MSN Direct Traffic Experience?

or get a CB, that is the best "real time" traffic that you can get, if you can stand the bad language.

Wow,,, now that brings back memories,,,all the truckers hollaring at the "4 wheelers" LOL Was hoping to hear about some actual MSN direct experiences. Getting tired of throwing money away!

i have bought the MSN cable & service for one year & enjoy it immensly - for gas prices, local events, weather & traffic (which at times could be wrong , just like TMC had wrong info as well) all the extras make it woth it for me.
one that year is over, i plan to buy the one-time life membership

Are you sure you only have 3 months? My 680 came with 1 year. So far, I'm not impressed.... It's not real time, it may be 1 to 2 hours behind.

Yes, the TMC type comes with the Nuvi 760 stock. It only has a 3 month trial, I believe your unit comes stock with the Msn Direct cable

The one time life membership is now only until 2012. Then it will be renegotiated with Garmin. At least, that's what MSN told me this week.

Glad to see the positive comments.I have been reading about the msn direct and liked what I see especially the gas prices.We travel a lot and that will come in handy with gas prices like they are now.Getting ready to leave Fl back to VA and trying to print out the best gas prices on I 95 is a mess.
The next unit I get will have to have that feature.

At the rate they are going up, your list will be out-of-date by the time you leave the driveway.

My Nuvi 750 did not come with either traffic receiver but is compatible with both MSN and TMC adaters. After talking with family members who have MSN direct I purchased this receiver and love it. Leaving the adapter plugged into my cig lighter all the time it receives updates and stores them in memory when my Nuvi isn't plugged in. I use it mainly for traffic reports and it always seems to have the info I need. Gas prices are useless to me as I use deisel. I wish it were configurable for fuel type for cross-country trips but I purchase almost all of my fuel at one dealer as I have 110 gallon capacity with between 1500 and 2000 mile range depending on if I am pulling my trailer and the terrain I am driving. I signed up for my free 1 year subscription and at the same time extended it with the one-time payment. The other feature I use is the web favorites as I can log into MSN direct and save addresses into categories and then send to gps from the internet. Gotta be careful with that though since you will not be able to get your addresses from the GPS if you are out of range of the MSN Direct signal.
All in all I am glad, especially after reading the posts here about TMC delays that I got the MSN Direct receiver. I have only had it a for about 2 weeks or so but so far it has been good about rerouting me around traffic (or sometimes telling me to wade thru the traffic 'cause it's still the most optimized route.

one thing to always keep in mind is that in some cities the coverage is limited. example- canada will not receive gas prices at all. the entire country. another example- richmond, VA will only receive information during rush hours as well as many other cities. be sure you are in a coverage area and also the coverage times. some are 24-7 some are just rush hour. the information is updated in pretty much the same way that regular traffic information that displays on overhead highway indicators and radio stations.

it's only kept up to date as is possible!

There have been times where it has alerted me to a situation and I have been able to avoid a traffic jam, but most of the time I am warned of "heavy traffic" as I slow to a stop. I have six months left on my first year, I will have to give it a lot of thought before I pay to renew. I live in Chicago so I assume the service is as up to date as any major area.

I have enjoyed my experience with MSN. I have a 760. I don't use it for traffic much, but when I have had to, I have always had good results. I also make sure I have the radio on, just in case. The radio station updates about every 10 minutes during high traffic. My MSN seems to jive with the radio station

Thanks to all for the replies. I bought the MSN cable the other day. It has a very nice interface of menues. Jury is still out, seems ok but sadly slower than I would have expected We'll see !

It does a good job, just not a great job. That's why I always have my radio on as well when I will be near traffic to make sure.

I like the MSN for the other features. I see you have a 760, like me. Don't forget to go to Garmin's Webupdater and download the MSN Direct Version 2 so you can get the other 4 icons (News, Stocks, Local Events and Web Favorites). Web Favorites will let you go to maps.live.com and send maps from your computer to your 760.

I just bought the MSN cable with the 1 year support last month. When I activated it, it gives you two options to add on to your 1 year subscription: Lifetime support for roughly 130 or 6 months extension for 9.99. They way technology is chaning, I figured the 6 month extension was a good buy but the lifetime cost was a waste. Image what will be offered in 15 - 20 months!