On some rental cars, the bluetooth will not play navigation over the stereo. On some it does. Why?

[AC Question]

At first I thought it was my phone, but it will play navigation voice commands normally over my own vehicle, which has an aftermarket Pioneer head unit.

On the rental cars, on some of them, particularly Nissans, If I connect the phone to the stereo via blue tooth, it silences the navigation, both on the phone, and over the stereo, so I only get silence, and would have to stare at the screen to see where my turns are. I invariably turn off the blue tooth, so at least I get voice directions over the phone speaker.

This makes it very inconvenient to answer the phone, or listen to my own audio media over the stereo. I never watch video of any type.

I'm wondering if the car thinks the navigation voice commands are media, and disables the sound as if I were watching a movie.

Any suggestions on how I can overcome this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Whenever you connect your phone to a car, go to Settings>Bluetooth, select the car, and make sure both Phone Audio and Media Audio are checked. If there is no Media Audio, then the car probably can't play the navigation voice.

Another thing to check is if you have some other Bluetooth device (like headphones) that is already connected to your phone. The phone might be connected for Media Audio to the headphones, and not the car.