[Richard]

I have a 2010 LT2 with Bluetooth. This seems like an interesting feature in lieu of the Onstar Handsfree calling. I currently have a prepaid plan on my cell phone. I buy 1,000 minutes for $100 - 10 cents per minute. Onstar minutes cost about 40 cents per minute. I looked at the Bluetooth feature in the Owners Manual and it looks like it works identical to the Onstar Handfree except you're going through your own phone.

My question is my current cell phone is not Bluetooth. Would it be worth it to buy a Bluetooth Phone and use it in the car? Is it easy to program / pair. Does it work as well as the Onstar Handsfree? I guess the phone has to be in the car for it to work.

Anyone who is using Bluetooth in the Bu, please give me some input.

Thanks.

 

[elcompaLalo]

I have some pre-paid minutes with OnStar, I can always get a connection when not possible with my cell phone (on the road). But.........a Bluetooth equipped phone would be very handy if you make/recieve alot of calls when driving, IMO it would be worth it.

 

[DrivenDaily]

I cancelled my OnStar after the one-year gimme was up. When that happened I lost my BT. It took one trip to the dealer to have the car reflashed and now I have BT again. It is easy to pair and totally easy to use. I hold my mute button on the steering wheel, say "Bluetooth", it responds "Bluetooth Ready", then I say "Voice", and it takes me to my cellphone's voice recognition dialing menu.

When I had OnStar I added the car to my Verizon as a Family Share phone number. Ended up costing over $30 a month just to add the phone. (Man, did I get ripped off or what?) They no longer offer to let Verizon do that. To use the OnStar stuff you have to buy their minutes. Now I use BT without OnStar, and I have a Garmin GPS, again without OnStar! The OnStar service was a good idea years ago, but GPS has advanced to the point that I will not have a dot matrix in my radio display when I can have moving maps in color!

GM, you listening? Give us value for the money we spend and we'll let you have it. Treat us in a way that makes us think we're being ripped off and we'll take our business elsewhere. I already have! Will my next car be a GM? Dunno. I love my 'Bu, but I'm not sold on GM's way of doing business. I'll check out Ford, Subaru, and Honda for sure.

 

[86lxjunker]

I use the Bluetooth everyday - its a very good option.

For my phone - I just turn it on and hit the link Bluetooth - it connects and you are good to go. You can use all the steering wheel button etc......

The first time you establish the connection with your phone to the car you just need to read the manual and the link is pretty easy.

 

[beach]

It's nice having both. Bluetooth connectivity works as easily and exactly like the Onstar/Verizon phone in the car if you've used that before. Having both, if anything ever happens with your cell phone, you forget it, it doesn't work, you're in an accident, etc. you have Onstar. But otherwise if you have a good cell phone plan as it is, don't want to use a second regularly, and your BT phone is with you all the time anyway, it'll sync and you're good to go daily.

Either way, having both is nice. I end up using BT more and forgetting the Onstar phone, but case in point yesterday I lost my cell phone and in the process just used my Onstar phone while out...back & forth, there are reasons for both and I'm glad both exist.

 

[Richard]

It's nice having both. Bluetooth connectivity works as easily and exactly like the Onstar/Verizon phone in the car if you've used that before. Having both, if anything ever happens with your cell phone, you forget it, it doesn't work, you're in an accident, etc. you have Onstar. But otherwise if you have a good cell phone plan as it is, don't want to use a second regularly, and your BT phone is with you all the time anyway, it'll sync and you're good to go daily.

Either way, having both is nice. I end up using BT more and forgetting the Onstar phone, but case in point yesterday I lost my cell phone and in the process just used my Onstar phone while out...back & forth, there are reasons for both and I'm glad both exist.

I agree, I am not going to drop Onstar and I will keep hands free minutes in Onstar, but the Onstar Handsfree minutes are very expensive. I am not a massive Cell Phone user, so I have a prepaid plan on my cell phone. 1,000 minutes costs $100 on my cell phone. 320 minutes cost $100 with On-Star Handsfree and that was a special that On-Star was running. The tax is also more with Onstar than my Cell Phone. My Cell Phone is providing the same service as Onstar handsfree, why does Onstar charge triple the amount?

