Siri not responding to 'Hey Siri' in iPhone 16 Pro while driving

I’ve scoured the internet for answers and see for awhile people posting issues years ago with Siri not working while in their car and connected to Apple car play. To clarify though, I do NOT have Apple car play so not sure if my issue is the same or not and wanted to see if anyone has thoughts. The specific problem is that saying “Hey Siri” does not work, the glowing lights do not even turn on. It does usually work if I press the side button in. This is only a problem when I’m driving, everything works normally at home.

The issues are on my 16 pro (have had for 3 weeks now and it has 18.2 but the issue was happening even before that update). Funny thing is I have an old SE phone (that I still bring with me everywhere and connected to hotspot, it’s version is 18.1) and it responds every time I say Hey Siri just fine. Meanwhile I am screaming at my iPhone 16 pro and it refuses to listen unless I hold the side button (yes yes I’ve triple checked all my Siri settings)

I thought I finally fixed it after I turned Siri completely off, restarted phone and recalibrated my voice. It worked the rest of the drive home but next time I got in my car, it stopped responding to me again.

What else can I try or does it seem maybe my device might be messed up and I should exchange? Here’s what I’ve tried already

-make sure I have cell service when using

-try without a phone case in case that’s blocking sound

-try with music and heater turned off to reduce noise (old SE picks up my voice fine with noise, didn’t work on the 16 anyway though)

-connected or disconnected to car audio speaker did not matter either way (NOT Apple car play)

-restart phone and turn off/on Siri to recalibrate voice

-turn off driving focus 

-close all apps running in background while trying to use

Is there a hidden setting somewhere I should look for? Everything in the location that says “Siri and Apple intelligence” is turned on that I can tell

Thanks for any advice or things to try before I contact Apple.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]