Few things are more frustrating than when you're rocking to a great tune on the road, only to have the music interrupted for some reason. I've found this to be a common symptom of poorly planned steering-wheel audio controls, like those in late-model Jaguars with similarly shaped and closely spaced volume up/down and track up/down thumb wheels. Just when I'm ready to crank it up, I inadvertently hit the track up/down control instead ... and the moment is over.
But I noticed something just as infuriating in a few Lexus and Toyota vehicles I've recently tested, as shown in the video above I shot last week in a 2010 Lexus ES 350. When scrolling through artists on a connected iPod, whichever artist the screen's blue highlighted bar lands on, the iPod automatically begins playing from there. And the same thing happens when scrolling through songs.
Just think how often you do this, probably without even thinking about it, while listening to music on an iPod and scrolling through to see what to listen to next. And how jarring it would be to have the iPod decide on its own to sample every artist or song the blue highlighted bar lands on.
When I first noticed the issue, I called Toyota and they acknowledged that it's something the company has gotten complaints about from owners, and that it's working on a fix. Not as big a deal as unintended acceleration, but annoying if you don't feel like stopping to listen to a few seconds of Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch when going from Alice Cooper to, say, Kings of Leon.
By ne1butu2
on June 2, 2010
07:16 PM
It's a Lexus. Drive it to the worst neighborhood you can find. Leave the doors unlocked, the keys on the seat and pray that someone steals it and is never recovered. The iPod connectivity is the least of this cars issues.
By aparsons
on February 20, 2011
05:28 AM
Doug, I had this trouble with the Mark Levinston system, but not a regular es system. Lexus said it was in the design and could not fix it. Did you ever here anything else. Adam