How can I tell if the XM Traffic Information is working and just not recieving any info? The website shows we have coverage on certain roads here, but as of yet, I haven't seen a thing. It is only M-F, so anything I do will have to wait until Monday to check. It goes quickly to a screen that looks like ruled paper, then back, does that just mean no info is available? Geez, this state is so basackwards sometimes. LOL, remember that if you are considering voting for Richardson..................

 

Even if you get information from XM it is basically almost a worthless feature. I live in the NY area and drive into NYC daily. When I had XM Traffic for the first 3 months I owned my G, it would consistently show the blinking red lines next to the roads with bad traffic but NEVER EVER would route me around this traffic - even if I requested to be rerouted. It would always tell me there were no alternate routes (despite the fact that I know at least 5 alternate routes around the traffic). XM could care less when I called - they told me to call my dealer. Infiniti also could care less as well. As you might imagine - I have let the traffic feature expire and am not renewing it. Just listening to my radio (the old fashioned way).

 

It's not the XM traffic that makes it worthless, it's the NAV unit. I had XM traffic on my old AVIC and when I asked to re-route it would do so even if it meant getting off the highway and running back roads for a few miles to get back on around the jam. On my G it does the same as you said "No alternate routes", I will let mine expire, it is completely useless.

 

It is good to know that the XM can work - very disappointing that it doesn't in the G. This will likely be a problem in the future as cars become more technologically advanced and the dealers don't have the ability to keep up with the trends/technology.

 

I am also disappointed with the XM traffic information. I live in the San Jose area, and it hasn't helped me once in the month I have tried using it. My iPhone gets much better information from Google Maps, and that's free. I will not renew the XM traffic information.

 

Navtraffic works fairly well in my area (Seattle). I only wish I could could call up traffic incident screen via a voice command instead of having to key through to the incidents screen.

 

XMTraffic works great for me in the DC area

 

Its never worked that well for me. If I put in a destination, it'll never reroute me, I assume its because it doesn't know the traffic conditions on roads that aren't major interstates or freeways (i.e. route 1, route 7, etc). The only way it will know about traffic updates in those areas are when there is an accident or construction.

I simply just use the "Nearby Traffic Info" button if I need a heads up on traffic.

 

And thats how it was designed to work. XM clearly lists roads that are "flow" enabled and roads that are "incident" enabled. No offense to people who want to bash the system, thats certainly your right, but it still amazes me somewhat that people expect this system to do things it wasn't designed to do. I mean, XM lists the roads that will be flow enabled in your area. If the roads you travel arent flow enabled - you cant complain that there's no flow information.

If you travel like I do on roads that are flow enabled the system works great.

 

Tom,

If you have active service you should see the TRAFFIC icon in the upper right hand side corner of the NAV screen (grayed/red/green). If the service is actually running and receiving live updates, that icon should appear in green.