I have a USB port in my car. I decided that I would put it in use. So i bought my USB drive, downloaded some tunes into it and plugged it in. Nothing happened, I know that the port is working because when i plugged it in the USB light blinked. So how do I use my USB connection in my car? Is it only for charging stuff? I tried charging my Ipod once and i did not charge. I tried looking in the web for this but didnt get the result I wanted. If someon can answer me. Thanks in advance!

Chaggi

Korea (South)1936 Posts

March 06 2012 04:53 GMT

What car..?

arepa3000

Canada57 Posts

March 06 2012 04:56 GMT

Volkswagen Golf City 2010

Luepert

United States1933 Posts

March 06 2012 04:57 GMT

I have a ford escape with the same thing.
To set it up I have to: Turn on the radio, settigs, media settings, select source, sync usb. idk what car you have but I hope that helps.

LuckyFool

United States9015 Posts

March 06 2012 04:58 GMT

yeah check the settings on the control panel, see if you can set to external device or something, you might also have to sync like Luepert mentioned.

Jinsho

United Kingdom3101 Posts

March 06 2012 05:06 GMT

Look in the manual (RTFM!). There should be an option in your car radio to play music from your USB drive.

SigmaoctanusIV

United States3313 Posts

March 06 2012 05:06 GMT

or you can use it to charge usb devices like cellphones.

tw!tch

United States563 Posts

March 06 2012 05:34 GMT

On March 06 2012 14:06 SigmaoctanusIV wrote:
or you can use it to charge usb devices like cellphones.

Exactly, my 2012 accent has a ipod hookup right next to it, so you can use it for that. I use the aux and usb combined to charge my phone and play music off of it.

cmen15

United States1519 Posts

March 06 2012 06:01 GMT

hmm did you try to google it?? I feel like alot of people would ask about this kind of stuff.

jmbthirteen

United States10734 Posts

March 06 2012 06:07 GMT

#10

it definitely should be able to play music off of the usb drive. It probably supports ipods as well.

Silidons

United States2813 Posts

March 06 2012 06:19 GMT

#11

u cant just plug a USB drive into it...have to use an ipod or other music device. i have a usb port in my radio which i connect my ipod to.

it acts as the speakers...it doesnt actually have music playing software in it...

Mtndrew

United States174 Posts

March 06 2012 06:29 GMT

#12

On March 06 2012 14:34 tw!tch wrote:

Show nested quote +

Exactly, my 2012 accent has a ipod hookup right next to it, so you can use it for that. I use the aux and usb combined to charge my phone and play music off of it.

How is the Accent? The new ones look nice.

Divinek

Canada4045 Posts

March 06 2012 06:32 GMT

#13

one use is probably for a technician to plug into the onboard computer when diagnosing problems etc

BreakfastBurrito

United States893 Posts

March 06 2012 06:45 GMT

#14

Wow, you can stick a flash drive into your car now? Thought it had to be an ipod or media playing device.....
I drive a '95 haha >_<

Shana

Indonesia1814 Posts

March 06 2012 07:10 GMT

#15

My car audio can play directly from flash drive, pretty sure you just have to switch the function.

jmbthirteen

United States10734 Posts

March 06 2012 07:15 GMT

#16

On March 06 2012 15:19 Silidons wrote:
u cant just plug a USB drive into it...have to use an ipod or other music device. i have a usb port in my radio which i connect my ipod to.

it acts as the speakers...it doesnt actually have music playing software in it...

you should be able to just plug a USB drive into it. I have had multiple head units myself that do so.

Jayme

United States5866 Posts

March 06 2012 09:00 GMT

#17

What? Most up to date radios do indeed have music playing software in it. My car sure as hell does. Hell some allow you to play it right off of a external harddrive if you have one that can be powered by just a USB port.

You just have to go into settings and make sure it's pulling from the USB port.

OrpheusSail

United States5 Posts

March 06 2012 14:29 GMT

#18

I had an issue similar to this with my car about a week ago. I'd been listening to music through an old USB drive, but the drive stopped working, and I bought a new one. The car reacted similarly to what you described. It recognized it, but it wouldn't pull music from it.

After looking around for a while, I discovered that the new drive was formatted NTFS, and my car would only read from USB drives which had been formatted FAT32.

I re-formatted the USB drive as FAT32, re-loaded the music, and it started working.

It was frustrating because nothing in the manuals or info I could discover from Honda helped. I found out on a message board for Honda owners.

Might be worth a try. If it doesn't work, you can always re-format the drive back to what it was.

Lonyo

United Kingdom3884 Posts

March 06 2012 16:22 GMT

#19

Yeah, most require FAT32.
A lot of stereos are pretty crap. I bought what I hoped would be a quality one... wouldn't read most of my mp3s (it's fine if I convert them from mp3 to... mp3, using a batch converter which uses LAME, but as downloaded thye won't work. They work fine in my other car stereo though...)