questions for Bluetooth handsfree kit users

I've been playing with the Bluetooth capabilities of my new LG VX8100 with less than satisfying results, and I thought I'd consult the gurus here. My questions are directed to users of any brand/model of Bluetooth phone.

1) Are you able to use the voice recognition features of your handset? When I try to voice dial from inside the car, my handset, which has already "bonded" with the car, apparently is sending all the voice prompts to the car, and is expecting audio from the car. The car, unfortunately, has not activated the handsfree kit because there's no call in progress. I can't prove it, but I'm reasonably sure what's happening. So, I can't use the voice recognition feature of the phone at all while I'm in the car. I can only use voice recognition by completely disabling BT either through the phone menu or by plugging in a hard-wired hanset.

I'm curious whether others are having this problem and whether they've discovered a workaround. As I see it, the phone is behaving correctly, because it thinks it's talking to a BT headset. The car, though, doesn't give you a way to activate the heatset other than though the phone-off-hook buttons.

2) The sound quality that I hear is pretty bad. Too much mids and bass, and it's often difficult to understand the other party. Are there tone controls for the handsfree kit speakerphone?

3) Do you know whether Toyota has provided a mechanism to update the Bluetooth drivers in the car? Or are we stuck with what we've got.

Because of these limitations, I'm finding the BT handsfree system not worth the trouble and will probably give up on it unless I can find a workaround.

As always, thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.

 

I'm guessing they only route the sound to one speaker because it makes the echo cancelling simpler. I get that. I just wish the sound wasn't so mid-bassy. It sounds pretty bad.