Hello,

I’m hoping someone can help. I only bought my car in August and I have spent the better part of 2 months taking the car in to the dealership and trying whatever solutions I can find on the Internet myself - none of which have fixed the problem.

You’re going to laugh but my Apple CarPlay only seems to TRY to work at some time after about 6pm. I start the car and connect the phone using the USB to lightning cable (I even bought the Mercedes-Benz one on the dealership’s recommendation) and it vibrates to indicate it’s charging but within 2 seconds it stops charging and in another two it vibrates and starts charging again ...and so on. If I open the “Connect” Menu and select CarPlay I can see my iPhone XR appear and disappear during this process. When I switch the engine off and leave the phone plugged in, Apple CarPlay suddenly starts working fine. If I start the car again, it starts playing up.
If I try the above in the morning or early afternoon absolutely nothing happens. The phone doesn’t vibrate and start charging. It’s as if the connection is “dead.” I tried changing the nightshift settings thinking it was because my phone’s brightness changes in the evening but that didn’t change anything. I tried my partner’s iPhone 7 and the same happens. I have also tried: restarting COMAND; switching the phone off and on; changing the USB restriction setting on the phone; switching screen time off; different cables; clearing the bluetooth connection and re-pairing it; clearing the CarPlay connection and re-pairing it.

The dealership has replaced the media interface USB port and tried to blame my phone but when I told them the problem persists with an iPhone 7 they agreed to have another look. I’m waiting for them to bring the car in but I’m not holding my breath.

Another point is that I got a Thinkware F770 dashcam hardwired into the car but the guy I use is well-established and retrofits everything from SAT Navs to reversing cameras for dealerships as well as the general public so I doubt it has anything to do with it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,

Alan

 

Have the voltage and load checked on the USB circuit. Is the dash cam wired into a new circuit or is it piggybacked onto another circuit? The W213 seems to be very sensitive to having stuff added to a circuit. There is a thread here where a member added a powered speaker to a circuit and it killed the entire entertainment system. He removed the powered speaker and everything started working again.

 

Thanks ua549. It’s booked in again for next Thursday so I’ll ask the technician to check that out. I’d say they hate seeing me coming but at the same time you would think they have all the answers! I’m not sure how the dashcam was wired in to be honest.

I tried it again twice today - once at 1pm and once at 6pm. At 1pm the connection was dead and nothing happened but again, at 6pm it worked perfectly with the car switched off and went haywire again when I started the car. It’s such a mystery but while I’m no expert, it does seem to be something to do with the electrics.

Thanks again,

Alan

 

So I turned on the headlights and the phone started charging. It had to be something to do with the circuitry as you say.

 

There are a lot of threads about this kind of iPhone occurrence in the Apple support threads. It's is quite likely an Apple issue. I've had this happen with my iPhone also, not just in my car but at home also when I connect it to non-wall charging connections (e.g. USB cable attached to computer, TV, etc.). Connect the phone and two seconds later it disconnects. It's something that seems Apple has not addressed either.

 

I had major issues with mine recently - it would only connect about 20% of the time unless I performed a hard reset (holding down power button) - even after the hard reset it would work 1x time before crapping out again.

In the end I took it into the dealer where they performed a "CarPlay Update" - I was skeptical but when I got the car back everything works flawlessly.
Even on the service invoice it shows as "CarPlay Update", so who knows...

I did read some models have an issue with CarPlay not launching properly due to missing system codes - maybe the update fixed that 🤷🏻‍♂️
But regardless things work 99.9% of the time now, and CarPlay seems a lot more stable.

 

Hi Alan

I know I’m a few years late, but did you get the issue resolved in the end ?
im having the same problem with my e class c238. Apple car play only works when the engine is off with dipped headlights. The previous owner had a dash cam fitted so I think it’s a wiring issue. Let me know how you fixed yours.

thanks

 

Hi,

No problem. I had to take it to my local MB garage and I explained what had happened. They had to contact Germany with the very specific diagnosis in order to obtain the fix. They uploaded the fix to the car’s interface as far as I know but for some reason they had part of the dash removed!


All the best,

Alan

 

@Alan Morrison Hi Alan I am currently experiencing the same problem and have brought car to my local MB garage twice and they have said they can’t get it to work. Can I ask what MB garage you brought yours so that I may try contact them? At least they will have seen the issue before and fixed it so may be able to help me.
Cheers

 

Hi Alex,

It was MSL Service Centre (North Dublin).

I hope you get sorted.


Alan

 

Thanks so much Alan
I will pop into them tomorrow and hopefully they can fix the same issue
Cheers
Alex