Apple CarPlay Issues with 4th Gen Tacoma?

Well, I tried the full drill, reset my phone, reset the truck audio, removed and reinstalled CarPlay, and the first day after doing that it seemed to be working reliably, and then the next day the CarPlay connection broke at least three times during my drive. I guess that I'll need to wait for another iPhone software update and see if that makes a difference.

 

I had my wireless CarPlay working perfectly on my iPhone 14 Pro running iOS 18.4.1 with no issues. Well, aside from every time I would start up the car, it would pop up a message on my phone asking me to allow/ignore something with Toyota. I would ignore it and it would connect fine.
A few days ago, my 1 year trial on the app services expired so I deleted the app from my phone. From there, my CarPlay kept disconnecting.
Here's what I did to fix it:
I noticed my phone's bluetooth kept trying to connect to the digital key, so I removed the digital key (somewhere in the settings on the infotainment screen), which I never used.
After that, I removed the truck from my app/profile, then deleted the app on my phone altogether.
After that, I did a system reset on the infotainment screen. There was one option to remove personal settings, but that didn't do it. I forget the exact location, but on one of the settings pages, there's a place to do a full system reset. If you click the right one, you'll notice the screen will show a message asking you to not turn off the car.
During that time, I clicked to 'forget' the Tacoma on my phone's bluetooth settings, and also removed it from Settings -> General -> CarPlay on my phone.
With everything reset, I turned off the truck, locked it, and walked away for 10 minutes so it can sleep.
When I got back, I turned the truck on and skipped the sign in with app popup on the infotainment screen. I just clicked to set up my bluetooth, then the CarPlay option popped up and I connected that too.
After all this, it seemed to be back to normal and I didn't experience any disconnection problems. The only reason I can think of that started these problems was that I had deleted the app on my phone, so doing this full reset procedure seems to have fixed it.

 

What app are you referring to, that you deleted from your phone? Do you mean the Toyota app? I'm still within my first year although I'm not sure what services will expire at the end of the year, I have assumed that the app was something you keep active on your phone since it gives access to the digital owners manual, vehicle status and so forth.

I get the same pop up messages that you mentioned as well. Sometimes I'll acknowledge them but frequently the pop up will disappear before I do that.

Complicated process but I may consider going through it, although I don't know that I want to remove the digital key since it may come in handy in the future.

 

Yep, the Toyota app. If your trial is still active, then perhaps that’s not the problem. The app, after trial expiration, may be useful in regards to owners manual and service history/recalls, etc. but it was pretty useless for me. Since the trial ended, I didn’t really need any of the features since the only one I used was to remotely lock / unlock. With that expired, I didn’t care to see service history or fuel/tire pressure info. directly from the app. One side effect is that the truck is removed from my online Toyota website dashboard as well, so I will probably re-add it so I can periodically check things.

Anything you remove/reset can be setup again without much trouble. It’ll be as if you’re setting up the truck like you did the first time around… your trial expiration dates will still be the same as those are linked to the VIN.

Maybe the reset process can help and you can delete and reinstall the app on your phone.

Mine just started bugging out the day after my trial services expired. It’s not too complicated, I just spelled it out in detail so it’s easier for folks to walkthrough the steps.

 

So much angst over issues with a wireless connection. Plug it in. CarPlay will work. You'll be happier.

 

But the issue is that it is 2025 and why does the phone need to leave the pocket? Apple needs to get their shit together.

 

I think it's less Apple problems and more Toyota problems. I have an Android and have sporadic connection issues with wireless Android Auto. Most times I'll have to manually select my phone for AA in the head unit. Other times it refuses to connect and I have to reset the head unit. Then the random connection drops. I don't think this is just the Tacoma either. I see post on Reddit with issues all over the Toyota line and wireless Apple Carplay/Android Auto.

 

I haven't tried plugging the phone in (to the USB port on the side of the display); I suppose that I'll do that just to see if it solves the problem.

But that means that I'll need to live with having the USB cable dangling out of the display, which is not particularly satisfying. And the wireless CarPlay should work properly, for crying out loud. Eventually this should get sorted out, whether it is the Apple software or the problem is on the Toyota side.

 

I have an iphone 16+ and from day one it has connected religiously every time. The only time it doesn’t is when I remote start the truck and then a quick press and hold of the volume button to restart the head unit and it connects. If I remember to set my phone by the window closer to my truck it always connects even when remote starting.

 

I have a 2024 SR5. I had a iphone 15 pro max when I bought the truck. I have since upgraded to an iphone 16 pro. I have had the Toyota app on both phones with the digital key installed and the digital key not installed. Wireless carplay has mostly worked flawlessly for me with both devices, except for the digital key. I found with the key installed I would have wireless carplay dropouts/reconnects, or total disconnects. It seemed something was funky between the key and carplay. That's suppositionon my part, though I had no issues using wired carplay and when I uninstalled the digital key my carplay issues resolved. Net-net I'm just not using the digital key, which isn't really an issue for me as I have the wallet key and I'm happy with that.

 

I do have this same issue. You don't need to restart the head unit, at least I don't. My phone is already connected to bluetooth when I remote start but carplay isn't activated. Just go into the bluetooth menu and flip the setting that says 'use X's iphone for carplay' and it starts right up.

 

I too have intermittent connection issues. Have to reconnect in the head unit under Bluetooth connection and after choosing my phone I click on CarPlay. Also after pressing to ignore a phone call on my phone the CarPlay disconnects.

my biggest frustration though is when I choose a playlist it automatically starts to play the first song in the list, then when I click the list icon it only displays a short list of songs next in the queue and not the entire playlist of song titles. Sometimes it will display all songs but most of the time only a dozen or so song titles of the 100 in my playlist will be shown.

