koltonbittner

The USB port in my car has always worked fine (just to charge my phone, no media) but today it suddenly stopped working. I tried using another cable and even another phone but nothing will work.

Anyone had this issue? I have an iPhone 6 and a 2013 E550

LINKBXQ

I had this happened but in a toyota sienna, turned out the wire inside was loose. That repair was cover under warranty.

dave2001auto

Maas your non changing USB port resolved?
I have the same problem.

DFWdude

There are a few reports here about these ports (occassionally) going bad. Do a search

S. Madman

You will probably have to clean or replace your port. Specially if seen a lot of connects and disconnencts.

Left Coast Geek

i have had plenty of USB ports of all sorts fail after too much use, not specific to this car, just in general. and usb cables fail or get flakey, too.

I leave a 18" amazon basics USB A to C cable plugged into USB 2 in the armrest always, with the "C" end in the cup holders area.

old car starting drill. get in, close door, fasten seat belt, insert key, check surrounds, foot on brake, crank it til it starts. check surrounds and put it in D or R, etc...

new car starting drill. get in car, sit, plug phone into USB. push ON button on stereo. close the door, fasten sealtbelt, check surrounds, and tap start. by now android auto is linked up, so the last thing I was listening in spotify resumes... the steering and console controls all control android auto on my phone

dave2001auto

Found that in the typical German design, the connector is only for USB stick and will burn out when charging a phone after a few months.
Typical not properly labeled on port -- USE ONLY ON USB STICK is missing.
Typical not having a fuse to prevent burning out the circuit.

That's what you get for buying a German car.

bzcat

That's not how USB works. Your phone is not drawing any more power than a USB stick would because USB is by design an universal connection with low power.

It didn't burn out because you are charging the phone (in fact "burn out" is almost impossible due to the low amperage). It stopped working because it is USB and they all go bad eventually - it is usually the connector that goes bad.

S. Madman

Because in typical German fashion they don't have a manual that states it's for USB media, and Ipods.


Guess there exist people that don't read manuals. Only the ntg 5s, and up have a dedicated phone USB plug. They even drew a phone next to it, and some people still miss it.

It's like sticking a finger in someone's a.... just because it fits on it does not mean you should be doing it.

Left Coast Geek

yeah, that's why there's a picture of a PHONE on the USB 2 port in your picture. yeeesh.
On the W213's, the USB 2 port is in fact used for android auto or apple car play.

I do recommend plugging a short USB A to C or micro cable in and LEAVING the cable plugged in, and just plugging the other end into your phone, this saves wear and tear on the USB port. when the cable wears out, replace it.

bmwpowere36m3

dave2001auto

a usb stick uses low uA to low mA power. An iPhone uses up to 2A. My outlet is only rated for 0.2 A? Can’t remember. It’s not that the plug wore out—it’s the the pbc that burned out. I only have one USB outlet. Reading the manual? 4 manuals with over 200 pages in each one.

Left Coast Geek

USB devices negotiate their power requirements with the USB outlet, they are only allowed to draw max 100mA up front, they tell the port how much power they want, the port says how much they can have. There's also a specification for passive power supplies to signal how much power they can deliver via a fixed resistor across the data pins, Early Apple IPhones jumped the spec and invented their own extended power modes for early iPhones, using voltage based signalling on the D+ and D- data lines on the USB port, this is why for awhile there were 'apple' chargers and 'everyone else' chargers..

original USB 1.0 was only rated for 5V 500mA (2.5 watts).
later extensions pushed this to 1A (5W), 2A (10W), then the latest USB "C" PD (power delivery) spec allows a device like my Pixel phone or select USB C laptops to ask for more VOLTS, and up to 100 watts (20V at 5 amps). My Pixel 3a uses up to 18 watts as 9V at 2A, but will charge albeit slowly in a 5V 1A port, and charge faster in a 5V 2A port.

note that the higher power modes REQUIRE you use /good/ USB cables rated for at least that much power, and I've seen some cables that were charging only and could not handle high speed data, so caveat emptor.

oh yeah, there's also a Qualcomm "QC" version, not 100% compatible with the USB PD spec, hah hah, sigh.... some phones used this spec, but AFAIK, QC4 is compliant with PD. I've got chargers, both cigar outlet and wall warts, that auto detect which flavor of QC or PD your device expects and auto adapt. Anker makes some nice ones.

yes, this is all a bit of a great big mess, but with the PD standard having been out for some years now (2012 spec, its stabilized for the future.

anyways, the USB ports on our W212's are, I believe, rated at 5V 1A each, and numerous times, both my wife and I have had our Pixel's plugged in, using decent quality USB A to C adapter cords, and not had any issues. most common problem I've experienced overall with USB is "A" ports (the big rectangular one, like is in the armrest compartment of the 212) getting loose and not making good contact after too many insertions.