I just bought a new 2008 RDX a few months ago. I'm still in the 3 month free XM trial but I can't figure out how to get NavTraffic information to display. I looked through the manual but couldn't seem to find anything.

I'm assuming that the NavTraffic is part of the 3 month free trial as it was with my 2008 Infiniti G37.

 

Make sure you go into the map setup screen and turn on traffic info. It's in the same menu where you select POIs to show on the screen. It's a bit counterintuitive (to me), but once you do that you also have to zoom your map to one of the settings that shows the word "TRAFFIC" along the bottom. You can also push the knob straight in and select "traffic incidents" to get a list of accidents, etc. close to you.

 

My NavTraffic would not display until I took it back to the dealer. I tried everything the dealer could tell me to do over the phone and everything XM could do remotely. This included several "refresh" signals that XM sent to my unit along with sitting in a wide-open high-hill parking lot for 30 minutes with the engine running on XM Channel 0 waiting for that magic reset command to arrive.

On the dealer service form it says, "disconnected battery, reconnected, unable to reproduce."

XM NavTraffic was working the moment I got back in the car. The dealer took two weeks to schedule the appointment, but only 20 minutes work. It didn't cost me anything, but miles to detour to the dealership one Saturday afternoon. I got a free orange juice out of the deal from the dealership waiting room... :-)

 

You pay the $3.99 for XM Navtraffic, right? Do you think it's worth it?

 

Absolutely. It has helped me avoid bottlenecks more than a few times. My main complaints are:

- There is a pretty bad time lag between the traffic conditions and what is reported on the nav system. This is true both when it reports slowdowns that have cleared up and incidents that cause a slowdown that it doesn't yet report.

- It only reports incidents and traffic flow on very major highways in a limited number of metro areas, not every highway everywhere.

- I don't like that you have to zoom to a particular set of zoom levels to get the colored traffic indicators. It should be able to display traffic conditions no matter how far in or out you want to view the map.

 

If it worked it would be worth $4/month no question. However, in Chicagoland it is very common to be sitting on the 'express' way doing Zero MPH and the NAV telling you it is green. I have also been driving in yellow and red at 80+MPH.

I guess if there was some major accident that backed things up a ton it might be helpful but the lag is so great that it ends up being very inaccurate. And, even if a major road is slow there is often not a good alt. route that won't cost you more time that staying on the express way and since secondary roads are not flow controlled you have no way of knowing if an alt. route is backed up as bad or worse than the major roads.

I LOVE the idea but they need better data to make it useful.

 

I subscribed to it last week, but I think I'm going to cancel the service. I don't think it'll prove to be helpful to me.

 

You've nailed it. I just completed a JD Power survey last week on my RDX's nav system, and there were several questions about the XM NavTraffic. I answered the same way as your post.

That being said, I'm subscribing because (even as flawed as the current implementation is) it is still useful to me. Also, I want to encourage them to keep improving the service, and the only way to do that is to give them the pittance it costs per month for what they currently offer. I hope it keeps getting better over time...

 

Does anyone have this working on a Canadian RDX?

 

Hmm.. I'll look again but I didn't see anything. If it makes a difference I live in Canada.

 

OK I looked through the manual and I can find anything about NavTraffic.

 

OK it seems to be a US only thing. I looked through the US manual posted here and it has traffic menu options that I don't have. That sucks. I get the traffic display on my Infiniti. and I know that XM offers coverage for Canadian cities so why did Acura disable it for Canadian models???

 

I have the same complaint John. I have a 2008 TL Navi and I'm still determined to get this working. From the research I've done, I believe our XM unit does not have NavTraffic with it, and the DVD drive is possibly different too.

I don't understand why Acura Canada would do this...in Canada other cars like the M35X, Cadillac and some other cars have this....anyone feel like launching a formal complaint to Acura Canada?

 

I have an 08 TL as well and apparently our xm recievers are just he basic ones ..gota get the xm navtraffic recievers...anyone know how to get navtraffic onto the canadian models???

 

sure, get yourself an american unit and transplant