Our Cars Might Be Cursed: Android Auto, Honda, and the Issues That Keep Coming Back

The only thing your car needs is support for Android Auto, and your mobile phone will take care of the rest.

It's supposed to be that easy, but as many users learned the hard way, everything changes once you attempt to put these steps in practice.

Using Android Auto in Honda cars has long been a crazy rollercoaster ride. While many users don't encounter any problems at all, others have been struggling to get a stable and reliable experience for years. Nothing worked, and the connection problems kept coming back as if their cars were haunted, as one of our readers told me recently. They own two Hondas, a 2024 Accord and a 2023 CR-V, and both exhibit the same behavior.

Most struggles with Android Auto in a Honda car revolve around connection problems in vehicles fitted with the wired version.

The Android Auto issues in Honda cars first made the headlines in 2020 when a significant number of users reported connection problems, freezing, and random crashes while driving. Some customers took their cars to Honda dealerships to have them inspected, but they were provided with various causes that didn't resolve the struggle. Some were even told their head units were defective, while other dealers blamed Google for the glitches.

Google community specialists who typically communicate with the Android Auto team claimed the issue resided on Honda's side. The two companies blaming each other didn't help, as customers were left with connection problems that couldn't be fixed. Google eventually promised a fix courtesy of Honda, but the broken behavior didn't go away.

Most problems affected the Accord, the CR-V, and the Fit, but other models also hit sporadic connection errors.

All these efforts to improve the Android Auto stability and reliability in the Honda world involved multiple workarounds, with some users going as far as resetting everything in their cars and on their phones. Some even got the app working intermittently after factory resetting the head units, but the connection problems never went away completely.

The years-old problems have returned with a similar behavior. Users have started complaining online about what seems to be a similar behavior, as Android Auto no longer starts in Honda cars where everything worked correctly not long ago. You'd think an Android Auto app update broke down the experience, but downgrading to an earlier release does not restore the normal behavior. Users claim they haven't installed new firmware on their head units.

Someone on Google's forums reiterates what a reader told me this week. They own a 2024 CR-V and a 2024 Accord EX, and neither can run Android Auto flawlessly. They claimed they'd tried the generic fixes, including multiple cables, factory resets, and updating to the latest builds, to no avail.

Others confirm the connection problems in their CR-Vs and Accords. The mobile devices used to run Android Auto don't make a difference, as the broken connections are reported with Google Pixel, Samsung, and Motorola phones.

All these problems can eventually be resolved by switching to a wireless connection mode.

This is where things get frustrating.

Not all cars come with wireless Android Auto, so customers have two options. They can get an Android Auto wireless adapter, such as AAWireless or Motorola MA1, or pay for Honda's $112 upgrade if the car is compatible.

Honda launched the wireless upgrade earlier this year, allowing 2018-2022 Accord owners to ditch cables in their cars. As I said earlier, the connection problems happen in many more models and different model years, so the $112 upgrade isn't a universal fix.

Getting a wireless adapter seems to be the most convenient workaround. These devices connect to the vehicle using the Android Auto wired port and to the mobile device via Bluetooth. They play the role of a middleman in charge of establishing a wireless connection between the media receiver and mobile devices, eventually allowing Android Auto to run without a cable.

Unfortunately, the years-long struggle proves there's no such thing as Android Auto stability in the Honda world. A 2022 post on Google's forums received 680 "I have the same question" votes before being locked, even if no question was marked as a solution. The last message was posted in November 2023 when someone reported the same behavior in their CR-V.

What's your experience with Android Auto, and if you encountered connection problems, how did you manage to resolve them? Let me know in the comment box below to help others and eventually make Android Auto more reliable in Honda cars. Make sure you post your model, the model year, the mobile device, and the Android and the Android Auto versions installed on the smartphone.