Hello everyone. I am new to this site. Need help with something really weird. My wife have a 2016 Q70. While driving on the highway, she put her cell phone on the dash board in front of the radio/display. All of the functions of the vehicle stopped working. She could not change the radio station, the heat would not turn off, GPS stopped talking. It seems like everything was frozen. When her remove the cell phone, all functions worked again. Has anyone experienced this?

Welcome to Nicoclub!
I have copied over your post to the Q70/M56/M37 sedan forum as well in case someone has seen anything model-specific there. Otherwise let's keep it here in the general chat area to get more eyes.

Onto the issue at hand, that is a strange one indeed.
Was she receiving a phonecall at the same time? It might be an electromagnetic interference issue where things happened just at the right time.
Maybe it's just a goofy design of the system, since the car display is a touchscreen? Reminds me of some phone functions where if you cover the entire face of the screen (or press so many buttons of a BlackBerry phone at the same time), the phone knows not to respond.

Is this repeatable, has it happened to you guys since?
Now, I want to try it for myself and see.

Last question: what kind of phone does she have?

That is both scary and amazing at the same time. Tell us ... can you duplicate that situation over and over? and what model is her phone?

I tried to see if I could duplicate this on my car using my iPhone, but it didn't happen to me.

I had a similar screen freeze back in mid-December and the only way that I could resolve it was to remove the battery cable and then reconnect it. I took it to the dealer and they could not find anything wrong in the diagnostics and simply asked that if I have it happen again, bring it directly to the dealer. When mine froze, the car ran fine, I just could not control anything that is controlled through the screen or head unit (radio, phone, gps, hvac, etc.).

The day that the freeze occurred, I had just returned from a trip and had left my car at the airport for 5 days. I had problems from the moment that I picked it up connecting my phone to the car. In late December, similar trip, 8 days and the I had the same problem. However, I was able to fix it after I got home. In both cases I had rented a 2019 Nissan Rouge in Utah and connected my iPhone to it using the MY-CAR bluetooth connection. In trying to get it fixed at home, I first did a "Forget This Device" on my iPhone for the MY-CAR - both the Q70 and the Rouge. That didn't fix it. I finally went into the settings on the car and deleted all references to the phone, then re-synced and everything worked fine.

I tried changing the name of the car in the bluetooth settings from MY-CAR to Q70. It let me change those settings on the car, but it still says MY-CAR on the phone, even after forgetting the device and connecting again.

My guess is that there are some bugs in the software of the head unit. I'll share what I found with the dealer, but would be surprised if they address it. At least I can repeat the issue.

I put my iPhone in the same place the other day. Nothing happened except my phone was very hot.NEVER AGAIN. I need to learn how to use the navigation on the car. I can never get it to work so I stopped trying. I was using my iPhone for the navigation which I love because it's real easy.

Sorry your having the issue. Let us know what you find out.

This problem/issue is very repeatable. The phone is connected via Bluetooth in the car. She has a Samsung Galaxy phone. Every time she places the phone on the dash board (in front of the radio/GPS display), the controls become inoperable going into a frozen state. The car will run fine, but can not change radio station, heat/ac controls, GPS stop working. We plan to take it to the local dealer this week.

Good to see, not good to see, someone else is having this problem. I thought it was something crazy going on with just my car.

****Update*** The freeze happen when the phone is touching the radio/gps screen. Once the functions are frozen, if she removes the phone, the system with start working again after about 1 minute. Very strange.

What do you want the dealer to do? This isn't a defect. The screen in the car is not a phone holder. You are placing a device there that is powerful enough to communicate with antennas miles away. Communicate with GPS satellites in outer space, etc. There is a lot of radio waves coming out of a cell phone. Cell, wifi, bluetooth, GPS, etc.

I am glad you confirmed that the problem is repeatable. This is the short answer. The backing on your wife's phone or case is acting like multiple contact points.

EdBwoy wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 11, 2019 10:00 pm

...
Maybe it's just an intended design of the system, since the car display is a touchscreen? Reminds me of some phone functions where if you cover the entire face of the screen (or press so many buttons of a BlackBerry phone at the same time), the phone knows not to respond.
...

The longer answer is in the video below.

Thanks EdBwoy - great analysis and video!

Thanks Kmiles, I appreciate it.
I hope OP lets us know if that solves his issue... or anyone else that runs into such a mystery.

THANK YOU EdBwoy. After watching the video you made, it makes alot of sense. You are awesome. The great mystery is solved!!!!!

graftek wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 18, 2019 11:21 pm

THANK YOU EdBwoy. After watching the video you made, it makes alot of sense. You are awesome. The great mystery is solved!!!!!

Great! Glad she can go back to enjoying the car.
What was the issue if I may ask, the phone case?