Bluetooth Dropout, Antenna Fix

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU TRASH YOUR BLUETOOTH ANTENNA IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, THIS IS MERELY A TUTORIAL AND HOW TO IN ORDER TO EDUCATE YOU AND PROVIDE YOU WITH A POTENTIAL FIX, IF YOU ARE NOT DELICATE AND PATIENT, YOU MAY BREAK SOMETHING!

Some people have been circulating around the forum (and I'm sure plenty we haven't heard of either) myself included who have been having issues with the bluetooth connection dropping out on them, mine was becoming more and more frequent and the worse part about it was that the bluetooth would entirely shut off after initially connecting and functioning with the phone in the first place, sometimes it would last 5 minutes connected, other times it would drop almost instantly without warning.

After speaking with the Entune tech line it appears there is a unannounced common problem and fix for the bluetooth dropout issues that many have apparently been having. It involves removing the bluetooth antenna from the vehicle and tightening up some screws holding down some connectors (I had to find that one out after removing it). So this here is for those who have no idea how to do this and want some help but do not want to go to the dealer and have them messing with stuff.

Before you do this, may I suggest doing the 2.1.0 update if you have not already. It may or may not solve all your issues, in my case the issues remained the same, you may be lucky though. In order to do the 2.1.0 update click on the following link:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/00cwar

From there click on "Click here to start download from sendspace"

After the download (which might be a little slow) you need to unzip the file and place it onto a (the root folder) blank USB thumb drive, insert it into your vehicle and you should get a pop up message to update within the first minute or so, select yes and let it do it's magic! Make sure the vehicle is running and follow the on-screen prompt's. Once it is done, it will restart the system and ask you if you would like to reinstall the update. Select no.

Update Complete! If you find you are still having issues, move forward onto the Bluetooth antenna disassembly below...

Tools needed:
-Pocket flathead screwdriver
-1/4" or 3/8" ratchet
-8MM socket, deep or short sized according to what size rachet you are using.
-10MM socket, deep preferred again according to what size rachet you are using.
-A small extension
-A torx bit/screwdriver (I am unsure of size, it would be better if you have multiple sizes handy)
-Acrylic clear nail polish (optional)
-Common sense and a careful hand

Step one:

Remove the climate controls, a small pocket screwdriver inserted between the dash and the climate controls and it should pop right out



After it has popped out, disconnect the two connectors behind it:



Step two:

Unbolt the FOUR 10MM bolts as pictured below, hook up your (hopefully) deep 10MM socket with your small extension to your rachet on the two lower ones, they are kind of annoying to get to.



After you have done that

Pull on the stereo and it should pop out



Step Three:

Locate the Bluetooth antenna box which is below the stereo itself, it is all mounted up as one solid assembly, it should read Harman Automotive and have a Bluetooth icon next to it.



Step Four:

Loosen the Four upper bolts (x4) you see on the driver's side of the double din stereo assembly, remove the lower two (x2) entirely.



On the passenger side of the assembly, you will just need to remove two of the bolts (x2), the lowers only.



Step Five:

Disconnect, the left side of the plug which should be located on the inner portion of the antenna box which is tucked deeper into the assembly.



Next, disconnect the three rear plugs of the bluetooth antenna



Pull the box out of the double din assembly. Here is what it looks like in all of its glory



Step six:

Once again, locate the other end of the plug which you have pulled out, from the stereo side earlier on the bt antenna, this should be your problem child right here!



Disconnect the plug from the box and flip the box over, now remove 6 Torx screws and prop the cover off



It will look like this after the cover has propped off:



Step seven:

You see this guy right here? This should be your culprit, the screws are typically loose, but not enough to the point where you can even measure it with the human eye. Take your Torx screwdriver and tighten it up.

WARNING! Be VERY careful on how much you tighten it! The bolts are being torqued onto the circuit board and the board is not very strong as you would imagine, if you over tighten it you WILL crack it and deem the Bluetooth antenna dead!



For good measure and practice, since you are in there, do yourself a public service and peace of mind and also tighten up the screws to the other connections, I didn't find them loose, but at the same time you never know..



The screws will be under the connections obviously, which is why you do not see them.

Step eight (optional, no pictures)

I am doing this right now, because I don't even want to chance this happening a year down the road again. Take some acrylic clear nail polish (your wife or girlfriend should have some of this lying around) and place it on top of the screw, hell you could even back out the screws a bit and place it right below the head of the screw for a just in case insurance measure. It won't damage anything and acts as a sealer, not allowing anything inside of it to move again.

Step nine:

Close everything up and secure it in reverse order from what you just saw, turn on that stereo and enjoy a problem and dropout free bluetooth handsfree/ streaming audio system! Enjoy!

 

Thanks for the great post. So far my "update" that the dealer performed (above 2.1.x) seems to be working but if I start dropping calls again, I'll give this a try.

 

Not a problem Rasputin! I just want to give back to the community a bit after the massive amounts of info I could had found on my own, but was too lazy to do it myself and I have received from them.

My intention is for this thread to be found by members even outside the Tacoma world and use for their own knowledge and do it yourselfing purposes.

Additionally, if anyone needs the 2.1.0 update fir their Taco, I can provide the download link and instructions on how to do that in here. I may in the coming days revise the post and just add that as a step prior to performing this fix so this can be a "one-stop" style thread.

 

I agree, awesome write up!
Glad you were able to workout your particular BT problem. Fingers crossed that this will be the end of the BT nightmare.

 

The problem is that as the screws back out of the connector it loses contact with the circuit board and after encountering several bumps on the road it will basically allow the connector to lose contact for a brief instant enough to let it register as non existent by the Entune nav. After applying some acrylic nail polish under the screws and tightening up the screws nice and firm those guys aren't moving a millimeter anymore!

