Service mgmt quote "It's just not a bad vehicle.".

Yesterday at dealer service desk making an appointment the same FUD about 4th gens came up in chit chat of others while the woman was searching if there was a firmware update for the infotainment system. One guy who appeared to be a supervisor said their being largest service dealer in the region plus a lot of sales now are showing him nothing is standing out as trouble. He added their dealer group sells and services 10 brands with none standing behind customers like Subaru and Lexus/Toyota when there are problems. Other staff chimed in for being glad they are not the ones who have to face customers at their other franchises.

I smiled and said from past Toyota 4x4 and V6s I'm glad to not have odd seating, love the quiet, see the others in my mirrors on climbs, and hope I don't have to use the top safety pick rating.

My only grips are the infotainment losing connection, a rattle in really cold weather, and one side of tailgate doesn't close with same ease. The new Jeep I rented for nearly 2000 mi earlier in the year was a POS basket case by comparison.

 

Losing connection? Do you mean your phone? Or the screen?

 

The infotainment screen will lose Bluetooth connecting automatically quite often and also lose the slider button setting to enable CarPlay. Many here have brought it up, I've tested it with different devices and they're having different software versions. The service writers at the Toyota dealer said they are aware it is a problem for quite a few.

 

What iPhone? In 5,000 miles, mine has dropped perhaps once. Rebooting the screen fixed it. I saw an issue on Facebook with a guy having that problem with his iPhone 4.

 

I saw that.....shocked that a 14 year old iphone has not been bricked by Apple.

 

It has been a handful of iPhone SE, 12, 14, 15 and 16 tested including OS 17.x and 18.x. This AM it did not fail with 18.2.

Fellow IT associates with good methods have found same issues including from an Android user.

A very old phone at software 7.x something can have CarPlay but don't count on much. Apple does not brick phones. Carriers will stop supporting some. As an enterprise network admin I can block unpatched devices or compromised devices using guest WiFi segments but Apple is not making them dead devices as some can think.

 

How is that phone still working from a cellular standpoint? Aren’t all the 3G and 2G bands shutdown?

 

Maybe not entirely, but their idea of "acceptable performance" for some of the older ones with newer OS's on them clashes with the commonly accepted definition for the term. You may not have had the distinct displeasure of running an iPhone 6 with iOS 10+ on it. They ran like well-chilled dog shit. I worked for Apple for nearly a decade in support. I can tell you it was a common complaint.

But if your point is that they do keep them more or less working and even provide security updates for a long time, that's more or less true. They'll keep on trucking until they just die of fatigue or the cellular band they use is phased out and they just become heavy iPod Touch-es. Worst I've seen is certain things like the iTunes store not working anymore because it's mostly a web driven app and the older software can't deal with the newer versions of the pages it serves up.

I can say that my experience with CarPlay, though, is that it's not nearly as well behaved as they'd lead you to believe. It's flaky no matter what phone, no matter what car. As of late, iOS 18 seems to have caused a bunch of issues. I've got a few on 18.1.1 that my wife doesn't suffer from since she hasn't updated past whatever the newest version of 17 is. I'm upgrading to 18.2 now and hoping it'll help, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

3g is still very much alive since LTE is just 3g improved

 

I thought LTE was 4g? That's how it was advertised

 

Is it the driver side? I have to basically slam my driverside tailgate and sometimes it like the latch gets hung when opening

 

Indeed it was advertised as that

 

Im sure there's probably some Comm IT guy on here that knows how it all works, but from what I remember 4g and 4g LTE, were just 3g with some backend improvements and not a true 4th gen standard.

 

Yes, the gaps are uniform unlike some I've seen. The bed is not aligned so well with cab but that's an issue on other pickups and past models I've had.

@SchwarzeEwigkt I have a fair amount of use and support experience with other vehicles. None have what I'm experiencing and it was 24 hours ago when the service department lead said this is a definite issue for a lot of new for 2024 or '25 Toyotas and not others. In my time waiting there a few suspected that and some other issues will be wrapped on in a hopefully soon firmware release. It was really obvious there's more sharing in new models than the Tacoma and Land Cruiser. New Camry, Crown Signia and Lexus models checked out all seemed to have pretty much same TSS 3 and what seemed like same HVAC too.

 

Technology
LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and is a specific standard within 4G. LTE was developed to improve on 3G networks and bridge the gap to full 4G.

Not a cellular network specialist, but I haz Google.

 

yeah the definition and what cellular companies give us are two different things sometimes...

 

Yeah it gets murky. Some 3G bands have been moved in to LTE. I’d say it’s likely an ATT iPhone since GSM is what everyone uses now. Verizon was CDMA in the 3G days and shut it all down Dec 2022.

 

My wife is having the same issues with her Iphone and her infotainment system in her new RAV4. Sounds like an Iphone issue honestly because my Samsung S24 ultra has not had any connectivity issues in my 24 Tacoma TRD Sport.

 

My phone might ring three times a month. I love the peace and quite.

 

I’m having issues with my iPhone, though different ones. My wife wasn’t. I’ve had iOS 18 since I got the truck. She had 17 something. She’s since upgraded, so my guess is she’ll start having problems. I base this on the fact that if you do a bit of googling, you’ll trip over a roiling mass of people yelling about how iOS 18 screwed CarPlay. Not just from Toyota owners, either. I’m confident your assessment that the trouble people are having is an iPhone thing is true. Hopefully Apple will fix it soon.