# Spotify in your cruze, using the steering wheel controls?



## ChevyToby (Jan 21, 2012)

Hej everybody
Just recieved my cruze 3 weeks ago after 5 months of waiting (!) and so far it's been great to me. One thing i really miss tho which i had in a Subaru XV i borrowed was the ability to connect to my phone (Motorola Razr) and have it play back spotify music and ability to control the music from the steering wheel + seeing the song title in the car stereo. 
So far what i know, the Cruze's USB connection only plays local files stored on my phone and not any web radio or spotify, which is a pity. My question therefore is, if i bought the last gen iPod with app support and download spotify to it and take some of my playlists down to it (offline mode) would my car recognize the spotify music on my ipod as i plug it in via usb? Or will the car only see mp3's that are actually stored via iTunes? The iPod's are quite alot cheaper than the iPhones and my phone isn't that old so i'd prefer to keep it for a while. IF iPhone is the only way out for me i'd swap it out imediately tho. So what do you guys say?


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## GoldenCruze (Dec 18, 2011)

I know that with my iPhone and the Pandora app I have to use the controls on the phone to do anything in Pandora. I haven't messed with Spotify much yet. Music via the iPod player on the phone works fine with the vehicle controls.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

ChevyToby,

See if your dealership will let you try to do this in a Sonic with the A2DP Bluetooth audio. If it does, take a look at the thread http://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/36-electronics/5833-diy-pdim-test.html. Why Chevy didn't make this an option to start with is beyond me.


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## TheRupp (May 8, 2012)

GoldenCruze said:


> I know that with my iPhone and the Pandora app I have to use the controls on the phone to do anything in Pandora. I haven't messed with Spotify much yet. Music via the iPod player on the phone works fine with the vehicle controls.


Weird. My Pandora works just fine using the steering wheel controls.


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## TechCruzer (Mar 15, 2012)

obermd said:


> ChevyToby,
> 
> See if your dealership will let you try to do this in a Sonic with the A2DP Bluetooth audio. If it does, take a look at the thread http://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/36-electronics/5833-diy-pdim-test.html. Why Chevy didn't make this an option to start with is beyond me.


Just in case you wanna... the Camaro's also have the A2DP function in their PDIM.


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## ChevyToby (Jan 21, 2012)

Thanks everyone for your answers, unfortunately i don't feel like starting to swap out computers in the car just to get my spotify going, especially not when i have to find a Camaro PDIM. Although i guess the Sonic PDIM is way easier to find hehe. 

Anyway i've found a used iPod touch on ebay which i've rooted and installed spotify including Music Controls Pro. That last thing is promising to get native external control of the ipod although it's running a completely different music app. Well everything works smooth on the ipod but when i connect it to the car the infotainment system says "No supported file format on the iPod". I've searched and searched without results and i wonder if anyone know how to trick the infoatinment to think that it's a regular iPod with files playing instead of the spotify app? Or is this an impossible mission since the Spotify saves in ogg vorbis?


Edit: Success!! With one song loaded to the iPod as a standard mp3 file i managed to trick the infotainment system. As soon as it finds the ipod it plays back the mp3 file, and all i have to do is to start spotify instead and start a playlist. The title and artist shows up on the infotainment, the steeringwheel controls (both volume and skip song) works, it charges and everything. Only issue is that it disconnects if i skip songs too often, a problem which is less frequent if i run Spotify for iOS 4 instead of the newest one.


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