Just purchased a new '09 Traverse 1LT. Vehicle is equipped with On-Star from the factory. Dealer installed OEM navigation radio at my request. The installation of the navradio was a chore. They failed to order all the parts twice which resulted in the installation taking over a week. Finally took delivery of the Traverse last week. While familiarizing myself with the various options it became apparent that the navradio would not respond to a number of the voice commands that the supporting documentation indicate it should. Furthermore, it will not take voice tags consistently when you try to record them. Needless to say I brought this to the attention of the dealer when I returned for my Mass. inspection sticker. I waited at the shop while the tech checked the system out. An hour or so later I was told it was all set. I asked that the tech to demonstrate the unit to me utilizing the voice commands I had difficulty with. It was not all set, he couldn't get it to work either. The vehicle was left with them over night, they worked on it and again said it was all set. I returned later the next day asked the service supervisor to demonstrate to me that it worked, again it did not. Left it another night, they worked on it and had me come back mid day the following day. Advised me they spoke with GM tech support, tech support said nothing wrong, no error codes. Service manager and supervisor insisted they got it to work but agreed it took time. Asked for a demonstration. They struggled to get it to respond to commands. Tried to set a voice tag using the name of dealership ***** Chevrolet. A few times it didn't even acknowledge the attempt, another time all it "heard" was "rolet". Service manager tried to convince me that the system was working fine and that it was something I would have to live with. I adamently disagreed and insisted it should work properly based on the voice commands and that I shouldn't have to repeat the commands multiple times or modify the voice tags to a single syllable word to get it to take, as he had done. He ended up using his first name as a voice tag for the dealership when it wouldn't take the name of the dealership or a variation. I then asked to compare it to a factory new vehicle with factory installed system. He said that we needed to compare "apples to apples" and that even though it was a factory system it would function differently since they installed it and it was not done originally at the factory. Needless to say I disagreed with that opinion. I finally convinced them to compare it to a factory new system. Guess what, that one is defective too! Thanks for hearing me out. Has anyone had similar experience with the navradio units? Based on the issue with mine and the other one on their lot I have to assume it is a systemic problem. It would be very helpful if someone has dealt with this type of issue previously or if just as importantly is my level of expectation for the quality of the system too high? It does respond consistently to certain commands such as "radio FM" to change the radio band but will not acknowledge "navigation destination" as well as a host of other commands.

Hi, I hear you!!!! You are frustrated like me.I have never tried my speech recognition,maybe i will try that when i get my truck back,Its been 1 month 2 weeks.Thats when i dropped it off to get my nav programmed,CAN YOU BELIEVE?Im going to get into this a little more since i lost my job,i will post my progress,Good luck,I might go to Wally World with my cobalt rental,lol ???God Bless

Voice Recognition systems should require you to speak normally and they learn your accent and pronunciations as you use it. I'm almost sure it will get more accurate with time.
Just ride it out for a month or two, regularly commanding it normally without pause between your words.

Hope this helps :)

Thanks for the responses. Based on your experience how should it respond to commands it doesn't recognize? As I indicated mine seems not to "hear" the commands at all. It does not indicate that command was not recognized. Frustratingly it does not prompt you to repeat, it just shuts the voice recognition feature off and you have to engage it again.

I would guess that it is getting used to interferance such as usual road and wind noises. It could be something wrong with the mic. Its hard to say.

We made sure there was no background noise. The car was parked with all the windows closed, fan off etc. I spoke with the dealership today, a regional GM rep was by the shop. They briefed him on the issue. Hopefully they will come up with a resolution soon.

It doesn't sound right. I'm willing to bet that the stock unit on the lot, had the nav added after the fact by the same tech who did your install. There is something either missing or not hooked up correctly.

The voice commands continue to be a work in progress. One thing I determined through some on-line research and was subsequently mentioned by the dealership was that the vehicle engine needs to be off in order for the voice tags recording process to work efficiently. With the engine off I have been able to assign voice tags to my address book entries. Not sure why this is the case but at least it is a work around. The actual voice activated navigation commands continue to be spotty in terms of use however.

Sounds like a poor connection of some sort that allows engine noise to enter into the mic circuit or into the main board.
Only being able to use\setup the system while the enigne is off sounds ludacris.

I own a Traverse LS can it also be installed with a nav radio?

Deadduckwalking. Could you start a new topic on that please?

I purchased a 2009 Traverse LTZ. The voice commands for the nav and radio have never worked. I took the vehicle to the dealer twice and asked them to demonstrate using the voice activation commands. Not once could they get the radio or nav to respond. They checked the wiring, microphone, etc. - all good. The OnStar microphone works fine...but the navigation system - forget it. Just recently bought a 2009 Honda Civic with navigation as a second vehicle. Guess what - the voice commands work great on the first try for phone, nav, radio, etc.

Had the same problem on my Suburban... found out that voice recognition on NAV was ttied to the SOURCE button on the sterring wheel. Hold down the source button and all the NAV and RADIO commands respond.

heY! where are you?!

I have an 09 Tahoe with similar problems, my voice commands for the navigation destination work 1% or less of the time!!!

Please post up, maybe we can get GM to move on this, I've had it at the dealer 20+ times in 6 months with no resolve...

and yes, they are SEPERATE buttons, it's stupid I know, but they are...

Had the same problem with no recognition of the voice commands for the navigation system in my 2009 Traverse LTZ. The dealer was unable to get it to work. Finally, I was told that they had a solution - there provided me with a change in the owner's manual that deletes all references to the voice commands for the nav system! That's right - GM's solution is to delete the fact that the car was sold with the expectation that there were nav voice commands. Don't ever expect that the commands will work as the revised owner's manual will not reference the nav voice commands at all. Major rip off in my opinion.