FM Traffic Capability on Navigation System?

[MarkE12345]

Hello,
Does anyone know of any option to select or add the capability of a FM receiver to receive traffic on the built in nav system on a 2012 Explorer?

It really burns me up to pay an $800 upgrade for a nav system that cannot get an over the air signal that a $100 Garmin (or other) unit which also includes lifetime map updates (that is another issue). I live in the DC area where traffic is troublesome but am not willing to subscribe to Sirius Radio, to then have to add on the traffic component. When we bought this vehicle we were never told that the traffic came through Sirius and not through an FM signal like other units. Of course requiring subscription after 6 months of getting used to it.

Call me frugal but why should I subscribe to something that could and should be free. I hope Ford has thought that Sirius is not for everyone and has a work around that will allow use of this system.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Mark.

 

[harlenm]

I don't know of a single car that has an fm receiver for traffic for built in nav. All use xmnavtraffic, and of their sirius counterpart.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never seen it.

 

[MarkE12345]

Thanks for the reply. That may be true and I just don't know. This is my first vehicle with a built in Nav system vs. using after market units. Therefore my only experience is with the free FM signals through those units. It only seems logical that these systems that cost 8 times as much should be able to leverage free technology used in these after market units.
Mark

 

[Sgt1411]

If we had AppLink you could use other Apps like INRIX, and Motion X GPS in conjunction with your MFT touch system. Unfortunately that functionality isn't there yet.

Lets hope we see some new options with the upcoming Ford announcement in the first week of January at CES

 

[phareous]

I don't know of a single car that has an fm receiver for traffic for built in nav. All use xmnavtraffic, and of their sirius counterpart.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never seen it.

When I was researching cars before I got the Explorer, there were several that had FM Traffic. One of them is Honda. Apparently Volvo and BMW may also have them.

That being said, I never saw one vehicle (in the non-luxury market) that had every feature I wanted...they were all missing something. A bunch of them still (in 2012) don't even have HD radio

 

[13Sport]

One of them is Honda.

My wife's 2012 accord did not offer any traffic.

A sirius navtraffic only subscription is 3.99 a month, when bundled with a sirius radio subscription it drops to 1.99 a month. The quality of sirius' navtraffic incidents and traffic reports is much better than the FM counterparts from personal experience, and what I've read in reviews. It's probably worth the 24-48$ a year, it has been for us at least.

 

[phareous]

My wife's 2012 accord did not offer any traffic.

A sirius navtraffic only subscription is 3.99 a month, when bundled with a sirius radio subscription it drops to 1.99 a month. The quality of sirius' navtraffic incidents and traffic reports is much better than the FM counterparts from personal experience, and what I've read in reviews. It's probably worth the 24-48$ a year, it has been for us at least.

Here is their site: http://automobiles.honda.com/traffic/
I don't know which models specifically... I did see 2013 Honda Accord has it. And more of interest to people here would be the 2013 Honda Pilot. Personally I don't particularly like the way the navtraffic is in the explorer...its just a bunch of icons and text...I'd much rather see something like google maps with red overlaid on the road to show a traffic jam, and maybe an icon directly on the map. The only useful thing I ever saw was it rerouted me automatically when I had a route in...I don't even think it alerts you at all if you don't have a route active.

 

[13Sport]

Here is their site: http://automobiles.honda.com/traffic/
I don't know which models specifically... I did see 2013 Honda Accord has it. And more of interest to people here would be the 2013 Honda Pilot. Personally I don't particularly like the way the navtraffic is in the explorer...its just a bunch of icons and text...I'd much rather see something like google maps with red overlaid on the road to show a traffic jam, and maybe an icon directly on the map. The only useful thing I ever saw was it rerouted me automatically when I had a route in...I don't even think it alerts you at all if you don't have a route active.

The explorer does overlay red (and orange/yellow, and green)

 

[phareous]

The explorer does overlay red (and orange/yellow, and green)

Hmm I've never seen it do that. Does it do it all the time, or only when you have a route active?

 

[13Sport]

Hmm I've never seen it do that. Does it do it all the time, or only when you have a route active?

Whenever it has traffic data for the street/highway... it mostly is in metro areas and large freeways. Around LA here it does it on some of our major side streets as well.

 

[VinceL]

Like 13Sport said, it's there if the data is there.

Some have complained on how the colors are displayed, in that in some cases it is not clear whether the north or southbound lanes are being depicted. I have found that the system can be a bit sloppy in how it shows that data at times. On a recent trip, I had to be zoomed way in for it to separate the lanes on I-10. Too close to easily plan an alternate route on another street while driving.

Anybody with the newest version, can you comment on the resolution of data display at various zoom levels? Thanks.

 

[harlenm]

Like 13Sport said, it's there if the data is there.

Some have complained on how the colors are displayed, in that in some cases it is not clear whether the north or southbound lanes are being depicted. I have found that the system can be a bit sloppy in how it shows that data at times. On a recent trip, I had to be zoomed way in for it to separate the lanes on I-10. Too close to easily plan an alternate route on another street while driving.

Anybody with the newest version, can you comment on the resolution of data display at various zoom levels? Thanks.

Not sure how you could confuse which side the traffic is on.
Sorry they are blurry.

 

[13Sport]

Not sure how you could confuse which side the traffic is on.
Sorry they are blurry.

This was corrected in 3.5.1 w/ the new a4 maps... in the previous version w/ the a3 maps the color used to bleed through, so red would bleed through and cover the green, it looked like both sides of the road were red when they were not.

 

[harlenm]

This was corrected in 3.5.1 w/ the new a4 maps... in the previous version w/ the a3 maps the color used to bleed through, so red would bleed through and cover the green, it looked like both sides of the road were red when they were not.

I don't ever remember it being like that.

 

[13Sport]

I don't ever remember it being like that.

I called IVT and Ford Customer Service at the time it came out to complain. Traffic was relatively useless as zoomed out at anything over 1mi it looked like red on both sides of the freeway even if it was only red on one side. They logged the issue and said it would be fixed in an update. Alas, it got fixed I have tried reporting a few other issues, none of which ever got resolved, so this must have been reported by a lot more than just me.

 

[VinceL]

I called IVT and Ford Customer Service at the time it came out to complain. Traffic was relatively useless as zoomed out at anything over 1mi it looked like red on both sides of the freeway even if it was only red on one side. They logged the issue and said it would be fixed in an update. Alas, it got fixed I have tried reporting a few other issues, none of which ever got resolved, so this must have been reported by a lot more than just me.

That's exactly what I'm talking about, thanks for summing it up 13Sport.

When I would zoom out to check another route, it was useless because the colors would get all wacky and I couldn't tell which direction of travel the color displayed was depicting. Zoomed in was fine, but I can't effectively choose another route zoomed in so close.

Glad to hear that it is fixed

 

[phareous]

I think its kindof weird they chose red for interstates...they should have left red for congested traffic

 

[13Sport]

I think its kindof weird they chose red for interstates...they should have left red for congested traffic

It's more of a pink or peach color for the interstates... congested traffic is red