Traffic Monitoring System Data Comes via FM

Most of you understand your LR4s much better than I do but for those of you who didn't know, the TMS data (at least in the 2014) is provided by a free service and comes through FM radio. Why do I care?

For the past 2-3 weeks I haven't been getting any data. The TMS symbol at the top of the Navigation screen would always show a red line through it indicating no data available. Even when I set routes on major interstates where I knew there were issues.

So I wrongly assumed this had something to do with a change in my Sirius Sat service thinking the data came from there. In fact, when I called my dealer's service department the first answer I got was that the data came from satellite. (Which of course led to an even more confusing conversation with the Sirius folks about why I was no longer getting my traffic data.)

I eventually went down to the dealership/service department and started asking around. Finally we found someone who knew that the although you can order traffic and weather service from Sirius that is not what the Nav system uses. It uses a free service that sends signals via FM.

That still didn't explain to me why I had stopped receiving data. But, realizing that I had not used the FM radio for over a month I decided to see if using an FM station would re-initialize the TMS data signal. Within 5 minutes after turning to an FM station data was coming in again. I still don't know why it stopped. Maybe not using it for a long period of time. Or maybe something they did when the performed a multipoint inspection a couple weeks ago. In any case, it appears to be working now - and not only when I am listening to FM.

If you notice that you are not getting TMS data you may want to switch to an FM channel for a few minutes and see if it comes back

I don't know why your TMC receiver stopped working, but RDS-TMC only comes through FM stations owned by evil Clear Channel Communications here in the US so, depending on reception of those stations where you live, you may or may not receive traffic data on a regular basis. Here in L.A. they own 5 big FM stations, so traffic data reception is as clear as a bell. Still useless for navigation purposes, but that' a different story.

Good to know. Thanks for the post.

I had no idea we had a traffic monitoring system.

It is useless, don't even bother. Google maps is far more up to the minute in my area.

The 'Waze' Nav App is also well known for traffic monitoring.

All those apps are better. But this past weekend the build in TPMS was not "worthless". It warned me about a major backup on Interstate 25 with enough time to find an alternate route. I was driving south on I25 and had not realized that the Renaissance Festival was occurring and that it would cause miles of backup on the interstate. So it may not be as good as the smartphone apps. (I use those as well when I sense I may need to.) But it was not completely worthless.)

Ha, our Honda 2012 Nav system failed to warn us about the Gilroy Garlic festival a couple weeks ago on our way back from Hunnington Beach.

Looking forward to CarPlay, I'm hoping that we'll be able to replace our NAV HW system in our LR4s to use it when it's released.

Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO!


holy **** is that feature annoying... wish it was possible to disable. Took a trip from Iowa to Florida last year and the damn thing would not give up.

mbw said:

Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO! Traffic ahead, do you want to reroute? NO!


holy **** is that feature annoying... wish it was possible to disable. Took a trip from Iowa to Florida last year and the damn thing would not give up.

Click to expand...

LOL! Sorry, I can imagine it was a nuisance. But you can turn it off. At least I was able to. Nav menu. TMS button (I think) gives you the option of not re-routing. Either that or the Settings button. I have it disabled so I must have done it somehow. What I do is when it goes yellow (and if I care) I press the now-yellow box at the top of the Nav screen and it gives me a list of traffic issues. Press on each one and will give you a bit more info. Or just ignore.

Now, if I could figure out a way to permanently turn off the Parking Assist naggy!