Previous Car:

2007 530xi Sedan (6MT, CA, Nav, CW, Split Rear Fold Seats).

New Car:

2007 530xi Wagon (6MT, Nav, Sports Pkg, HUD, CW).

The two cars are basically the same except the Sedan had CA, but no Sports Pkg or HUD.

The 530xi wagon came with only one Nav disc (Western US) and I needed Eastern too, so we purchased the latest version of the discs (2013).

When I would experience traffic in the previous sedan, the roads would show a bunch of congestion arrows and I would get a audio confirm if I was using the Navigation. I never activated it or "turned it on", it came this way when I purchased the car and I owned the car for almost 15 months. I don't get the traffic alerts in the wagon. I

Is there a way to activate it without paying $. Is it just a setting that I haven't uncovered?

Thanks.

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So the answer appears to be that you need SAT radio capabililty, which I had on the Sedan but do not have on the Wagon. I didn't have a subscription or use SAT, but that appears to be the hardware through which Clear Channel and BMW use to bring in the signal/information.