General Help with music, iPhone and a 2009 Fiat 500

[Gillw8]

Hi everyone

Please can I have your help? My daughter is looking to buy her first car and has found a great little 2009 Fiat 500 but as a typical 18 year old, wants to be able to ply music from her iPhone 12. It has the USB socket but we don’t know whether this can be used to play music which is a deal breaker for her. I’ve done a ton of googling and can’t work it out!

Please can anyone advise? TIA!

 

[jrkitching]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

A 2009 Fiat 500 isn't designed to work with an iPhone 12. It needs a special adapter to work even with an iPhone 4, and that was objectively not very satisfactory. The steering wheel controls can't be used to select music stored on the phone; this could only be done on the iPhone itself. This would be illegal now in the UK; touching the phone to select music whilst driving will get you a minimum of six penalty points and that will put a new driver straight off the road on a first offence.

The best way to play music from the USB socket in a 500 of that age is to put the music onto a Windows formatted memory stick in .mp3 format and select it using the steering wheel controls, which is how it was designed to work.

Some have found workarounds, almost none of which will work with the steering wheel controls (buying a new aftermarket head unit is probably the best option), but expecting a 12 year old car's infotainment system to be compatible with the latest generation of phones is just plain unrealistic.

 

[Piccolo Nero e Bella]

My car's a 2013 and it won't play music from any phone, simply doesn't have that facility.

Also, the output current from the USB socket is barely enough to charge a low end phone of that era, let alone a recent model.

 

[John202020]

Replace the radio and get everything you need it will be less than £100, if going for a car of that age have it professionally inspected before purchase, we have a 09 plate car and I know just how much we've replaced.

 

[rmjbn1]

If it's just for audio, then I would say yes it's possible, as you have options.

I only play music from my phone in our 2004 Panda (with factory cassette radio!)

We added a simple bluetooth FM transmitter, like this one.

It very occasionally picks up interference, but works well.

I understand the MP3 CD radio fitted as standard doesn't have bluetooth?

Can anyone confirm if the radio has auxiliary inputs at the rear?

If so, a neater arrangement would be a concealed bluetooth receiver wired up to the ignition and radio as an aux input to add bluetooth connectivity to the existing radio.

Or, as John202020 says, a replacement bluetooth radio.