sorry if this has already been addressed but...

so i was wondering what this XM nav thing is. i called XM to ask them what channel i tune to, and i was asked if my car had nav. i told him that it did, and he told me that it is already on it then. his english was not that great, so i let him off the line without a million questions.

well now the questions come to you guys. what exactly do i get with this XM traffic vs not having it? as i have had the car for 29 days, i have no idea what it is like without it.

what wont i see that i DO see right now?

 

XM traffic is supposed to notify you of traffic conditions/incidents/construction on the navi map. I have it on my car but the coverage is extremely limited which is surprising since I live about 10 minutes outside of a major city. If you live in an area with decent coverage, it can be useful especially for routing around traffic or accidents. If you have it now and it's turned on, yet you don't really see anything different, than I would say it's not worth paying the $3 per month for it.

 

okay, i am very ignorant with this. i live in Tampa, it is a major city that has coverage for everything. there are always accidents and construction, and i ALWAYS ride with the map on. but i have never seen any traffic popups or anything like that. what should i do to turn this feature "on"?
thanks

 

Double check on your Nav screen it says "Traffic" and check the traffic settings that you want to be notified for everything. If the highway/freeway you are traveling on is congested or slow the highway should turn to a red/yellow color? right? You will see a construction sign icon in the area that there is construction at..

Before I got my car I really thought this Nav Traffic thing was going to be a heck of a lot different than it actually is. I don't see it being worth the extra money (I've been to Tampa twice since Dec.) and I live in South Florida and travel to WPB, FLL, Miami all the time, really doesn't seem to "do" anything and I don't think its updated like they say it is. Take for instance the huge accident on I-4 last week, now that might have showed up as an accident but other than something like that I've passed several accidents/construction areas and no icon was displayed.

I highly recommend XM Weather, we use that in our plane all the time its awesome, now if we could only get that in the G... Saweeeet!

 

I've noticed the XM traffic is pretty accurate on the local highways in my area. Even though I don't care for XM programming I'd pay just for the traffic feature.

 

thanks for the fast help. traffic is now turned on. i hope i see some value here.

 

The problem with XM Traffic is that it is at the mercy of humans. It pulls its data from human entered events on the roads. If the events aren't entered (and the system isn't linked up in the city you are in) then you won't get any events. I'm in Austin and occasionally see warnings on the map about traffic events but not as many as I know are out there. Also the traffic congestion only will work in cities that have setup highway monitoring sensors. Otherwise there is no way to collect the info.