[Bullitt2065]

Hi all,

Just picked up a 2016 Cruze Limited 1LT as a winter/commuter car. Enjoying it so far, but I have a question regarding using the USB drive.

I had planned to use my 8-year-old iPod Clasic connected through the USB, but it is all of the sudden not holding a charge, so I decided I would just put all of my music on a USB flash drive.

I tried it out on the flash drive I keep on my key ring and it recognized the drive and I was able to play the few songs I put onto it.

So yesterday, I went and bought a 128gb PNY USB 3.0 flash drive - something I could put ALL of my music on and just leave permanently plugged into the car. I put a couple of albums on it to test that it would work and when I plugged it into the car, it did not recognize that a USB flash drive had even been installed. Even on the previous drive I tried, if there was no music on it, it would still read it and say "No music files found", but with this new one, it isn't even recognizing it at all.

Is there some reason why it would be doing that? Is 128 GB too much for it handle? Can it not read a USB drive capable of a USB 3.0 connection? What gives?

Thanks!

 

[Jim Frye]

PNY sticks are notorious for not working in automotive audio systems. All flash drives are not created equal. Some have firmware on them to mimic a hard drive and car systems usually don't like that. Best practice is to do a hard format on a flash drive before you load it up with music. I also run a drive wipe with CCleaner to make sure there is no malware or firmware on the drive to interfere with the car system. Flash drives can have all sorts of stuff in the root. I have had the best luck with SanDisk Crusers. I have nearly a dozen of them and they all work fine in my car. Also, check your OM to see if the system supports USB 3.0. It should be backwards compatible, but look to see if there is a prohibition against USB 3.0. There used to be a 10,000 track limit on the older Cruze models. Again, a check with your OM should list that limitation if there is one. I can't imagine trying to sift through that many songs while driving, but I guess you could get that many on a 128Gb drive. I have about 5,000 tracks on my PC and they take up only 20Gb.