Renewing Connected Services

agreed. this is ridiculous, and I will not be signing up for that joke of a service for this very reason. All I want is to open my god damned doors remotely.

 

Haha! I Love your honesty.

 

Only had my Limited one week and just found this thread. How depressing!! My 6th Toyota since 1987. What the hell happened to Toyota? New CEO/President - Is that it? We need a huge social media campaign against this “Bundled Services” idea to spread the word. Make them reconsider. I read Toyota leased the rights to these services to a 3rd party. We’ll probably live thru a few of these (dis)Service companies over the coming years. One week in and I’m not a happy camper that we can be held hostage removing basic key fob functionality which doesn’t require a connected vehicle. I fully understand there’s got to be a connectivity cost for connected services but that’s fairly cheap. $8/mo easily should cover that for everything except streaming music.

 

Some additional information regarding the Connected Services subscriptions that may be helpful.

• In 2022 the Remote Connect subscription was available separately at 8$/month or $80/year. ( https://www.toyotausvi.com/assets/pdf/MY22_Connected_Services_English.pdf )
• In 2023 the Remote Connect subscription is now only available as part of 3 bundles, starting at $15/month with no yearly discount. ( https://www.toyotausvi.com/assets/pdf/MY22_Connected_Services_English.pdf )

• Also in September 2022, Toyota announced an extension to the Safety Connect and Service Connect subscription Trials up to 10 years. ( https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota...to-safety-connect-and-service-connect-trials/ ). This is important, since having ANY ACTIVE Subscription allows the keyfob remote start to function. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AHGpUHZlzw
  I verified this on my own 2022 Tundra that has expired the Remote Subscription but has the 10 year Trial for both Safety Connect and Service Connect active. My keyfob remote start still works even though I can't use the Toyota App to remote start anymore. My take away is that Toyota was trying to appease owners by allowing us to at least continue to be able to use the keyfob remote for 10 years, without having to change their code.

I'm still waiting for the Remote Connect service to be available separately again at $80/year. Can't bring myself to pay double for stuff I don't want or need.

 

It’s not a big deal. I have it and haven’t used it for over a month. The first six month of ownership I would remote start every morning. Now I don’t even open the app.

 

I find using the remote start via key fob to be impossible. Almost never works. I just renewed since my free year is up. $25 a month for everything. I would have preferred an annual option, but only monthly was offered. I agree, it's a bit steep. But I like the features and don't want to give up nav or remote start.

 

I called and bitched, talked with customer engagement and nothing. They canceled my subscription and tried to use the remote for a few weeks and it worked 1x out of hundreds of tries. I just signed back up at $15 a month with my tail between my legs

 

The biggest message we can send is to stop subscribing!

 

I won't subscribe to any of that mostly because I don't use it, I understand that the app and the system costs money to maintain, but there's a limit to the nonsense. Just like stores now having you pay to use their shopping carts. I'll bring my little red wagon first LOL

 

You guys might want this....I've been using it for a month or so now and its awesome not having it shut off when I open a door and the 2-way version has excellent range. Also locks/unlocks the truck.

https://accessorides.com/products/2022-toyota-tundra-remote-start-kit-plug-play-push-start

 

For me I think I am most frustrated by the Nav. I get that live feeback, traffic update, etc needs signal which costs money but why disable the NAV entirely. Let people use it like the older dumb systems once the connected service expires. Why is that so hard. Doesn't cost them any money. Its stupid. After the trial period expires my 10 year old Sienna will have more functioning tech then my brand new Tundra. Just stupid.

 

Do you have a gen 3?

Does your 10 year old sienna have CarPlay or Android?

 

My truck’s 1 yr birthday was a month ago. I just tried my key fob and it started right up with the 3-time lock button sequence. The Toyota app however, is now useless. I will NOT be paying for extras.
I do understand why Toyota and other car companies are charging for these services=$$$. I sure don’t like it.

 

Exactly my thoughts…!! I sold my 2010 4Runner when I got the Tundra. The Runner had a DVD based GPS that worked perfectly. I never updated the map disc, I did consider it but the cost of the newer map disc versus the fact that I never really had a problem with the original maps that were included with the original purchase price of the 4Runner I decided not to. This ‘23 Tundra retailed at $20,000 more than my Runner, you’d think that would include a working navigation system included with the original purchase price.
And guess what… when we’re down in West Virginia in certain areas or on vacation in remote areas with no cell service I still had navigation…

 

No 2023 application yet. I hope they have that before my BS Toyota "service" trial expires.

 

Car companies have a very tough job to manage feature sets. Some would rather have previous gen nav. Many influencers, media and customers do a big WTF if it doesn't have current cloud based update through the air offerings. People bitch about subscriptions, I see why but on the same forum customers are pissed that they can't have multiple users on the remote app.. Some people hate HUD, others are going though gymnastics figuring out how to add it. People whine about milage and the most common adds are huge heavy wheels with lifts. Hell, there are people that don't even have a Gen 3 that complain about services that they don't even use.

I think the Ford platform has fewer quirks but, and it's a huge but, they can't service it if anything fails on the buss.

I'd like to see more purpose built SW that is bulletproof supportable but I doubt it's going to happen. I can't think of a technology based product, which cars are, that has become simpler in later iterations.

