Well I finally got a call about the missing voice recognition commands. Basically they said tough S**T. The guy from Infiniti (not the dealership) said that they had no plans on reinstating the commands. What you have is what you get. Infiniti did market research on the product and the people that were poled said it was to confusing. I asked him if they poled people off the street that had no business driving a 45 thousand dollar car, he said that it was owners of the car that were poled. Unfortunately he couldn't go into specifics. Any cars that were manufactured before August have the full list, after that you get the abridged list.
So to make up for the stupid thing (IMAO) that they did he offered me two options. The extended warranty or a 24 month service package.
Although I am very dismayed about the outcome of the whole ordeal I guess at least I got an extended warranty out of it.

Good Luck to all and enjoy your kick *** car.

 

well hell, maybe i should do some complaining.

 

Yes, can you post the number that you called to complain?

 

^^^ + eleventy billion!

 

what commands are missing? I am very curious!

 

Yeah, they are missing on my car as well. Kinda disappointing. I know the missing commands that I wanted are "tune 96.3" (station) and "temperature 80" but other than that I can't complain. Still loving the car at 702 miles awaiting 1200.

 

Sounds like Infiniti didn't do their usability homework.

 

The "Tune" I can understand (makes me feel bad about never using it on my car since apparently they got rid of it), but why does everyone miss the "Temperature" command? it really isn't that great. At first I thought if you have both passenger and driver temps set the same, this command would change both but all it ever does it change the driver temp, so why have two commands for the same thing?

Oh well, hopefully this will make the early production cars with the complete list a little more rare

 

Orbie it will change both if dule climate control is not selected.

 

It's funny that Infiniti wants to remove commands when several other manufacturers seem to think that the more voice commands the better. For example, Honda advertises that its voice recognition software handles 730 commands. Even the new Ford Sync system seems to offer better voice support, like being able to play by artist using only voice commands.

Of course, I bought a G37 for many reasons other than the voice recognition functions, but I really don't understand why Infiniti is watering down the system like this.

 

I have always looked at it this way. I was shown a car with the full list, then went back to buy and it was the partial list. That's disappointing. If you buy a car and it is a V6 and you take it home and find out that you are using only 4 cylinders because it is "easier for the ECM to control" then we have a problem. At least I should have been made aware of the change before I bought instead of them just changing it.

 

Well, I'd actually be pretty happy if I somehow managed to squeeze an extended warranty out of this. However, if not, I feel ripped off.

Of course, I have no idea when my car was manufactured, and I'm too lazy to check right now. I do remember being shown the "tune" feature when I first went to see the G37 a couple months ago, and I thought that was neat. I can see how that'd come in handy when you're driving versus taking your attention off the road and onto the **** and screen to dial in the station you're looking for.

I agree with everyone here. It's not like the extra voice command features complicate things further; they are simply additional options that the owner has at his/her disposal. I'm going to unload on Infiniti corporate this week.

 

Congrats on the extended warranty - I'd rather have that than the extended list (that I don't use). In your case, I'd do the same thing. If I was shown a car with certain options, and bought/ordered my car with the assumption that I would also get those options, I'd want recourse.

That being said, I'd rather be one of the fortunate folks that managed to get $1500 (or more) off MSRP in trade for losing some voice command functionality. But we all made our decisions to buy when we did, and companies do make changes mid-stream (for good reasons or not). I wouldn't be surprised if December build dates have the newest Gracenote CD database and updated navigation data (which will cost early adapters some money). Oh well, that's how it goes. No sleep lost over it.

 

well thats Infiniti's choice -- even the new 2008 M's, 2008 QX's (early models have more like the G37's), '08 G35 sedans all have the same issue. I was embarrassed showing the client on a test drive and a lot of features won't show up.

 

Did you call corporate infiniti? 800-662-6200?
I just called them and tried complaining, and they keep pushing me back to the dealer...and the consumer affairs agent claimed he knew nothing about the issue and it was the first time he heard of something, and apparently it is infiniti policy to not escalate the call to their supervisor when requested by the caller....wtf is that?

anyway, any insight would be appreciated by all of us!