MB no longer providing Live Traffic on 2017/18 cars

[jeisensc]

@Jeffkad

Apparently MB has severed its relationship with the Traffic service provider, TomTom, and anyone whose subscription has run out cannot renew

Do you have a citation? Did someone at MB CC tell you that? I’m not finding anything (the MB Vans built in/after 2019 still have Live Traffic from TomTom according to MB website).

Others (elsewhere) mention the Sirius traffic service (which is satellite based), the Tomtom one USED to be FM-based when I used it for years, but they sell so many information products now that MB may be getting data from their API and either pushing it to cars or making it available?

In the UK, everyone reports their TomTom subscription for the data is only for the first three years, and by renewing it seems to work. No clue if that applies in the US

@Jeffkad

I don’t want Google Maps, Apple Maps, or anything else. I like the MB NAV, and I want what I bought the car with, an integrated system that gives me NAV/map/traffic integrated with the audio screen,etc.

See also

@jeisensc

My observation is that integration is a weakness across the industry. Some ground-up design/build, some choose the best off-the-shelf sub-assemblies — either way (and anywhere on that spectrum) nobody does a good job of fully integrating (which must include robust feedback upstream to make these off-the-shelf products better”).

TL;DR: tech in cars is becoming geometrically more complicated, increasingly less-understood by the OEMs, poorly integrated in its implementation, with broken feedback-loops inside a broken feedback-loop.

A key reason I’ve been leasing since 2004 — not that I won’t ever buy a car again, but the speed of obsolescence is blinding. They have all designed Franken-monsters that nearly everything works nearly all the time, while under warranty. After that, good luck - and you have no right to repair so don’t be dismantling/reverse-engineering your own solutions.