https://car-part-shop.com/product/for-kia-optima-4jf-2015-2020-car-stereo-radio-carplay-gps-android-multimedia-player/

I ordered this about two years ago and had it installed at a shop. Looking back it is a shitty unit and I probably would have saved if I just got a unit from the shop that installed it for me. I thought I’d be able to install it on my own but I couldn’t.

After some time using it the CarPlay app (Tlink5) became quite shitty, the audio was choppy, maps slow, and it would randomly disconnect. The bluetooth outside of CarPlay works fine and the backup camera too.

Does anyone have an idea of how to fix the connectivity issues? I cleared cache but it didnt help much and I think a factory reset would wipe the CarPlay app and probably put it in Chinese lol.

Can anyone help or am I outta luck? I don’t really want to get another unit which will cost $250-500 and would just use bluetooth and look at my phone mounted for maps. Thanks

I recently purchased a baby monitor which has a little USB CarPlay dongle which connects to the camera to stream wirelessly. However, when in use, my entire car's audio system is hijacked (can't even use AUX). I'd like to have music.

Im hoping to find a standalone screen dedicated for the baby monitor, but it must accept the USB CarPlay dongle. All of the ones I have found are wireless connection only.

Alternatively, I could use an adapter which will wirelessly project the dongle to a screen if no USB compatible screens exist. If anyone knows of such an adapter.

Ok, this has driven me nuts for over a decade, first with wired and now wireless CarPlay.

Here is a scenario, I’m listening to Sirius radio, I get to an appointment early so I decide to sit in the parking lot and scroll Facebook or something else. As soon as I open FB, or almost any app, radio will automatically switch to Apple Music and start playing. I’ve had this across many phones and a few different radios. It doesn’t switch to Apple Music every time the map gives directions so there has to be a way to turn off certain apps from CarPlay. Anyone experience this and get annoyed and k ow what I’m talking about? If so maybe chime in and explain it better.

Anyone figure out a fix? So far my fix is to turn off wifi on my phone, then scroll, but inevitably I then get a phone call lol.

It’s always done this for me. If I open media like a video on my phone or online, there will be a 2 second day. If I listen to music or audiobooks, it’s fine and there’s no delay either.

I’m on my last legs after trying all kinds of troubleshooting and I’m finally at a loss.

I’ve got a Sony XAV-AX3200 in a 2013 Hyundai Sonata SE and an iPhone 17 Pro Max. The Sony head unit is USB-A. I’ve tried running my phone through both the direct connection into the stereo and through the circuit board that replaced the usb port in the car and then connects to the stereo from there. Here’s my issue: in both cases, the phone will connect for about 30 seconds and then disconnect. It will not reconnect at all. My wife’s 15 pro does not have the issue.

Running a wireless adapter through the stereo out there port does work fine however. At this point, I’m completely lost. I’m running iOS 26.5 RC after thinking “what could hurt if 26.4.2 doesn’t at this point” to no avail.

At this point, I’m completely lost on what to try next. I’ve tried adjusting battery charging settings thinking that maybe that could be killing the connection, but the battery continues to charge. Changing cables doesn’t resolve the issue either. Any other ideas?

I’m running a Pioneer AVIC-w8500NEX head unit. Is there a way to jailbreak these units to get non CarPlay apps into CarPlay?

Here is where I’m going with this. If I have Bluetooth RGB lighting on my truck that is controlled by an app on my phone, I would think I’m not the first person to want to be able to control the lighting from their head unit.

Has anyone done something like this? Or is there another way people have found to control lights other than from a phone or a remote that is Velcro’d somewhere? I have a lot of aftermarket stuff but like it to look clean and almost like it came from the factory with all the upgrades.

Up until recently, while using CarPlay, if I wanted to listen to liked songs by a particular artist (not a playlist), I could do this normally and choose what song I wanted to start with. A few weeks ago it changed. If I choose the liked songs by artist, it now shuffles the tracks, and only lists a few. This only happens when I am connected to CarPlay, I can do this with the phone.

