iOS 18.4 has come with a big change for Apple CarPlay, adding an extra row of icons on larger infotainment screens. But unfortunately some users don’t get to enjoy that, because the update appears to have left CarPlay broken — or in some cases completely unusable.
In threads on Reddit and other social media sites, users are reporting a bunch of different bugs since downloading the iOS 18.4 update. These range from being as simple as “Now Playing” information not appearing on the driver display all the way to major connectivity issues.
This problem seems to be affecting a wide range of people, with Redditors reporting issues with Honda Civics, the Mazda CX-30. Nissan Frontier and various VW cars. It’s even claimed that VW has informed customers of the issue, suggesting this is a legitimate bug rather than a string of unfortunate coincidences.
Thankfully users seem to have figured out a workaround that might fix the issue. At least for now.
How to fix CarPlay connectivity issues in iOS 18.4
Some users report that rebooting their phone was enough to fix the problem, while others simply manually disconnected and reconnected from CarPlay until the problems went away.
Another user on X found that updating their phone to iOS 18.5 beta 1 seemingly fixed the CarPlay issues as well — which bodes well for Apple getting the problem fixed.
However, it sounds like the easiest (and most consistent) way to fix the connectivity issue is to disconnect your iPhone from your Car (and CarPlay), and repair them from scratch.
To do this head to the Settings app and tap General followed by CarPlay. Then find your Car in the list, and swipe left to delete it. Repairing can be done in two ways, and we already have an in-depth guide on how to set up wireless CarPlay. However, it’s not that difficult.
If your car has a CarPlay USB port, you simply need to plug back in and your phone will ask you if you want to Enable Wireless CarPlay.
If you don’t have a CarPlay port, you can set everything up wirelessly by pressing and holding the voice control button in your car. The car should then appear in the CarPlay menu of the Settings app, and tapping it will set up the connection.
Just be aware that since this problem is caused by a bug, it may not work. One Reddit user says that unpairing seems to have broken the feature even further — with the phone now continually connecting and disconnecting from the car.
However, others have said that their problems seem to have been fixed, and while buggy they can get CarPlay running on their car. So it's certainly worth trying if this problem has been affecting you.
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