Bluetooth with flip/dumb phones produces horrible noise upon connecting calls

jesterace

Novice Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2026
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location (town/city + country)
United Kingdom
Driving
ZS Hybrid+
Hello,
I'm helping a friend of mine who has had an MG ZS from new for about 12 months. Upon collection he asked if they could pair his Doro leva l20 to the car. They tried but each time a call came in or went out, you could only hear a horrible loud buzzing noise when accepting the call in the car. No conversation could be heard. After some time they picked up an alternative flip phone, I believe the brand was HMD. He paired that one to his car and assures me it worked fine for calls for a good 12 months. The car went in for some work recently, an oil leak I believe. At some point since getting it back he noticed the horrible noise again when taking or making calls just like the doro did.

I went along to help him today and this is what we found. We are trying to find out if anyone else has experienced this:

1. My modern Xiaomi smart phone works fine incoming and outgoing on bluetooth.
2. We paired the doro which was accepted but any calls in or out gave horrible noise like a dial up modem and you cant hear or have a conversation at all.
3. We paired the HMD, again it was accepted. An initial call out from the car worked fine and clear. When calling the car back, we got the horrible tone. On some occasions I noticed that turning the call volume to 0 on the car and then calling the car and tapping the volume up made the call work and clearly. It's a bit hit and miss though and doesn't always work as a "workaround".

Has anyone had these issues? I appreciate that these dumb phones are probably not a priority for MG and being in the tech industry myself it seems like a compatibility issue like an unsupported bluetooth version or codec issue. Not sure. However you would think that on a brand new car they would make it pretty backwards compatible.

We did try a factory reset which didn't help.

It's booked in for the dealer to look at but they have already pretty much condemned the phones and will probably expect the owner to get an android or iPhone. The driver is elderly though, dyslexic and relies upon using these dumb kind of phones. Although part of me agrees that he should try and learn an Android or iPhone, I also understand that there should be some expectation of compatibility across all bluetooth handsfree capable phones.

I've asked the dealer if they updated the software on the car when they did the oil leak and they said no.

Any info from owners using dumb/flip phones with their car would be helpful. At the least if the dealer cant sort it, I have said I would try and source a flip phone that is known to work on this car for him.

Many thanks,
James.
 
Support us by becoming a Premium Member

Latest MG EVs video

MG4 EV Refresh + NEW MG4 EV Urban - UK arrival dates, prices, specs (2026)
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom