xc40 Audio System - A Backward Step?
 

After ten years of enjoying playing our iPods in our 2014 Volvo XC60 D5, my wife and I decided to trade it in a couple of months ago for a smaller XC40 B4.
Lovely car to drive with some interesting features but we were shocked to find out that our iPods, both classic and Nano, can’t be played through the ‘new’ Google based system; a feature that’s been available on Volvo ‘Sensus’ systems for many years has been discarded! Not only that but I’ve had to fork out a load of money to convert my USB connectors to USB ‘C’ cables or buy a device to plug into the car to give me ‘old style’ USB inputs. Shame on you Volvo and Google!

I raised this with Volvo Support whilst trying to find a solution and it was suggested that I downloaded ‘Audio Wagon’. Useful suggestion but the only problem there is that, to quote the developer (‘Mole Man’), it doesn’t support the iPod!

Now the XC40 system also seems to rely on Bluetooth devices and searching around Amazon, I found a IBLU Bluetooth transmitter that was designed especially for the iPod. Great result I thought, only to find after buying and trying one that the XC40 system software doesn’t recognise this device!
I’d love to think that someone Volvo would urgently tackle this problem so us ‘ancient technology’ owners could list to their ‘old fashioned’ 60s to 90s music again, but, from experience of trying to get Volvo to change the mispronunciation of important towns in the ‘old’ Sensus navigation system over many years, I’m not very hopeful.

Regards,

TG

Cant you put the songs on your phone and play them back to the car via BLuetooth?

Haven't tried that. Don't really want to clog up my phone with music files just want to have the old facility back to play the iPod that we've had for years!

Thanks,

TG

Unfortunately the Ipod is now considered old tech and things have moved on to other ways of consuming music.

I too was an Ipod classic user, bought bluetooth transmitters etc but had to move on from the classic as i realised it was now old school.

One very easy way is set up a spotify account, spend a few nights creating playlists and adding in your songs etc, if you are only using for car it will give you most of your music. Spotify is free and if you like it and work with it you can also subscribe to remove ads and random selections appearing.

or

use Apple Car Play, switch from Itunes to Apple Music and it will match the majority of your music library into Apple music which is cloud based as far as i know and wont involve many files on the phone.

Thanks Gift,

Seems an absolute shame that some reliable 'old' tech has been discarded and I don't to spend loads of 'dosh' on a new gadget. Will have a look around.

Regards,

TG

I ran into the same problem. I had a iPod Nano 4th gen; which I used in my late 15 model XC60 with the 1st Sensus system without problems. When I replaced my car with the later Sensus system, the iPod lost most of it’s functionality,

I don’t think it is solely down to the Google system, more likely to be the IOS that the iPod is using. Eventually I bought a iPod Touch with a much later IOS and this works perfectly. I also have a spare iPhone which I have deleted all the apps and just use for storing music, the Sensus recognises this as a IPod. Just a couple of solutions to consider. Sadly Apple no longer sell the iPods but they are still available if you wanted to go down that route.

I feel your pain regarding the obsolescence of older technology, or in Apple speak, Legacy products. All my old phones and iPods were in pristine condition but sadly the operating systems just ran out of support.

Just to be clear this is my experience with Sensus and not the Google system, but I would of thought Apple products with the later IOS should be compatible with Google. Hope you get a solution.