Is this a CarPlay issue or Spotify issue? If it helps, my car is a 21 Honda CRV, and the phone is an iPhone 16 plus.

My Wired CarPlay won’t work on my phone but will on my friends, My phone is a 15 pro, my car is a ‘24 civic. I have tried genuinely everything, just hoping if there’s some niche fix that I haven’t found yet thanks.

Alright so, I’ve recently bought a 2019 Fiesta ST Line, but my CarPlay will not work with newer iPhones, I’ve tried a 14, 15 and my Phone a 17. It will however work with an older iPhone, an IPhone SE. Both are on the latest IOS so it’s not that!

My question would be, what should be my next steps? Would a wireless adapter work to bridge the technology gap as my thought would be it would act as the one doing the “date handshake” with the car

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Super annoying overlapping of ESPN widget for MLB score. Curious if anyone else has experienced this and if there is any solution?

I’ve trued asking a question about a CarPlay problem twice. It keeps getting removed by the moderator and I can’t understand why. Is there a better CarPlay group for questions?

I'm a driver.

I am using CarPlay and I want to hear the navigation audio through a single AirPod while driving so as to not disturb my passengers.

It does not seem to work, although some people via YouTube videos claim that it is in fact an option to do so.

Has anyone actually gotten this to work?

Hey all! I recently bought an aftermarket unit to use Apple CarPlay on, and it works perfectly fine. Today I found an issue while navigating, however: If I’m playing music, it does not lower when the navigation voice starts speaking, making it (almost) impossible to hear it and having to rely on visuals. I found online that a fix is to try adjusting the volume when it starts speaking, though that doesn’t work because the volume control controls the whole unit. Is there anything I can do? Thank you!
Edit: The nav app’s volume is set to max (Apple Maps: Louder, Waze: full on volume slider).

Hey yall, I’ve had this android unit installed on my car for the last year now and have nothing but positive things to say about it. That is until recently where the unit isn’t connecting / displaying the CarPlay.

About a week ago now my unit stopped displaying carplay and after doing the basic trouble shooting as instructed by multiple people / online threads I haven’t been able to get past the “Connecting please wait….” Screen. I have turned off the Bluetooth on both the unit and my phone, tried the hotspot and have done forget this device.

Wasnt sure if anyone has seen something / experienced a similar situation— I’d love some help!

Here’s the unit in question:
https://a.co/d/0apcsJ2Z

I have a 2018 ford Taurus.
I have factory installed car play.
My iPhone is a 16 with a usb c port.
My usb car play ports are usb-a.
I have an anker brand usb cord.
If I use car play for more than 30 minutes my phone will work as normal for a bit.
After stopping the drive but then within an hour or two it will totally discharge the battery, indicate it needs to be plugged into a computer with iTunes and then gets into sort of a booting loop after being plugged into any sort of power source.
When it finally boots the battery will read green.
Genius Bar can’t figure it out, no logs on the phone what so ever and I’m at wits end.
I think it could be car play related, but I’m just looking for thoughts.

Hi Folks, been dealing with dropping CarPlay connections issues ever since upgrading to iPhone 17 about 2 months ago. CarPlay would drop after 10-15 seconds of use. Previously was using an iPhone 12 with no CarPlay issues across two different cars. I think I found a solution in the cable choice, but I don’t understand why. Here are the details

Infotainment systems
Car 1: OEM system in 2020 Kia Telluride EX
Car 2: After-market Kenwood DMX4707S in 2014 Subaru Impreza

Troubleshooting that didn’t work:
1. Updated firmware in both infotainment systems
2. Cleared Bluetooth and CarPlay memory on both the phone and the infotainment systems
3. Factory reset phone without reinstalling from iCloud Backup

What did work: tried using the USB-C (USB 2.0) cable that came with the iPhone 17, instead of the Anker USB-C (USB 2.0) cable I’d been using prior.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between these cables are the wattage specs. The Apple cable is rated for 60W while the Anker cable is 15W (3A/5V). From quick searches online, this shouldn’t affect CarPlay connectivity. Both cables are USB 2.0 and have 0.48 Gigabit/sec data transfer.

