Sirius/XM has gotten rid of NavTraffic for California and many other parts of the USA where traffic data display and routing in consideration of traffic were VERY helpful. This is not Mercedes-Benz's fault, but it has hut many customers, so they should develop and sell some sort of way to again have the traffic data. I not that competitor Tesla still has traffic data.

 

I didn't know SiriusXM shut down their traffic service, but with the proliferation of smartphones with corresponding navigation apps, CarPlay and Android Auto and even factory navigation using online traffic data these days, it's not surprising. What year and model are you inquiring about, though. Your 2021 GLE has MBUX with online traffic data and CarPlay/AA, so it's not using SiriusXM and you have plenty of options. CarPlay/AA being one of them and the other one being the online traffic data service for the factory nav. The latter requires a paid subscription after the initial trial.

 

I have connected my Android phone, and there are two problems: 1) The map screen becomes quite small; and, 2) It uses data, and nobody has true unlimited cell service, so would be costly fir people who drive asmuch as I do.

 

Yes, on MBUX both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are not full screen. That's been an ongoing complaint. I have the slightly older COMAND NTG 5.5 system and CarPlay fills up the entire screen. It's one of the steps back in MBUX. However, how much do you drive? The navigation apps don't use a lot of data unless you turn on satellite overlay images. What kind of data plan do you have? I travel a lot internationally, and I always use CarPlay with Google Maps and use a local data plan via the second SIM in my phone and I get by with a 5GB plan for everything not just the data use for the navigation. On those trips I drive a lot, I've done up to 4000 miles/month. 5GB per month is nothing. I just checked and AT&T's unlimited plan doesn't start throttling until you reach 22GB or 50GB depending on the plan. At home I have a 4GB plan for now and granted I don't use CarPlay a lot in my own car, but I barely use only half of the allotted monthly data.

This aside, you can still get online traffic for the built-in navigation as well if you worry about your phone's data usage or the small screen issue. As said, the newer cars don't even use SiriusXM anymore. They use HERE Traffic via the data connection. You just need to have active Mercedes me services. I keep my services active. It's currently a single package at a cost of $150/year for everything. You can renew online https://shop.mbusa.com/en-us/connect/. My first 3 years were included with the purchase of the car. I think yours only includes 1 year for free. If I remember correctly, they changed it for MY21 and newer from 3 years to 1 year free service.