This should have been a small article about a small error that’s possible in your Jeep, Dodge, or Chrysler when the infotainment system says “Uconnect Phone Not Available”. You can see this at any moment and this usually means that almost all the functions of connectivity in your Jeep are not working. Whatever function you choose, will trigger this message if the function has something to do with the phone connection.
In short, the “Uconnect Phone Not Available” error message may appear on the screen after a fatal failure of the Uconnect system, phone connection problems, or software glitches. You may try solving the problem by just resetting the screen in different ways, re-pairing the phone, or updating the infotainment system.
In this article, I will cover the following:
- My infotainment has always been showing this error – do I have Uconnect?
- Most common reasons for the “Uconnect Phone Not Available” error message in Jeep.
- How to fix the problem? Resetting or updating the system.
- Can you prevent Uconnect problems from happening in your Jeep?
Do I have the Uconnect system in my Jeep?
This question may arise if you got a used Jeep or Chrysler and immediately saw this annoying message when you tried to connect your phone to the vehicle’s infotainment system. You may have asked your friend and they told you that you just don’t have the Uconnect. But they are wrong.
If the system says “Uconnect Phone Not Available”, it means that you have this system in your car but it malfunctions heavily. The error message saying “Uconnect Not Available” will mean that your vehicle just doesn’t have this feature. But even in this case, you can buy special equipment to add Uconnect to your vehicle (although I don’t recommend this).
There are certain advantages of Uconnect:
- it has pretty many functions and some of them are really cool;
- the system allows you to enjoy all the benefits of great connectivity;
- you get safe hands-free mobile phone operation, and can play music from your phone;
- you can add different applications and use more functions in your Jeep or Chrysler;
- Uconnect allows you to stay up-to-date even if the vehicle is not really new.
But the Uconnect system is not the best infotainment and connectivity system in the world. It glitches regularly and it’s quite complicated to operate. Sometimes, when you need to change some settings, you may spend several minutes just trying to find where these settings are. But this is not the worst thing, anyway.
Uconnect may just disappear from the infotainment system – just like it has never been there. I know a case when a person bought Chrysler Town and Country and got different Uconnect error messages. But he couldn’t even access any connectivity menus till I helped him with the reset.
What are the reasons for the “Uconnect Phone Not Available” message?
I can see at least four common reasons why you can get this message in your vehicle every time you try to connect the phone or access some connectivity settings in the infotainment system in your Jeep.
Here they are:
1. The phone is out of the range
Your Uconnect has several slots for mobile phone connection. If no phones are now in the range of Bluetooth, the system will tell you that there is no phone to connect to. Also, the Bluetooth connection may be just turned off in your phone and the infotainment system just doesn’t see the phone.
This means that the system is absolutely OK and works well, it just doesn’t have any phone that it can connect to and you are trying to access some functions that require a mobile phone connection. This is why you can see this message.
Check the Bluetooth connection in your phone and check that the phone is somewhere in the car’s interior.
2. Other phones are connected
You may need to re-pair your phone by deleting other mobile phones from the memory of the system. For this, you will need to access the settings and find mobile phone settings in the infotainment system. Delete all the phones that you aren’t going to use and pair your current mobile phone.
It’s pretty easy and straightforward. But what if you can’t access phone settings in the infotainment system? It means that the Uconnect system is malfunctioning heavily and needs some help from you to get back to normal work.
Read further and you will know how to solve this problem.
3. Uconnect software needs reset
In the majority of vehicles equipped with Uconnect, you will be able to do some soft-reset like this:
- press the buttons that help you control the temperature in your vehicle – press both of them simultaneously and hold for 5 seconds;
- you will see the menu popping up on the screen and one of the prompts will say that you can reset the infotainment to the manufacturer’s settings;
- choose this option and wait till the system completes the soft reset.
This will kill all the settings like radio stations and paired phones. Then, you will be able to pair your phone and start using the system. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help in all cases. Sometimes, you will need to hard-reset the infotainment system in order to get the Uconnect function back.
4. Full reset with the help of fuses
You will need to locate the interior fuse box in your Jeep, Dodge, or Chrysler. Then, using the fuse map on the cover of the box, find two fuses: the infotainment fuse and the IOD fuse. Take them out. Turn on the ignition – the infotainment system should not turn on now even if you press the buttons.
Wait for 5-10 minutes and turn off the ignition. Then, you may reconnect the fuses that you’ve taken out. Make sure you close the fuse box. After that, you may start the vehicle and check if the Uconnect is working properly.
If the system is not working even after that, you will need some professional help.
Proper inspection of the Uconnect system
If you tried all four ways to restore the Uconnect function in your Jeep but nothing worked, you should go to professionals. The best thing you can do is go to the dealership. Although repair and even labor in dealerships are very expensive, you can only ask them to inspect the Uconnect system and they will help you with the proper diagnosis.
After that, you can just go to any other repair shop and find a person who will help you with repair and take much less money than the dealership. But dealers are really good at diagnosing Uconnect because they do it almost every day – vehicles have huge problems with this system.
Of course, this will still cost you some money, so you have to be prepared to pay. But if nothing else helped you, there are two possible choices: forget about Uconnect and phone connection or pay some money for a proper inspection.
Some tricks you may want to use
Uconnect is a system that is hard to explain using just logic. It may not work with your phone but will perfectly work with the phone of your friend. So, I’ve also compiled a list of tips you can try using before you decide to go to the dealership:
- Try using some other mobile phone. Maybe, you can connect another phone and will make the system work. After that, you will access mobile phone settings and will also add your phone.
- Try disconnecting the car battery. Your infotainment system in Jeep doesn’t have its own battery, so once the 12V battery is disconnected for several minutes, the system will reset the settings.
- Delete all the phones from the memory of Uconnect. After you do this, you may be able to add your phone and make the system work. Of course, this is only possible if you have access to settings.
- Check if the Uconnect is still there. If you have a used car and it always showed you this message, check if the Uconnect module is there. Maybe, the previous owner sold it on eBay. You may check it at the dealership.
Final thoughts
You may see that the “Uconnect Phone Not Available” message can pop up on the screen of the infotainment system in your Jeep because of several reasons. Most of them you can check on your own. For this, follow the steps that I’ve outlined in this article. Also, you can try different methods of resetting the infotainment system starting with soft reset and finishing with disconnecting the battery.
If you still can’t find the reasons why this annoying message pops up all the time in your Jeep, you should understand that the best way to locate and solve the problem is to find a specialist who can do this for you. I would just go to the Jeep dealership.