Contacts not synching to 2013 Chevy Malibu with MyLink

has he tried the owner’s manual?

Yes. Yes I have. Both of them. Setting up the Galaxy Nexus with the 2010 Equinox didn’t require anything other than pairing the phone to the vehicle. The voice command access to the phones contact numbers was seamless and easy. Not so with the Malibu. I am looking for something I may have missed or an explanation as to why my phone doesn’t sync with the car the way it did with the Equinox.

Ok, I posted my problem on Verizon’s Forums. I got a response from one of the members to try.

He said make sure you have WiFi turned off. Also make sure that you are running CDMA/3G (not 4G) only. Also be sure that Bluetooth is active before turning the car on. Started the car. Hit the Config button, go to phone settings, make sure the Nexus is discoverable, then hit Pair. Voila! It worked!

A permission screen popped up asking if it was OK to share the phonebook with the Malibu to which I selected OK. Tested the hands free dialing and all is right with the world now.

I wonder if this method would work with the other Samsung Galaxy variants?

The Galaxy Nexus paired with the Malibu. I could stream music from the phone, and I could voice dial, it just didn’t or couldn’t access the phonebook. For whatever reason, during the pairing, the popup window never came up on the phone when the car wanted access to the phonebook. So, making sure you were on a 3G/4G data connection was paramount instead of WiFi. Possibly the WiFi interfered with the process. Don’t know. All I know is that it worked, and I’m very happy. It is little things like that, that make the experience of owning the phone or the car a burr under the saddle you can’t reach.

As I’ve asked before, I wonder if this little trick with let the other Samsung Galaxy phone variants work?

Having the same issue with my Samsung Galaxy S4. I have a 2014 Impala. Contacts synced with my previous phone Samsung Stratosphere, but they will not sync with my S4. I deleted my phone from My Link and re-paired and have paired without Wi-Fi and this did not solve the problem. The pop-up window never comes up asking if I want to access the phone book. No one seems to know how to resolve this and I am getting very frustrated. Has been going on since Sept. 2013.

@castillo92708 could you see if there is a setting in the Galaxy to sync contacts to the Bluetooth “device” that is your Impala? I think the setting is located in Bluetooth settings and then under the “device name” of your car (Handsfree, MyLink, etc.).

I’m also having sync issues with Samsung Galaxy S4 using bluetooth contacts on 2014 Impala mylink. Contacts only show (get synchronized) when a phone number is present, even if only navigation is requested. Also, after selecting a name using the alphabet indes on the left side of the mylink screen, and finding the contact, when scrolling to get a better view the desired name some that had previously displayed, including the one requested, disappeared. There seem to be errors both in the synching and the scrolling routines in mylink for contacts since the contacts initially appear (if they have a phone number) but later can disappear during scrolling.

I just purchased an S4 and am having the same issues. When we bought our new 2011 GMC Terrain a little over 2 years ago, I had a brand new Samsung Focus. I was able to pair the phone and use it to make calls by using voice to say the phone number, but it didn’t recognize any names from my contacts list. However, if someone on my contacts list phoned me, it would display the name as it appeared in my contacts list. I went to my GM dealer and they said “Must be the phone”. I contacted Samsung and they said “must be the vehicle’. Anyway, I gave up. I had high hopes for my new S4 not having any problems, but exactly the same thing is happening. I even tried turning off the Wifi, unpairing the phone, powering down the phone, shutting off the vehicle and then restarting both the vehicle and the phone and re-pairing. No good news there.
I suppose I can try contacting OnStar to see if they can help (I don’t subscribe). I’m in Canada, not sure if that will matter.

@Jeanne I would definitely get another GM dealer to look at or maybe to run an update…. I know that mine is a 2012 with color touch… but mine does the opposite of what you did though. (which it shows the name after I dial it, but when someone from my phone it just shows the number and that’s it) @AlexLuft you wanna elaborate on this one?

So, an update on the “no outgoing contacts” situation. I connected with OnStar and they gladly gave me the free “limited” one month membership and downloaded the Bluetooth update. No problem. I asked if I should re-pare my phone, but was told it wasn’t necessary. After I hung up, I tried calling using a name from my contacts list. No dice. Still unrecognized. So I did un-pare and re-pare it. Still no dice.
Called my GM dealer and made an appointment for this morning. The tech that serviced the vehicle also happens to own a 2011 Terrain. Apparently back then, even though the contacts from my phone can be searched for and selected to dial from the car radio controls, it does not have the ability to recognize the name as a voice command. The work around for this is that you are able to use the voice command for “hands-free” and “store” to store up to 20 phone numbers that you name yourself in the vehicle. Since my husband and I share the vehicle at times (he has an iphone with the same issues in this vehicle) some of the contacts that I create using the “store” feature we will have in common. We’ll have to divvy up the remainder between us. Not an optimal solution, but better than what we have now.
Apparently the nav system in the 2012 vehicles and newer (I believe it’s called Intellilink) now allows smart linking between the phone contacts and the vehicle. Looks like I should have waited a year to purchase. Ah well, c’est la vie.

Same issues with Equinox 2013… so frustrated!

the answer: save your contacts to your phone itself and NOT the sim card. go to your contact list, open settings and ‘save contacts to phone’. different models may be slightly different in how to accomplish this but you get the idea

I am having similar issues with 2014 Acadia and iphone 6. I have had it to the dealer and so far have not been able to get the contacts available for the handsfree.