I just picked up a bluetooth phone adapter (ebay) for my wifes 2008 ML350. It pairs with the phone and works fine, except it doesn't get the phone book; just says "downloading ph. book". Any suggestions on how to get it to work?

Details:
Car - 2008 ML350
Phone - HTC ECO (4G?)
Android version - 2.3.5
Carrier - Sprint
Adapter model - B67876131

PS - what a racket! I buy the car from a lot where they claim the adapter was removed by someone. I look on ebay and find adapters with descriptions like "just removed from used car, working at the time". They're stealing adapters and selling them back to us on ebay!

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2008 ML350
2007 Honda Element
2007 Honda Accord
2009 Honda Civic

The car and the adapter are both older technology. The droid is much newer technology, and the car was not designed with the droid in mind.

Still, it may be possible.

The trick with the phone book for droids is this. The car sends a request to the phone, and the phone must acknowledge that it is OK to download the phonne book as requested. This request is hidden on the droid, and is not readily apparent. It seems to reside in some drop down menu at the top of the droid screen, where touching some icon, simiar to looking for incoming emails, drops down the message "Is it OK to send phone book to the car?"

Sorry that I cannot be clearer. I do not own a droid, but I have successfully downloaded droid phone books in newer vehicles.

Please let us know how you make out.

Thanks for the suggestions, but there's no messages, anywhere. I tried a bunch of combinations (connect-disconnect-re-connect, unpair-pair, power cycle, etc.). The comand display has greyed-out icons for the phone book and call history functions, but nothing functional yet.

I suspect you're right about the authorization dialogue, lots of android threads have mentioned it. It's as if I have a version mis-match or something; I think I need to look a little closer at those. I just ordered a bluetooth adapter for my PC, maybe it will give me a little more info.

Link to sniffer freeware:
Monitor the Bluetooth activity around you

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2008 ML350
2007 Honda Element
2007 Honda Accord
2009 Honda Civic

Sometimes, when we have a problem pairing, as a last resort we unwind everything, and often succeed. adelete the phone from the car. delete the car from the phone. Turn it all back to fresh start.

I wondered about that. There's virtually nothing I can do on the car side of the equation. I can push the adapters button for three seconds to make its blue light blink (I assume that makes it discoverable or something), but that's about it. The display has no commands and the status buttons (call, ph. book, history) are greyed-out.

The only un-pairing I can do is from the phone. Is there a menu somewhere that I missed?

__________________
2008 ML350
2007 Honda Element
2007 Honda Accord
2009 Honda Civic

It's difficult to say, not being in the car.

On the radio screen, go to the "PHONE" icon, possibly lower left corner.
Clicking on that should give you a list of the connected(paired) phones.
You should be able to see yourphone, and then possibly scroll sideways for options, such as delete device.