Interesting.
I had a Nokia about 5 years ago when they made a couple of over spec'd phones that people didn't really take seriously because they felt Nokia were dead and not relevant. It ran close to Vanilla Android as far as I recall, and the experience was excellent.
I eventually got my current phone the Xiaomi POCO F2, and whilst it has been excellent, wireless Android Auto has never worked for me, and I think it's to do with MIUI and possibly aggressive management stuff.
I also may go Pixel with my next phone just to know everything will work optimally. This is a shame really as we've now gone from Android being what it once was to a dependence on a few providers who do it properly. I cba with rooting and flashing ROMs anymore. Got tired of that a decade ago.