Okay, so I love my little 500c and she still makes me smile every time I look at her, but today I've finally had it with the Blue and Me

When I picked the car up all was well with it and it was working perfectly. Two weeks ago the answer button stopped working, I did wonder if I was being too heavy handed with it, but no, it's just not working.

Then today the voice recognition has stopped working, plus when I do make a call the person on the other end can barely hear me, so I'm guessing it's a problem with the microphone.

Anyhoo, it wasn't much fun driving to work today and shouting NO at the stupid blue and me lady at the top of my voice to absolutely no avail whatsoever. Anyone looking at me must have thought I was having a screaming argument with some one.

Back to the dealers on the 16th once the techie guy is back from his holidays :bang:

Its a 2 minute job changing the microphone, let garage know in advance (they should have one in stock) that your turning up & within 5 minutes you'll be driving away without having to shout....save that for the hubby

T14086 said:

Its a 2 minute job changing the microphone, let garage know in advance (they should have one in stock) that your turning up & within 5 minutes you'll be driving away without having to shout....save that for the hubby

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Thank you, that makes me feel a lot happier

This seems to be a common problem mine packed up within 3 days of getting the car and i took it in today to the dealer to have it sorted. They gave me a new punto 1.4 petrol as courtesy car and it wasn't very nice compared to my 500 i was glad to give it back. I don't know why fiat hasn't sorted this problem out its been known since early 2008!

Anniebee said:

Thank you, that makes me feel a lot happier

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what the new mic or shouting at husband

T14086 said:

what the new mic or shouting at husband

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LOL, a bit of both really!!

I had the new mic put in the other day... it's a really quick job, so if you make sure they have the part before you take the car in they can do it whilst you wait.

After that, all is well again

crabman

This issue was mentioned a year ago when I got my 500, its surprising that the same fault is still coming up even in the 500c. Strangely tho, mine has never packed up, but I don't use it much. Mine will probably go 1 day out of warranty and the garage will charge me an hours labour to fit a new one!

Mine seems to ignore me on some pushes of the button and not on others. (Maybe a loose connection or maybe she's moody??)

Also, my wife is called Louisa. If I say it in an English accent she has a nightmare trying to understand me, so I tried an Italian accent (thinking well it's an Italian name) the other day and it worked fine!!

mine B&M dislike my Sony phone but is OK with the Nokia

I have ended up not using the phone function anyway as i prefer to concentrate on driving that having random phone conversations

i do like the way it reads text message out though, but if you are having an affair could be bad news!

I was at dealer with mine couple of days ago because of a whining climate control fan (which they are going to replace) and also mentioned the trouble I have sometimes with the Blue&Me lady being able to understand what I am saying. Trouble is sometimes she does 'get' it but others she hasn't a clue and it is driving me bonkers. Like you, I end up screaming, speaking nicely, trying different accents etc - mad. The dealer kind of fobbed me off by saying they are a bit quirky and perhaps I need time to get used to it. I wonder if my microphone has a problem but then again I have no trouble hearing people calling in and they can hear me perfectly OK (once I do actually manage to get connected).

As it is a small job I am wondering if I should ask them to change the microphone anyway when the do the fan but they don't seem keen.

Midlife Crisis said:

As it is a small job I am wondering if I should ask them to change the microphone anyway when the do the fan but they don't seem keen.

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They're probably not keen because it's more work for free I'd just tell them you spoke with Fiat CS who have said to contact your dealer to have the microphone replaced... Hopefully it'll help, but considering people can hear you fine it may just be that you have a strange voice

crabman

It seems to like northern accents... 99% of the time she understands me. Now and again she thinks I've said "genres" when I've actually said "folders". Has had no problems understanding me when I say "call (contact name)".

She doesn't understand "whippet", "cloth cap" or "ey up me duck" though. :shrug:

I must admit I don't use the voice recognition on my 500 much, it was such a farce to try and play music from the media player it's just easier to have it on play anything from the 16 gigs of songs and that does me fine. I did use the phone for a while after getting the BOLD to work but I can't say I've been in need of calling much whilst driving along (too distracting for me); as with most VR software it's cludgy and cocks things up.

I found you have to say words how they look in (slow motion) rather than how they are actually pronounced and even this can take a few goes. It was fun for a while but now most calls in the car are incoming. I did find that the system doesn't always hang up a call when it's ended. Doesn't seem to tell the phone to hang up. I made a call, got to a supermarket car park, got out the car went to call my other half and found the call was still connected as far as the phone was concerned.

Had the odd repeating stuck in a bred bin factor a few times when on a call the other person has a duplication / delay, makes for an odd call.

The system may be more useful to me when the Tom Tom satnav system comes out for the uk to replace the current one.

Totally beats me why are people so obsessed with talking to other people on the phone when driving.
The one thing i always do when getting in the car is turn my phone off - the car is my space - the last thing i want to be doing is talking to other people when i'm in it - Call me Mr anti-social but i like it just me, my music and the open road, everyone else can go whistle for however long it takes.

(I must point out at this moment in time that i have a company mobile and everyone at work thinks you should be at their beck and call all hours of the day and night. you get a bit fed up with stupid calls at all hours asking totally irrelivant questions that can wait until the next day)

Rant over

I can appreciate that sentiment MD... I resisted gettting a mobile phone for a long time, because when I was out, I didn't want to be in, know what I mean? I like the phone connection for novelty really, and as I'm deeply unpopular I rarely get calls anyway, so its a moot point.

Apart from syncing the phone, I haven't really monkeyed about much with this Blue & Me business. Is she very strict? will she spank me if I get things wrong....?

I'm astonished people use the voice bit of Blue&me. It's utter rubbish. It's never worked for me. And the delay between pressing the button and having her ready to accept a command or saying a command and her ultimately getting it utterly wrong is huge. I can scroll through with the steering wheel buttons in far far less time than it takes Blue&Me voice to mess something up.

jnoiles said:

I'm astonished people use the voice bit of Blue&me. It's utter rubbish. It's never worked for me. And the delay between pressing the button and having her ready to accept a command or saying a command and her ultimately getting it utterly wrong is huge. I can scroll through with the steering wheel buttons in far far less time than it takes Blue&Me voice to mess something up.

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I use it to start the media player and dial, that's all it's really good for.

"Play anything"

and

"Call Caroline... yes ... YES!!!!!!!!!"

Are the only things I say to Blue&Me lady.

Notts I know what you mean I only get calls from my wife on my phone

RobW said:

i do like the way it reads text message out though, but if you are having an affair could be bad news!

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Yeah, imagine getting dumped by text with the wife sitting next to you.