That's why I'm interested in Bluetooth. From what I read in the Owner's Manual, it works identical to the Onstar Handsfree at 1/3 (or less) the cost. The problem is my current cell phone is not Bluetooth compatible. How much would a basic bluetooth cell phone cost?

 

[DrivenDaily]

I agree, I am not going to drop Onstar and I will keep hands free minutes in Onstar, but the Onstar Handsfree minutes are very expensive. I am not a massive Cell Phone user, so I have a prepaid plan on my cell phone. 1,000 minutes costs $100 on my cell phone. 320 minutes cost $100 with On-Star Handsfree and that was a special that On-Star was running. The tax is also more with Onstar than my Cell Phone. My Cell Phone is providing the same service as Onstar handsfree, why does Onstar charge triple the amount?

That's why I'm interested in Bluetooth. From what I read in the Owner's Manual, it works identical to the Onstar Handsfree at 1/3 (or less) the cost. The problem is my current cell phone is not Bluetooth compatible. How much would a basic bluetooth cell phone cost?

So long as you don't use any OnStar minutes I believe that they'll remain in the account until or unless you use them. Part of using them, though, is the navigation. If you get a BT phone you can use its minutes by just pairing it to the car and letting the BT access your phone instead of using the OnStar minutes. Much cheaper and you might gain some functions on your phone that you don't get with OnStar. Plus you can actually pair multiple phones. Have a friend with one pair theirs, then listen to the list and select which one you want to use, and the 'Bu BT will change from one to the other. I think you can have 5 paired devices.

Cost of a basic BT phone? Check 'em out - they're all over the place! I have a 3-year-old LG 8300 with Verizon. Works perfectly. Rarely experience loss of service. I say Bluetooth, Voice, Call (name of friend), and my phone calls that person. By saying Voice it is like pushing the button on my phone that enters the voice command menus. Whatever I can do with the voice commands away from the car I can do inside with BT once I say Voice.

All of my usage comes out of my Verizon minutes. How do I know that? I no longer have OnStar. I used to have an extra phone number through Verizon to keep my OnStar and Navigation active, but that was about $30 a month! Now I'm back to one phone number, one bill, one set of minutes. For navigation I now use a Garmin. Much better, too, since I now have moving maps in color and other features not available through OnStar.

 

[peterh]

Would definately get a BT enabled phone. Once paired it will connect when the the car is turned on, IMHO makes life really easy! Also you can store names / numbers in the car and then just "call" them out and BT will dial them for you.

 

[Richard]

Would definately get a BT enabled phone. Once paired it will connect when the the car is turned on, IMHO makes life really easy! Also you can store names / numbers in the car and then just "call" them out and BT will dial them for you.

What would a reasonable Blue Tooth Cell Phone cost (no frills)? Also, would they be able to put the sim card from my current (non-Blue Tooth) cell phone
into the Blue Tooth Cell Phone. I just added 1,000 minutes to my cell, so I would like to transfer them to the new phone.

Also, the owners manual states that not all BT Phones will work with the Malibu BT System. How would I know if the phone is compatible.

 

[beflat10r]

I didn't know that the Onstar navigation minutes are deducted from the Onstar minutes. Is that the case wuth the "free" year of Onstar?
I have a bt phone and it works fine. Easy to sinc. In the excitement of buying my new 2010 Malibu 1LT, I didn't question or realize the non-necessity of purchasing some extra minutes for phone via Onstar as suggested by my salesman. After about a week of messin around and driving and learning it seemed redundant.
The matrix thing for the directions does seem primitive. I guess when my year is up I'll probably opt for the Garmin too.

 

[DrivenDaily]

Yep. You get the functionality of the OnStar, but no minutes after what comes with it are used up. Using the Navigation uses minutes because it has to download the directions, but you also have to use them to call OnStar to ask for the directions. Even if you use eNav (that was my favorite feature!) you are storing it on their system and using minutes to download it. With my Garmin all I have to do to download from MapQuest is remove it from the car, plug it into the included cable, tell MQ to send it to the Garmin, then put it back in the car. And I can download multiple destinations for later retrieval, all without using any minutes whatsoever.

