2012-2015 differences

My 2012 C3 is in the body shop this week. While picking up a rental at Hertz, I noticed a C in the lot and decided to take it. The paperwork only showed the year. No indication of trim level. I suspect a 1 or 2. But it's not at all like the 1 or 2 from my 2012 year.

1. Gone are the two tone dashboard and door panels. All black now. An improvement IMHO, but still hard plastic. No padding.

2. Climate and air flow controls slightly different. Previous barely readable black on gray LCD replaced with gray on black. Also an improvement, but not much. Auto, Air, Off buttons moved to center of temp. control dial, leaving room to make the other buttons larger and easier to find and use

3. No key-less entry or push button start. I am used to only putting the key in my pocket when I get dressed in the morning and only taking it out at the of the day. For two days now I am constantly trying to unlock the door without it. Arrgghhh!

4. There IS a display audio unit. If they abandoned the radio that was in the 1 and 2 trim levels from 2012, that's definitely an improvement, but this thing seems crippled. No Map/GPS. No HD radio. No Satellite radio. No sign of Entune. And the real head scratcher is that the voice command system seems to be limited to phone control only. Different software/GUI on the screen. Glossy black plastic around the unit in place of the old matte black. Two dials for volume and tune smaller and recessed more, making them harder to use. Steering wheel controls same as always, so no need to anyway.

5. No center console/armrest. Really miss that. My right elbow feels lost - suspended in the air.

6. Shark fin. No more pole antenna.

7. The smaller display gauge in the upper dash has different screen selection. 5 minute consumption and three top mileage screens are gone.

That's all I have noticed so far. Ride and handling all feel the same.

 

Had time to play a little more with the Display Audio unit in this new C, and even in this limited version there's some nice new stuff.

1. There's a much more pleasant, more human sounding female voice.
2. It reads email and text messages to you, and displays them if you are not moving.
3. It catalogs blue tooth music so you can now select by song, artist, or album

What are the chances I can do a software/firmware upgrade to my 2012 to get these features?

 

Updated my Entune software today. From v 1.7.4 (2012 model year) to 5.1. Was disappointed to find that I did not get the new features found in 2015 and later, namely the one that reads email and text messages aloud. I had called Toyota earlier just to confirm the update file I downloaded was OK for my vehicle, and ask them if I would get the new interface and features I had seen in the 2015 rental. They said definitely NOT the new GUI, but "maybe" some of the features. She was not sure why the features were a "maybe", but I did not get them. All very odd.

 

I do get the notification on screen that a message has arrived. But I do not get offered the option to have it read to me. Have a Galaxy S5 with Android 5.1.1. I *did * get the read option in the rental with the same phone, so it's definitely an Entune thing.

 

Finally come to the realization that the text reading option was not going to work for my car/year. So found an app that does it, plus a bit more. SMS Driving Assistant is how it is found in the Play Store, but in a stupid bit of counter-intuitive marketing, installs itself with the name Text Aloud. It took a bit of finagling with all the options (although it did the blue tooth part all by itself), but I now have it set up to announce when a text arrives, who it is from if it's someone in my contacts, or the phone number if not, and then asks if I want it read. You can set it up to automatically read, but that could be embarrassing, so I opted for the prompt.

When done reading it asks if you want to "call" the person who sent the text, reply by text, or just ignore. If you choose reply it beeps, which is your signal to talk. When you stop talking (not sure how long the delay is), it reads your reply back to you, and asks for confirmation before sending.

All in all quite nice. There is a lite version for free and a paid version for $3.99. Haven't figured out the differences yet. Am using the Lite one for now. But I have my fingers crossed on how long it will work. Had to go through at least a dozen other apps that all claimed to do the same thing, but either didn't do it well, had blue tooth inconsistency issues, or didn't work at all.