Garmin's Lifetime subscription is on fire!

On 1/15/09 I paid $60 for the lifetime FM traffic subscription. It is working, but when I go to garmin.com and look at my subscriptions, it is not listed. Is it not listed because it is marked as lifetime in the FM receiver itself so Garmin doesn't have to keep up with it any more? Should I contact Garmin to get them to list it?

Same here. I have two Clear Channel subs and those are not listed under my subscriptions either. I believe that is normal for purchased traffic subs.

Greetings,

For what it's worth, my GTM20 traffic receiver/power source, which is registered and shown as a device on myGarmin, also does not show my lifetime ClearChannel Traffic subscription. As with you, my traffic subscription is working--or at least it was last week when I was last in an area with ClearChannel traffic available to use it--and the last time I checked, my nuvi shows my subscription as "lifetime." It appears that this subscription is not being shown on the myGarmin web site but will be confirmed by our GPS devices.

To my knowledge, the lifetime for MSN is only guaranteed till if I recall correctly 2012 or is it 2013?, but could be extended depending on the contract with MSN and Garmin.

Mine is the same way. I purchased it on line but unless you purchase it through your my Garmin account it never shows up in my Garmin. It is tied directly to that one receiver and once the receiver shows lifetime you do not need to worry about it any longer.

I'm confused. I just bought a Nuvi 780 a month ago, which comes with 3 months of MSN Traffic. I am planning on renewing when it expires. How does that affect me? I was told the renewal for the lifetime (or until the contract with MSN is up) would cost $129.

Can somebody shed some light on this? Thanks in advance.

MSN Direct (which is what you have) is not the same as the FM traffic which is primarily focused on in this topic. MSN gives you more than just traffic like weather, news and other things. It uses the MSN Direct Receiver GDB 50/GDB 55 which is totally different than the GTM 2x units discussed here.

As you likely already know, you can either renew your MSN Direct service for $49 a year or $129 Lifetime.

The FM traffic being discussed using the GTM 2x receivers only give you traffic, nothing more for $49 or $60 (depending on the provider) lifetime.

ok, maybe there really isnt any other way out.. but i was in wash. dc for my bro's graduation and as i was leaving.. im sitting there thinking, 'why am i stuck in traffic, garmin!'.

i never saw a recommended lane come up from my 765t unit. other than the 'theres traffic' icons that i dont need a hint to see because i was STUCK IN IT.

That's about the norm for traffic reports. They will never be 100% accurate. Other manufacturers besides Garmin will be no different either. You have to use the traffic receiver as a tool for extra info and use that extra info along with other info such as traffic reports via AM radio. The system is still in it's infancy and will frequently report incidents that aren't even there or have cleared 5-10 minutes ago or not even report an incident at all until it's too late & you're already stuck in it.

This is also one of the reasons why they provide a trial subscription to the service. To some, it's worth the price but to others, it can be totally useless.

I appreciate your taking the time to answer my question.

One last question, will I be able to get the FM Traffic once my free MSN subscription is up in two months? Or do I have to stick with MSN?

Thanks again in advance.

The MSN Direct GDB 5x and GTM 2x units are totally different and are not compatible with each other in any way, EXCEPT to provide power to the nuvi.

If you have an MSN GDB 5x, you cannot use the Clear Channel or Navteq subscriptions on it. You have to use the MSN Direct service with it.

I recently spoke to Garmin about my nuvi 660. My traffic subscription will expire in about a month. Garmin told me that for $60, I could get a lifetime of the unit extension for my traffic service.