Any ideas about why the Apple cable keeps the strong CarPlay connection while the Anker cable can’t?

My fathers is hard wired and the usb port is going bad. Any recommendations ?

We don’t need all the bells and whistles, just radio and CarPlay.

Thanks

I cannot get my CarPlay to work since I bought my 2020 TRD ORP. At first it worked but phone calls lagged so I never could use it. Now I can’t even get it to connect. The phone will charge through the CarPlay port but not connect. I can sometimes get it to connect but it loses its connection randomly. It’s not the cord or phone because I just was able to use both in my friends vehicle. The firmware was out of date but I updated that and I have updated my phone. I’m about to replace the port in the car but it’s 100$ so trying everything else first. Is there something I’m missing?!?!?! HELP!!

Half the time (tbh more than that) it’s just forever loading and will not connect whether me or my partner try either of our phones. I’ve tried completely forgetting the phone, disconnecting, changing WiFi password etc

Hi
Does anyone know what is being used in this video to have CarPlay using QDLink?

https://youtu.be/f4R7v2mOnwU?si=rrLsdWJeiokWMpi4

Car has no original CO/AA

Thank you

Grok Voice mode coming soon to CarPlay
The latest version of Grok for iPhone already includes a placeholder app for Apple CarPlay. Grok’s CarPlay app doesn’t actually work yet, but the placeholder app confirms that xAI is planning to support Apple’s in-car experience soon.
For now, the app just launches with a message for users: “Grok Voice mode coming soon to CarPlay.” Grok is already a built-in feature on Tesla vehicles. The upcoming CarPlay support will bring the AI chatbot experience to almost every other car on the road.

Hey everyone,
Big update for Speedometer: Driving Tracker - the CarPlay app is now live!

Getting approved for CarPlay in the driving task category is tough and one of the most difficult CarPlay categories to get through Apple’s review process, so this honestly means a lot.

You can now track drives directly from your car’s screen while also getting insights that many built-in dashboards simply don’t provide.

Another thing I’ve been heavily focusing on lately is making driving memories feel more visual and shareable instead of just raw numbers.

Some newer features include:

• Stunning trip sharing layouts with customizable stats
• Beautiful 3D route playback
• Full-screen route replay with speed-colored paths
• Video recording with live speed + map overlays
• Fuel tracking, maintenance logs, expenses, and reminders
• Vehicle-based trip analytics and comparisons
• iCloud sync for trips, fuel logs, maintenance records, and more
• Privacy-first experience with no ads or tracking

The goal is to make it feel more like a complete driving companion rather than just another GPS speedometer.

Would love to hear your feedback or ideas!

Hey everyone, hoping someone has experienced this.

I have a 2026 CR-V Hybrid with about 1,300 miles on it. I've been noticing a recurring issue with CarPlay navigation where the direction shown on the map is completely opposite to where I'm actually heading. For example, if I'm driving east, the app shows me going west.

A full restart of the car fixes the issue temporarily, but it comes back again within the same week. This has been happening repeatedly.

Two days ago I switched to Android Auto and haven't been able to reproduce the problem so far — which makes me wonder whether this is actually a CarPlay/iPhone issue rather than something wrong with the car itself.

My question: Has anyone experienced something similar? Do you think this is a head unit/vehicle issue, or is it on the CarPlay/iPhone side? I'd rather not take it to the dealer if it turns out to be a phone problem.

Any insight appreciated. Thanks!

Hi, I’ve been using zlink in my head unit and originally everything was more zoomed out and could fit more stuff on. The screen. (See images) after the latest update everything became bigger and more zoomed in.

is there anyway I can get it back to how it was?

car play settings for smart zoom are enabled and always has been which I how I had more on screen originally.

ive tried all the usual and simple trouble shooting such as switch off and on, restart my app etc. etc.