replacing, "THAT'S IT!" ...and you would kick the tires (three times on a Wednesday) to figure out which it was! "...Kinda miss those days..."

But things are different now and those days will never return anymore :nono: so better get use to it! Regards

 

[Jaan]

I don't miss getting up at 5:30am on a freezing cold February morning to try to stat my carbureted dinosaur with a can of starter fluid. But I digress...

The $162 chepo head unit I got from China for my Dad's old truck has a much better GPS system than my 2014 4Runner. That's sad. It's also not generally annoying and has no lock outs. Hell it even has a TV tuner.

I would love it if Toyota took my head unit back and gave me my money back. I'd go out and get a Pioneer.

 

[rigtec]

"...I've put in cases before, and they were just blown off by telling me to re-pair my phone, and the service advisor just tells me that it doesn't work with iphones. After reading this, I put in another case: 140905-000376. I hope you can get someone to fix this lousy product."

Glad you were inspired Orbital'

I don't know what will come of this upsurge of complaints, using the forum as an elaborate petition. But, since this problem is officially documented here, and should our warranty expire while waiting for help from Toyota, we can all take this evidence to small claims court in our own towns (as a last resort) to show that Toyota deliberately tried to ignore ('drag-out') this complaint of Toyota's non-working navigation equipment problem until our warranties officially expired; there-by extending Toyota's legal responsibility to get this issue resolved.

I'm almost positive that Toyota corp WILL NOT want to appear in court with you or me; much too costly for them to travel to all of these little towns to arbitrate, so they will want to settle out of court... "all I want is a few bucks for a new (comparably priced) aftermarket hu". So if the Entune hu costs $3,800 bucks... then that's how much I'll be asking for to replace it! And since it never worked right "out of the box", we'll be asking for the "full market value"; not the "fair market value" (pro-rate). "Still I hope it never comes to that... I hate court!"

 

[BlackWorksInc]

I have a 2013, and it has Entune has NEVER worked as advertised. I've put in cases before, and they were just blown off by telling me to re-pair my phone, and the service advisor just tells me that it doesn't work with iphones.

After reading this, I put in another case: 140905-000376. I hope you can get someone to fix this lousy product.

To be fair, I see a lot of modern vehicles that have consistent issues with iphone products. In fact, most every complaint with a head unit pairing/functionality with a mobile device I see these days (Toyota or non-Toyota) is typically with an iPhone or Apple product and a large majority of the time an Android or Windows phone works okay. In fact I have had many a time where I walk back up to the service writer and go, "I can't find anything wrong! My S4 works fine..." and they look at me like I'm crazy and say, "both my phone and the customer's wouldn't work," after which I find out both phones are iPhones.

This is more due to Apple's persistence in trying to maintain a proprietary hold on their products (read that as "greedy bastards who want to snag as much money from people as possible") not providing adequate coding support for the head units in general. I've talked to people who work on various makes and models and typically the first thing we all ask is, "was it an iPhone?"

 

[Jaan]

Christ almighty, today my Nav and Entunes kept crashing. Maybe 10 times in a couple of hours.

700 miles on the truck right now and paired with a new Kyocera Brigadier. Twice the Nav crashed and restarted while I was driving in unfamiliar territory in heavy traffic, and when I tried to make a couple of calls it kept crashing and re-starting, even when I dialed from the phone itself. Ugh. I called Toyota and generated a case number and I'm going to call my dealer tomorrow. I really want to rip this POS out and put in a good aftermarket head unit.

 

[rigtec]

"...I really want to rip this POS out and put in a good aftermarket head unit."

Glad you mentioned that Jaan, and right on time...

I took my truck in on Thurs to have them look at it...AGAIN..., and to speak with the service mgr about my options. Well, we sat in my truck and I tried to "re-create" the 'misbehavior' of the 'Voice command' function; which is a huge part of my complaint. Fortunately for me, it did malfunction, a few times, while the service mgr. was sitting there with me. Looking somewhat 'Befuddled', he glanced at me and muttered a faint but very distinct sounding... hummmm; scratching his 'redish', now dampening forehead and trying to decide what NOT to say, so as to avoid making a comment that he would later regret!

I asked him about an aftermarket hu replacement and possible voucher from Toyota; as a possible way to get this behind us. He shook his head NO and said... "Toyota wouldn't approve that because the system is working" (then he continued to explain) ..."this is more of a 'Quality of operation issue', not really a malfunction!" FAST FWD... He said that the problem may be in the "Extension piece"(?); a separate part of the HU but attached to the rear portion.

At this point I'm considering just taking Toyota to court and suing for the cost of a new Aftermarket HU. These "stalling techniques" have been delaying any possible progress (in my case) for two and a half yrs, since I've had the truck, and I'm getting tired of keeping 'appointments that lead nowhere'; especially knowing that this is not a simple "routine" Radio repair, but a "Software design/build" issue, that Toyota already knows about!!!

What do the forum community members think?

Question:How many of you with 'Entune Issues' (as described in the T-SB-0006-14), would be interested in exploring the possibility of approaching "Toyota Corporation" (not our individual dealerships), from a legal position; 'no small claims disputes' but litigating w/full legal representation? I'm not sure where that road will take us but perhaps I could speak to someone that understands e.g., Contractual breeches or "False advertising infractions", "Failure to deliver" (product in good working order)... I know Toyota is guilty of at least one violation.

I'd be very interested to hear your comments!

rigtec, cheers

 

[RickC5]

FWIW, I don't use most of the Entune features that cause these complaints, so I don't have much of a dog in these fights. I just paired my old flip-phone with the BT and when I need to make a call, flip open the phone, use the speed dial to dial the number, and then put the phone back in it's holster on my belt. The BT works fine for me. I may never buy a smart phone.

However, while just driving along the other day, the entire screen on the system went blank and was totally unresponsive to touch commands. I finally pushed the "Audio" button and the screen returned to normal. I'm hoping this isn't a portent of things to come.....

Poorly implemented technology is a real PITA and can ruin your day.

 

[4RnR Grl]

I own a 2013 SR5 Premium that I've had for a year this past July.

I have not had the connection issues at all. My phone is an almost two year old Galaxy S3. I have not had any issues with the Bluetooth or dropping.

However... I have had the system shut down and restart, or freeze up during navigation to the point where no pushing of any buttons either on the touch screen or otherwise (power, audio, phone, etc) would work. The Entune screen then shows some fuzzy lines at the bottom when this happens or just freezes and doesn't show the correct location. I have then had to pull my vehicle off the road, turn it completely off and turn it on again. This has usually resulted in deleting my navigation route wherein I had to restart the navigation.

I would think that in itself would be a safety issue.

I have taken photos of the display when it happens (when I remember). You can see from the photos it has happened on multiple occasions.

The last time I took it in for an oil change I mentioned this to the service representative that did my vehicle intake. She informed me that they would update the software. Since the update it has only frozen up once, but now it restarts on its own while navigating pretty frequently.

 

[Raven]

Does anyone know who (what company) wrote the software that runs Entune?