[Bahboric]

I have a 2018 Touring (still under warranty, I believe), and the sound quality when using my phone with it is awful. I can hear the other person fine, but the person I'm talking to has great difficulty understanding me. I believe this is due to road noise, since it isn't too bad at low speeds, but is awful at highway speeds. I know others have posted that they get a microphone or even the whole unit replaced, and I'd like to have a dealer check mine out. I'm hesitant to take it to the dealer if I have to pay and the fix doesn't work, or they say there is nothing wrong with it. So if I take it to a dealer, complaining about sound quality, who has to pay for them to diagnose the problem? If they say there is no problem, do I have to pay? I am not optimistic about getting this fixed, and don't want to waste a lot of money for nothing. Thanks.

 

[williamsji]

If they determine there is no issue with any of the hardware/software in the vehicle.. there is little they can do about it. I would not expect a request to evaluate an issue on a vehicle under warranty would result in a fee to the owner... but I have seen some posts in this forum where some dealers are pretty petty about trying to weasel out of evaluation/correction of a customer perceived issue under warranty and try to charge the owner for something. For example: some of us have had issues with the shift control button on our shifter breaking, and some dealers have dealt with this under warranty without issue (mine did) and other dealers try to claim the "it's a plastic button, and plastic parts are not covered under warranty" BS. It is a bumper to bumper 36 month factory warranty. I could see possible pushback from a dealer for plastic parts failure under the HondaCare extented warranty.. but not the factory warranty.

As to your specific issue.. this has been discussed in other threads and it appears that the cause is on the phone side of things more so then the vehicle. Seems some phones have active noise cancellation native and so does the vehicle... so they conflict. So, maybe poke around in the forum a bit for those discussion.. and I'll see if I can find a linked forum thread for you. If it is a phone interaction issue... best to try to solve that first.. before pulling the trigger with a dealer.

 

[williamsji]

Follow-up:

Link to a discussion over at cargurus about this issue and bluetooth connectivity for voice. https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/Discussion-t76547_ds860819 This comment by a poster in particular may be of use for you to try:

I bought the 2019 Honda EX on 3/8/2019. Note that others above believe that software is adjusting the mic according to engine or ambient noise. Having read this forum before purchasing my vehicle I went through the sound settings and found the setting for adjusting volume adjustment with speed. The default was set to high and I reduced this to the next lower setting. This definitely had an impact to the clarity of the call on my side. So far no one has complained about being able to hear me. Admittedly I have used my wife’s advice of only calling through the touchscreen and not directly through my phone.

Went into the settings - sound - Bluetooth and changed the settings for when the car increases speed. Mine was set to off and no one could hear me unless my car was stopped; I set it to the medium setting and it's fine now.

Some owners claim success withe an HU replacement, but it seems to be a struggle to get Honda to replace HUs unless Honda Support at Corporate gives them approval to do so.

A couple of questions:

1) are you using a wired connection between phone and vehicle? If so, how is it connected exactly? Or are you connecting with bluetooth?
2) what phone model and brand?

 

[Bahboric]

Thanks for the links and info. I'd read lots of posts on the topic of poor audio quality, but hadn't seen that one. I didn't know about the speed volume adjustment, and when I just checked mine, it was set to Medium. I will experiment with different settings.

The reason I don't think it is the phones (I've tried 3) is because of two things. First, if I don't go through the Honda audio system and just call, things sound fine. Second, I bought some cheap bluetooth car speakerphone, and if I use that, there is no problem with audio quality. Because of that it seems that the phones are working fine. I tried it with an iPhone 6+, iPhone 6s, and Samsung Galaxy S4. I connect all these phones to the Honda via bluetooth, although they are plugged in for charging purposes.

Thanks