I never use a Play Store version of anything I can find on F-droid or other repos I trust. Then I try it using Aurora Store. Only as a last-resort I try Google. Play Store is only for things I cannot obtian or replace another way.

Learned the hard way that android auto compatibility (on GrapheneOS) works only with the playstore Version of an app because andoid auto checks the install source.
Thats the same gatekeeping at play...

Thanks I hate it.

AA is also EXTREMELY vpn-unfriendly.
It fails to work period of I've got a wireguard VPN without app restrictions, even if there are only a handful of routes using the tunnel.
Then, if I restrict the VPN to just certain apps, it'll still give me the big ol' middle finger running those apps via AA, which means I can't stream from my home media host over VPN while using AA because Papa Google apps no.

Really? I'm set up for always on wireguard when not on my home network. And android auto works fine. And yeah, I'm doing full tunnel.

It seems likely you are using it tethered, vs wireless.

Oh this is a good callout, I'm definitely using wired and not wireless.