Does anyone else find our steering wheel controls very primitive?

My girlfriend has a pathfinder, her controls allow her to tune stations as well as scroll through presets. I find it a real PITA to have to use the **** on the dash to scroll between XM stations. Only having the option to scroll through presets with the steering wheel defeats the whole purpose of having steering wheel controls. Am I missing something here or is this the only way to flip from each channel to the next on XM.

 

If you take a look at the steering wheel you'll notice that there is no more room for other controls, it does everything it needs to do. Yeh you can't tune stations or adjust the A/C but you can do pretty much everything else with the flick of a button or with your voice.. I don't think there missing anything on the wheel, I can't think of anything I'd like it to be able to do that it already doesn't do..

 

I like it just how it is.

 

I feel like I'm tuning in an old chevy radio from the 50's when I have to reach over to the center of the dash and turn the plastic *****.

Ridiculous that we have technology that could make driving so much safer and easier yet they don't employ it.

 

Does the G37 not have the ability to tune radio stations via voice commands? My 07 G Sedan does.

 

They took the tune command out (thus all the bitching on the forum about the limited voice commands). I'm not sure if there's a seek command or not. Eitherway, its too slow to wait for the whole "Please say a command..." speech. I wonder if there's a way you can bypass that each time.

 

Yeah my G37 allows me to tune via voice commands as well. The dramatics in this thread are hilarious! Because I can't tune radio stations, that defeats the whole purpose of steering wheel mounted controls? yeah...nevermind the voice command button, track skipping on CD/iPod/Flash, volume control, intelligent cruise control, menu navigation capability of the controls either. Those capabilities are just downright primitive if I can only tune the radio to presets...to each his own I guess...

 

There is kind of.. you just need to hit the voice command AGAIN~

e.g.
<hit button>
"Please sa..."
<hit button>
*beep*
(say what ya gotta say )

 

Tuning XM stations along with adjusting the volume button on the steering wheel controls is the most frequent activity I do concerning the audio system. It truly is a pain in the *** to have to reach for a crappy **** and turn it everytime I want to sort through XM radio stations.

Unlike FM stations, there are hundreds of XM's to sort through. Turning a **** maybe 30 times to find a station is a valid complaint as far as I'm concerned. Taken a step back in terms of technology making things easier.

I don't have voice commands on my G37, but that is just making an easy situation more complicated. Why they only allow you to sort through personal presets with the steering wheel is ridiculous and dangerous when considering how much attention is focused on turning a **** rather than the road. Poor design on Infiniti's part.

 

You have to use a **** to change stations??? WTF, the G37 sucks!

j/k: But seriously, what is the solution? Put a **** on the steering wheel? Or use the up/down selector? Then people will complain they have to scroll through 200 XM stations. Talk about distracting.

Sorry, but I dont think Infiniti could have done it better.

 

It's not perfect, but it's better than most, or all the cars I have driven at length. Mine has the voice commands.

 

with my M you can hold down the button on the wheel and it seeks. that doesn't work on the G?

EDIT: Manual on the G says the same thing.

 

Holding down the button on the G when in XM mode switches to a new "Category" in XM mode, not the next "Station".

I can't believe there are people here defending it. How easy would it have been to put a control under the steering wheel or add another button that is pushed left to right to control the tuning in addition to an up and down for the presets.

Maybe people aren't using XM as much as myself, but I'm having serious issues with the distraction of turning the **** to change stations along with having to constantly juggle between shifting and turning the stupid **** with my right hand.

 

That's probably the same thing on my M. The manual doesn't say anything specific to Sat radio wrt to the steering wheel ***** but it does say in another part that Seek and Category are the same button.

Agreed. More flexibility would be nice.

How many times to you need to step through the Sat channels? I've got 15 presets (I think) which is more than enough to cover all the channels I listen to. Only 1 channel for OTA is on my preset which is the local news/traffic station.

 

Living in Atlanta, I've got my A & B Presets configured to the local FM Stations, My C Presets are the few AM stations I listen to, along with 3 XM Stations.

I listen to a wide variety of music, so I am constantly sorting between all of the top 20 Xm stations, Urban Stations, and Rock Stations. Not even taking to account sports weekends where I am listening to the ESPN Stations. I probably listen to apx 15-20 XM stations consistantly. Due to the crappy playlists on most of the stations, I'm switching between them a good bit, prob most of the problem.