Hi I'm here on behalf of my elderly mother who has been trying to get her bluetooth to work in her 2012 Prius Plug-In Advanced. My parents feel they've exhausted their troubleshooting steps and are starting to think about aftermarket choices, and that may be where this goes, but I figured I'd pick the brains of this forum first. Based on searching I see other people have similar issues that don't seem to have been resolved and are generally advised to get an aftermarket head unit. At least the steps we've taken so far may be informative to others trying to research their issues. Her bluetooth stopped connecting and couldn't add phones, but the settings and such were still there, just grayed out. Then when I went to research it the Bluetooth button under Setup was just gone. It was taken to the dealer where the head unit was removed, sent away, inspected, and declared to be fine. The dealer performed a "master reset" on the car (would have liked more detail of what that meant) and it worked again! We were able to pair phones and make bluetooth calls just like normal again at the dealer service driveway. But when my mom tried it again a couple days later, same problem as initially found: bluetooth settings still there but grayed out, can't connect phones or use bluetooth. Our best guess is that using the steering wheel buttons after the reset somehow initiated bluetooth to fail again? Could be a shot in the dark. It's gone through the dealer one more time and they don't have any ideas at this point. If anyone has more troubleshooting to try would be curious to hear it. Otherwise my mom will be in the market for an aftermarket head unit that integrates well with the interior and isn't hard to use, has bluetooth on top of the normal radio functions and preserves all the steering wheel button functionality; nav and a bunch of inputs aren't important to her nor is pushing big sound, though a backup camera upgrade would be nice as the OEM one is potato cam.
Well, I would say yes, your OEM unit is on its last leg. As for an aftermarket unit, I would highly suggest you go to Crutchfield's website, look up their phone number and give them a call. They will answer ALL your questions and are very familiar with Prius cars. I did this, and I am VERY happy. After contacting them over a 4 month period, I decided to buy from them. I installed my Alpine unit by myself in 45 minutes! What really helps is if you decide to buy from them, I HIGHLY suggest you purchase their custom wire harness that is an option when you purchase a head unit. Yes, it is an additional cost, but I was able to install my unit quickly. They install the harness at their factory and ship the head unit with it to you. Then, everything is labeled as to what goes where. My Alpine works, bluetooth booted right up, rear camera works!, steering wheel connections work..........it truly was a "plug and play" install for me. Good luck!
Thanks for your reply! I forgot to close the loop on this, she ended up getting an Alpine iLX-507 professionally installed by a local shop and job's a good'un. Hope this thread is good reference material for anyone thinking you can fix this Bluetooth problem on the OEM hardware - my mom took it much, much farther with the dealer and having the unit serviced, reinstalled, the car "master reset", etc. than anyone else I could find online and it didn't end up getting her anywhere. The answer of "replace it with aftermarket" is the right approach.
The other approach to consider if aftermarket was not already in is to replace the add on unit that provides nav and bluetooth. And preserves the hybrid screens. Using a relatively low cost used ebay part. Most dealers won't offer this and will only replace with new - which often scares away customers when they hear the price.