They no longer allow Verizon customers use their Family Share minutes to provide service to OnStar, but when I did it (Dec. '08) I lost the eNav feature and added about $30 a month to my Verizon bill.

OnStar needs to catch up to current technology if they want to keep customers, and they need to offer value for the money spent. Anyone buying a new GM and who gets OnStar is truly amazed (if they've never had it before), but the honeymoon is over rather quickly.

 

[jeepgrady]

You are incorrect in stating that you need minutes to use the OnStar nav. The hands free phone minutes is a separate feature of OnStar. My hand free minutes expired and I still have the Nav function.

 

[malibuman123]

BT works great as as stated is very easy to use

 

[srobinso11]

You are incorrect in stating that you need minutes to use the OnStar nav. The hands free phone minutes is a separate feature of OnStar. My hand free minutes expired and I still have the Nav function.

I agree. No minutes needed for the call to OnStar asking for directions and no minutes needed for the directions to download to the radio. Not sure where the rest of you got the misinformation...

Back on topic, I have never used the built in OnStar phone. I only use the Bluetooth connection to my Blackberry which I find to work very well.

 

[peterh]

What would a reasonable Blue Tooth Cell Phone cost (no frills)? Also, would they be able to put the sim card from my current (non-Blue Tooth) cell phone
into the Blue Tooth Cell Phone. I just added 1,000 minutes to my cell, so I would like to transfer them to the new phone.

Also, the owners manual states that not all BT Phones will work with the Malibu BT System. How would I know if the phone is compatible.

BT phone cost will depend on your provider. Almost certain you would be able to transfer the SIM from one phone to another if the provider is the same.

I have used two phones in this car an older Nokia 8610 and am now using an LG Neon, both have worked as expected. If in doubt do a Google on BT and GM cars to see if you can find an updated list on the GM website.

My feeling though is that any BT enabled phone will work,as other site members are using a whole plethora of phones.

HTH

 

[DrivenDaily]

Hey, guys, thanks for the correction. I wouldn't have posted it had I not thought it was accurate. So, maybe I misunderstood when I was using my OnStar navigation, or maybe I just remember wrong. Either way, it's good to know the right info.

To the OP, I agree with several other posts. Do some calling around. It should take you only a few phone calls to get plenty of info to make your decision on a phone. Then, before you actually buy it, take it out to your 'Bu and pair it. If it doesn't work, get a different one.

 

[tipseasail]

Lots of 2009 posts.... just got my 2lt and have one queston about BT. How do you turn it off in the car? My wife's phone is old and not conducive to turning the BT on and off. It is really a nuence (sp) to hear all her calls.

 

[DrivenDaily]

Lots of 2009 posts.... just got my 2lt and have one queston about BT. How do you turn it off in the car? My wife's phone is old and not conducive to turning the BT on and off. It is really a nuence (sp) to hear all her calls.

One of two methods:

1. From her phone she can turn her BT off

2. You can go to the car's menu (Long-press Mute button, wait for "BT ready", then say "Help") to either change to a different phone or delete hers from the vehicle.

 

[tipseasail]

One of two methods:

1. From her phone she can turn her BT off

2. You can go to the car's menu (Long-press Mute button, wait for "BT ready", then say "Help") to either change to a different phone or delete hers from the vehicle.

Thanks much. I was hoping there was a better way like with my portable unit which I can just turn off.

 

[Richard]

Lots of 2009 posts.... just got my 2lt and have one queston about BT. How do you turn it off in the car? My wife's phone is old and not conducive to turning the BT on and off. It is really a nuence (sp) to hear all her calls.

If you don't want to use the car's Bluetooth System to place or answer calls, just use the cell phone directly. I believe this can be done even if it connects to the car's Bluetooth.

My phone has a setting where it will ask for confirmation before it connects to the car's Bluetooth. If you don't confirm, it won't connect.
See if your wife's phone has this setting.

Besides what was suggested in other posts, there may be a setting within the cars system where you can disconnect the phone from Bluetooth and still keep it paired if you still want to use it. Read the owner's manual. There's a very detailed section on Bluetooth.