If anyone wants the 2.1.0 update, feel free to ask and I'll combine it into the thread!

 

Wait, I don't get it.
How does tightening down the connection socket to the PCB improve your connection quality? I think it would help me better understand if I knew what was under that socket. If its just green PCB you didn't do jack shit to the antenna connection.
Are there metal traces from the connector which U tightened which lead to the BT radio on the PCB under the socket?
Its most likely only one antenna, typically BT Tx/Rx over only one.

 

One other item.

"...it will basically allow the connector to lose contact for a brief instant enough to let it register as non existent by the Entune nav. "

I call BS, no offense OP, but this is not how shit works. The BT radio is soldered onto the PCB, that shit is not shaking loose. If the external antenna connector socket (which you tightened down) came off, the Entune system as a whole would still "see" the BT radio, it just would not be able to make an external connection to any devices as it cannot Tx/Rx.
When the entune system loses the BT radio "unregistered" this is a Firmware/OS/Driver issue. Nice bug you found, hopefully that update fixes it

 

It doesn't "improve" anything, all it simply does is fix a dropout problem you may be experiencing. In my case It was dropping my connection a little at first then it got gradually worse and worse, to the point where I shut my bluetooth on my phone off to avoid dealing with the dropout that happened almost within startup. There are no metallic traces under the connector or anything. The screws back out over time which allows the connector to move. I'm not going to dismantle the connnector the board or even find out why it is the way it is. The fact of the matter though is that by tightening up those screws I have virtually zero further dropouts or Bluetooth related problems anymore. With saying that I am also suggesting the idea as well which may be that there are some contact points underneath the connector itself in the PCB which you cannot see which rely on the connector being held down nice and firm. I would not know unless I tore it all apart again, which I am not willing to do at this point.

I understand that it is soldered onto the board but by allowing the connector to move even just a little bit you are allowing the potential for connection problems. You should have seen how the connector moves as you are tightening it down! I do not know why they designed this circuit board to have 3 out of the 4 connections be held down with screws, but the fact remains that it's a known problem by Toyota which they do not announce which they also have had a very high success rate of repair with by doing what I have outlined in this how to.

If you followed the situation I had been experiencing, you would see that what was going on was that the Bluetooth was there as indicated by an icon down below on the left hand side, but after it connected to my phone or any device for that matter, and would drop out, it would shut off Bluetooth function entirely and show the setup screen. Not allowing to connect the BT unless I restarted the truck, every single time.

Dont know where I was going with that, but hopefully I answered your question. Lol.

- One other footnote is that I have a 2012. I have had close to a year's worth of driving invested into the truck. The 2013 guys are most likely not going to experience it yet because their trucks are still newer. Give yourselves some drive time and you may see the same problem.

I may have exacerbated the issue further by 4wheeling over bumpy terrain. Though since the box is somewhat isolated and the problem somewhat common as highlighted by tech line, I doubt I did at this point.

 

So I am curious how this fix is working a couple of months out. I am just beginning to troubleshoot my problems and may do this if none of the software resets and updates work.

 

Is this just a problem with Entune or all the newer touch screens?

 

Based on what's described it could be an issue with any system that uses that Bluetooth Extension box. So if you have a newer Toyota system with Bluetooth, it could be a potential issue.

 

Entune or non entune. If you have bluetooth capability and are experiencing similar issues even after updating to the latest software, take a gander at what the OP has generously posted. Intermittent connection issues caused by loose harnesses, connectors and wires happen all the time.. it's a no brainer that this can fix such problems.

Good work, OP

 

Small but very late update.

I had no idea people posted to this thread after me. The new site revision should change those notifications and the way they work.

2015 now, I made this fix at least over two years ago and have logged some serious offroad mileage to my vehicle. I don't rock crawl, I high speed run out there and push this truck through some hard stuff for MT. While I have done many changes to this truck, this one has not been one of them and I am very proud and pleased to report that this issue has not reared its ugly head since I logged this fix thread.

 

Well, tried this fix today but it didn't work. My Bluetooth still drops out after a minute or so. Thanks OP for the thread.

 

I also have tried the BT teardown option and upon testing this with no other changes, my issue persisted, but following this test, I deleted all personal data from the headunit, deleted my Galaxy Note 5 pairing, and the headunit pairing from my phone, added my Entune account on the internet settings of the head unit (as suggested by a previous poster on this thread for tethering which I don't use) turned off the WiFi on my Note, re-paired, and only had the patience to sit for about 15 minutes, but there were no further drops. In the OP's case, it's possible that the solder contacts came loose in just such a way where tightening the connection port ended up pulling the contact pins (and the solder on the opposite side of the board) tight against the contact surface on the MB. In my case, while there was some play in the torque screws, the contact points were solid, and immobile, (to the naked eye).

Sadly, there seems to be no "magic bullet" to fix this, but all signs point to either a fault in the firmware/sofware, or shoddy hardware, likely sourced in the headunit itself since the BT signal recognized by our phones (model-be-damned) remains constant, (meaning the connection to the external BT component is TX/RX), but the ability for the headunit to manage and maintain the feed from the BT is unreliable. This is even more probable since whenever my issue arises, the headunit shows BT as "Stopped" and won't even let you manually toggle the bluetooth back on.

While frustrating, I don't know that I have the patience (or courage) to crack the headunit case to try and diagnose the failure there, but maybe someone here can follow the OPs initiative and see if they can source the fault on the head unit MB. For now I'm AUX cabling like it's 1999, LMAO.

 

I have a problem that I believe the update will resolve. Do you still have the file?

Problem:
Bluetooth, map, apps would not work. I opened the unit and disconnected the extension box completely. Bluetooth now works but no radio reception and no app.