I have a 2011 R56. I have saved some names and numbers into the car's phone book so that I can use the voice activated dialing (the button on my steering wheel). It works great for a few months and then one day out of the blue, I go to voice-dial a name and the car says "the phonebook is empty".

The first time, the dealership guys were perplexed and just told me to re-program the phone book. Said to let them know if it happened again. About a year later it did erase itself again. I took it in for some other maintenance and mentioned this problem. They said that they just had to update the car's software. After they "fixed" it, I re-entered all of the data for voice dialing again. It worked for like 2 months and now "the phonbook is empty" once again.

Anyone else have this problem?

 

Are you using both keys?
Some functions of the radio are key specific. I'm not sure if voice cammand phone book is one of those or not.

 

I only use my key when driving. My wife will occasionally drive it and use her key. But I always just use mine. Good question though...never thought of that.

 

We had that system in my wife's previous car but it was never used by her and I didn't take the time to enter names and numbers in it. Both our new cars have Connect w/ Nav.
That system seems to be entirely different.
JD Power and MINI deleted the "talking man" feature in 2012-2013!

 

Yup, that's exactly the problem I'm having and it has me totally stumped. I have a 2013 R56.

Anyone else experiencing this?

 

I don't voice dial, but have something similar... My recent calls are always cleared out via the blue tooth phone menu. I'm not sure that this is the exact same problem, but it feels connected.

I only use one key. We do have two phones that sync to the MINI. However my 335 and wife's 328 also have two phones that sync and it stores this information without issue. You would think it would be the same technology.

 

After stringing me along for a long time at the dealership, they've finally told me that they know it's an issue and that MINI has just stopped supporting this function. Sucks because it went out on my MINI shortly after purchasing it in 2011 and I specifically bought that package for this feature. The dealer told me to call MINI customer service as they can't do anything more. I'll keep you posted.