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KIA Forte Bluetooth -- other people's experience?

49K views 51 replies 30 participants last post by  britboySWFL 
#1 ·
I found that the bluetooth quality is very nice, however I've run into an issue that I would like other peoples feedback on.

My phone has 3000+ contacts in it because it's my business phone. Eveytime I get in the car, the Forte begins downloading the phone numbers. This probably takes 5 minutes I more so I can't just jump in and drive home from work and make a call right away. My phone asks my permission to allow the forte to do this, so I tried a second time to pair I and said "no" and it appeared that the forte would still try and get the contact list but would be unable to. The problem is that it doesn't time out so you have to say yes to this on your phone for the Bluetooth to work at all. It would be nice if the Forte had a setting that you could disable this function. I would prefer to call people by number or by using my phone's contact list to find them rather try and speak the persons name and have the forte try and figure out who I am asking for.

Anyone else experimce this?
 
#2 ·
I turned bluetooth off because I was sick of "transfer complete" EVERY time you get in the car. That AND it's based on your volume setting, so the louder your radio, the more she yells at you.

Way too annoying for the minor convenience of hands free...I'll just use speaker phone anyways
 
#5 ·
There are several items in regards to this:
1. The bluetooth in the kia forte is adaptive... meaning it takes a few uses to learn your voice and tones in order for it to fully recognize your commands. Also, if you look in the manual you can state a combination of commands in order to speed up the process of dialing for example: "Dial 411-555-5555" or "Call John Smith on Mobile".
2. There is a way to stop the transfer as well... but this is a combination of both car bluetooth setup and phone bluetooth setup. You have to make sure that your phone also has the transfer option blocked or disabled.
 
#12 ·
While your current head unit may in fact cost less than kia's all in one, advancements in car stereos by independant manufacturors is much farther ahead than automakers. What "presumably" phone are you wanting to use with the forte?
 
#14 ·
It likely isn't. Any personal music player is compatible with the 1/8" cable. The ipod and ipone being a dominant force in the player field easily justifies an ipod connection, but even blue tooth streaming is a relatively new concept too. Which head unit on which vehicle are you using? As for the hardware being in place, that may be true, but on the software side it may not be anywhere close. True a firmware update may be able to add this functionality, but until they have enough people screaming for it, it's not likely going to happen.
 
#17 ·
I left a message with the Kia website about the bluetooth problem I have with my Forte. On Wednesday the Kia Customer Care got back to me. They reported that they have not recieved word from any customers experiencing the same problems.
I even left a link with them to this forum topic about the issue, since others are having the same issue. What the customer care representative told me was when I bring in my Forte for it's first 5,000 mile service, to call them to troubleshoot the issue.
:confused:
 
#19 ·
No... this is available on all models. Standard.

But I as I was typing this... I notice you're from Singapore.... which has different models. All models in North America come with bluetooth as it is against the law in almost all places to talk on your cell while driving.

Look at your steering wheel... if you don't see three buttons that have a phone on them then you don't have bluetooth.
 
#20 ·
To be honest, i've really enjoyed the bluetooth features so far on my car.

Sure it is a little annoying that it downloads my phone book everytime i get in the car, but the volumes of your phone and the stereo are independent. just hit the talk button and turn down the volume and then hang up. the transfer complete will now be much quieter, just remember to adjust your call volume appropriately.

I find the voice dialing very accurate and a cool feature to find on such an inexpensive car.
 
#22 ·
I have to agree also. The Bluetooth is a great function to have in places where you cannot talk on a handset. Yes the "Transfer Complete" voice can be a little annoying, but at least to hear it every time you know that you have your phone with you. I know that I have a habit of leaving my phone on the counter before I leave the house and now I can grab it before I leave in this case. KIA has come a long way for sure, and I can't wait to see what they have in store 10 years from now!
 
#24 ·
I've been using my Bluetooth with my Kia Forte for about a week now. The Downloading of the addressbook into the system each time you get in is really very stupid. If the system has enough memory to download it in the first place, they could store it and even tell if there were changes the next time it connected. It's not rocket science.
Also, yesterday I had just completed a call that I made using the downloaded addressbook and when I finished, it went back into DOWNLOADING mode again, which blocked me from immediately making another call.
Sure nice to know its connected but it could just say CONNECTED each time and stop this nonsense.
 
#26 ·
I hope they brind out one for the deck... They really need to get a feature to quickly go through letters of the alphabet before picking songs. Sucks when you are looking through 2000 plus songs and you have to spin the dial to do it. Am I missing something?
 
#27 ·
I guess that is just an IPOD thing. I have a 16GB USB plugged in with close to 2K songs on it, and I just created a nice folder structure on the pc and use the folder browsing feature on the deck... which works well. The only issue i have is the downloading phone book b.s. the rest... works well for me!
 
#28 ·
bluetooth working well for me

i've only had one issue that really doesn't bother me that much. i can use the hands free button on steering wheel only once per time i start up car. after that i have to call from my phone, but can talk through car. not a big deal for me. still better than wearing my headset in car.
 
#41 ·
i've only had one issue that really doesn't bother me that much. i can use the hands free button on steering wheel only once per time i start up car. after that i have to call from my phone, but can talk through car. not a big deal for me. still better than wearing my headset in car.
Man I just bought my forte on Sat and the BT was working fine so it kinda does bother me that as of yesterday I could only use the bluetooth function only once when I started up the car. And after the first couple of times I did that, I couldn't even do that anymore. I have to physically dial using my phone to use the bluetooth function. I called KIA customer service and they told me to bring it back to the dealer today.
 
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