BigBluu

I drove my sister's Porsche Cayenne (non-turbo ) over the weekend and noticed that it displayed song titles and artist names for the radio. This is just regular radio, no satellite. It even displayed the station's call sign. What type of technology is this and why do TL's not have it?

tlguy99

It's called RDS, radio data service. Many aftermarket head units have it. Some stock units have it. Why the TL's don't who knows.

Mylriahd

My 4Runner has that as well, I was disappointed that the TL doesn't have it (or at least the dealer couldn't show me it.) I think its 'RDS'. I'm not sure why they passed it up, but I suppose its because satellite radio fills the niche. Or something.

DaveK

I have a friend with a Suburban that does that too. It's a shame the TL doesn't do it.

KHill

It's RDS. My A4 I traded put the song info in the display in the instument cluster and on the radio. I was kind of disapointed that the TL didn't have it. I believe most of the stations that are putting song info up are Clear Channel owned stations.

MikeyK

I guess Acura decided the XM info was enough instead of giving us the FM info as well

Tripp11

Or perhaps a well conceived marketing ploy for the XM radio working in conjunction with Acura designers....leave off the RDS and make them want more via XM.

I love knowing the song title and artist as well.....so much that I'm probably going to renew my XM when they contact me in a another month with a reduced monthly subscription fee.

93SHOcar

I have heard that in Europe advertisers are now tapping the RDS to visibily display banner messages along with the audio version of their advertisement. Maybe the fact that the TL skipped this feature is not such a bad thing...

Eduardo

Well I might be sometime if and/or when this might come to the U.S. I'm sure there will be much commotion with adverts of this nature so I'm very doubtful this will happen in the U.S.

My sister's 2003 BMW 325i also has RDS and I think most of the major radio chains use it to identify station and songs. I've noticed that NPR uses RDS too.

TLove

G35 has RDS. It can be helpful at times, but it takes too long to rotate through the song/artist information on that particular head unit. Risk of accident if you ask me.

dseag2

I agree. My QX4 has it, and it's really no big deal. I've noticed it works only for certain radio stations and songs. Besides, why listen to FM radio when you have XM and DVD-A?