 

my dealership claims the problem is having to make it work with so many diff. phone types. Funny thing is other manufacturers are not having the same/consistent issues with CarPlay or Android Auto as Toyota is. My wife's 22 RAV4 has similar issues. Kinda ridiculous that Toyota hasn't figured this shit out yet. It's a bluetooth connection...a basic standard in the computer tech industry. My mom's 2019 Subaru connects to my phone flawlessly every time I drive her car...no cable necessary. My 2 year old Sonos bluetooth speaker connects better than my $50k vehicle. Complete BS.

 

Your dealership is dumb - which you already knew. Has nothing to do with 'so many diff. phone types.' Bluetooth is bluetooth, as you say. Has to do with Toyota being a great industrial manufacturer and a terrible technology company. The code they start with isn't great. They're not willing to push updates regularly - preferably OTA. They don't incorporate protocol updates (bluetooth, USB, etc) in a timely manner. Net-net, they mostly don't operate like a tech company, say Apple, which supports the product after they sell it. Toyota's idea of after-sale support, like that of most car companies, is simply warranty or recall service. Until the Toyota ownership experience approaches the Apple ownership experience, this is the little bullshit we're stuck with. That said, Toyota/Lexus quality is still miles ahead of most other car companies overall, IMO, even though their UI tech is shit.

 

Yeah, that's complete bullshyt. CarPlay is software, and that's what the truck's system is interacting with. And as for different software types, 88% of iphones introduced in the last four years are on iOS18 and 82% of all iphones are on iOS18. source

 

The weird thing is that I had issues with audio skipping after phone calls with my old iPhone XS. I recently got an iPhone 16, which had a backup from the XS transferred to it and was running the same iOS version as the XS was. After removing the CarPlay and Bluetooth pairing from the XS and adding the 16, the problem went away. My wife had a 12 running the software as my XS and had no problems. She hasn't mentioned any issues with her new 16 that was set up the same way as mine.

I would have thought that if my phone had some sort of configuration issue that the backup would have transferred it over. However, I observed the same sort of stuff happening — people getting a new, different phone and restoring a backup not carrying over issues or even erasing the same phone and restoring the backup fixing the issues — back when I worked as a tech for Apple. The engineering folks at corporate swore up and down that couldn't happen, but I watched it happen time and time again. Suffice it to say, you always need to take the iterative approach of moving from least invasive to most invasive when troubleshooting. That is, start with basic things like re-pairing, move on to resetting settings, then erasing the device and putting a backup, to erasing it and setting it up fresh, finally trying another device altogether with a backup from the old one and even trying that one fresh.

All this said, my observation is that CarPlay has been at best a low-grade shitshow since it's come out. I've not used a single car implementation of it that wasn't prone to flaking out at least from time to time. I'm inclined to blame Apple since they're the common denominator here, both responsible for the implementation on their devices — which I can tell you isn't even in the same county let alone ballpark as what people think it is when it comes to QA — and for the specification that consumers have to implement in their head units. I suspect that CarPlay doesn't occupy as high a prioritization for them in regards to refinement as other things in iOS do, evident from the fact that if you do a little googling, you can find a litany of issues that go back dozens of versions. It might be that their specification isn't well written or that it plays fast and loose with what kind of hardware actually is capable of doing it, so when they build their head units to "minimum" specs, it doesn't quite make it. Apple has a history of doing stuff like this, "certifying" versions of software to be installed on hardware that has no business running it, leading to it running like dog shit. Even worse, with iOS devices, you often can't roll back.

On top of this, automotive infotainment unit manufacturers have a long and illustrious history of writing absolutely terrible software for their devices. Buggy, laggy interfaces are so common that people have come not just to tolerate it, but even to expect it. You combine this with the likely case that Apple has (several) of their own problems, I'm almost shocked it ever works at all.

I don't know either way, but I saw fairly deeply into Apple's process. I'm very comfortable laying the blame squarely on them.

 

I just listen to the same ACDC or Led Zeppelin song on the FM dial, nah it's not my 1st choice but it's oh so easy. When I get tired of it I just turn it off.

Not to discredit anyone's frustration with the apps phone and getting it all to work together no matter the OS. You buy something it should work as intended.

 

You’re very right! Thing is, it doesn’t work that way no matter what brand you buy. It’s Grade-A Bullshit™ for sure, but there’s no way around it at the moment.

Well, besides tapping out like you have. You may be missing out on the potential of some of the features if’n they decide to work, but there’s definitely something to be said for reveling in the simplicity and lack of aggravation…

 

It is an issue, but also, I prefer wired. Every wireless dongle/wireless CarPlay setup I’ve used in various vehicles disconnect due to bugs/signal interference at certain places. Plus with wired Apple CarPlay, I can just let my phone charge while driving.

Also, pockets emptied out every time before I drive or even get in the vehicle. Much more comfortable driving with nothing in your pockets.

 

I've attempted to use only the wired connection, by forgetting the vehicle in the phone and forgetting the phone in the vehicle. Once I set up the connection with wifi off on the phone in hopes of making it all a cabled connection, the connection fails. As soon as I turn on wifi, the truck adds itself to the phone and becomes a wifi connection. As far as I can tell, there is no way to make it a cable only carplay connection. And yes, mine regularly drops the connection, and on occasion won't reconnect without shutting the vehicle off and turning it back on.