 

It's one thing to offer cloud connected services but they should not try to not lock you in to those services. The way Toyota has this set up with no onboard NAV and only their own branded cloud based NAV makes no sense when you can just use Google, Waze or Apple Maps for that. And the big flaw is that with no built in onboard NAV there are may places with no cellular service where you will be SOL without any NAV at all, unless you planned ahead and downloaded Google or other off-line maps. My 2009 Tacoma that I sold in January was so much better having Pioneer head unit with built in NAV as well as CarPlay and Android Auto. That and a long range Clifford remote starter was the perfect setup, IMO. It is sad that the Tundra OEM offerings don't even come close to what I had in my 15 year old truck.

 

What 2023 nav systems do you like? Who's doing a good job?

 

No idea and I certainly don't have time to research how all the mfgs do this.... and it isn't something that would define my buying decision. IOW, I won't be buying a RAM, for instance, if they have a more useful infotainment system. The other bad trend is for mfgs to custom build their new infotainment systems so you can't easily upgrade to aftermarket. But I'd say I would prefer the infotainment from any mfg who still provides some sort of onboard NAV function. It can take OTA updates and all that but it needs to function offline. This isn't an issue for most of us on a daily basis but when you do weekends in the country or summer travel to, say, Maine, you will quickly see how often you will have "no service" or no data... in which case you had better have that old Garmin stuck to your windshield.

 

Oh, I forgot... I DO have at least one example of a better OEM system... my 2016 Chevy Corvette. It has built in SXM, built in onboard NAV, CarPlay and Android Auto, and so on. It also can toggle between CarPlay NAV and native SXM with the press of a single button (not the several distractive presses and swipes needed on the Tundra) and it brings up the screen you want showing current channel and favorites without requiring yet another press. And it reliably stifles itself when reading text messages. I assume Chevy has probably even improved on this since then... but that old system was and is better than my Tundra. But that was not enough to make me buy a Chevy truck. Had one once... and that was enough.

 

I caught this today on a news feed. You're not alone. Everyone is asking for connected services but people don't like them. Per the comments, most want a non-subscriber based model, CarPlay or Android and Google services native. #1 drag on customer sat right now is infotainment.
BTW, I too flip back and forth between native and CarPlay. Pretty easy on the Toyo. An absolute bitch on the F150.
I think Toyota is giving people what they've asked for but it's not hitting the mark as it gets complicated in a hurry.
JD Power comments below:
On the digital side, less than half of those surveyed this year said they prefer using a manufacturer's built-in infotainment. From 70% of respondents in 2020 preferring to use a manufacturer's in-house software to play audio instead of Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, that's 56% in 2023. Going all-in on Google appears to have the best effect. J.D. Power said that vehicles with both Google's Android Automotive Operating System (AAOS) and Google Automotive Services (GAS) "score higher in the infotainment category than those with no AAOS whatsoever. AAOS without GAS receives the lowest scores for infotainment of the three categories."

Frank Hanley, senior director of auto benchmarking at J.D. Power, said, "Despite the technology and design innovations that manufacturers put into new vehicles, owners are lukewarm about them. While innovations like charging pads, vehicle apps and advanced audio features should enhance an owner’s experience, this is not the case when problems are experienced. This downward trajectory of satisfaction should be a warning sign to manufacturers that they need to better understand what owners really want in their new vehicles."

 

WHAT WE DONT WANT is to pay $70K or more for a vehicle and then get nickled and dimed for multiple services. Truly Ridiculous.

 

We also want the features to work when we pay $70k for a 1794.

I've actually been fairly happy with the infotainment so far. I don't use the native features much except for when I am trying to tune to Sirius XM. I wish I had the ability to navigate the native audio system inside of Carplay. The screen is big enough to multitask and carplay lets you multitask....but only in the Apple Ecosystem.

 

auto manufacturers probably figure "theyre paying 70k for a truck, they can afford to be nickel and dimed"

 

LOL... and maybe even quartered... and drawn. Or at least our wallets get drawn and quartered.

 

you can blame bmw for starting this zhit hole when they started charging for carplay/aa access. its only gone downhill from there and more people are paying for it which eggs the oem's to push the threshold on what people will pay.

 

That, added to the mfgs doing one-off custom infotainment hardware, makes it extremely difficult or even impossible to switch to aftermarket. Back in the day when everything came with a double DIN opening you were golden. You could much more easily put the latest and greatest head unit in there and totally escape mfgs' hardware restrictions and shortcomings.

 

Again, the contradictions of what customers want. You want simple double DIN. On the front page of this forum there are people disappointed the infotainment system and voice control doesn't do more and they'd like it displayed on HUD too. While we at it, panorama rear view mirror for everyone. I can't think of a center stack in the past 5 years which didn't merge a bunch of vehicle data which makes aftermarket stuff almost impossible. Who's the manufacturer supposed to listen too?

I don't know if BMW charges. I've got one now and have had a BMW of some kind for 20 years and I've never paid a subscription.

 

bmw started charging for carplay/aa back in aug-2019 then by dec-2019 due to the outcry they made it free again.

it was originally "you are charged an annual fee of $80 to have Apple CarPlay capability in your new BMW"

but it was rescinded by dec on 2019+ vehicles.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28580604/bmw-apple-car-play-cost-explainer/

 

I had a 2019 at that time and it never came up. I missed the drama.
Did they charge you?