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Number of FM presets (2019)

8K views 20 replies 11 participants last post by  SapphireTRG 
#1 ·
Programming my 2019 for fm presets and I think after about 10-12 I was not able to add any more. Does anyone know if there is a way to add more? The manual doesn’t specify a limit.
 
#6 ·
Regarding FM presets, the Owners Manual page 259 shows "FM1 and FM2 let you store 6 stations each" a total of 12. The Owners Manual page 303 shows "You can store 12 AM/FM stations into preset memory".
 
#10 ·
Hate to dig up old/ dead threads, but just got my wife into a '20 and we're finding the same thing. No, we don't use FM all that much, but she does love satellite radio and hates streaming. We quickly filled the 12 dedicated to FM in no time. (If this were my vehicle, it'd be worse, as I save many traffic and news stations as well.)

Would be nice if Honda had done what so many other OEs did give users some flexibility - say 30 presets across all three bands, and let them fill as they desire. This is a little thing, for sure - but it's a big deal in our household and one of the few complaints I'm fielding from my better half...
 
#11 ·
I would agree if this was 5 or 6 years ago, and I can see where more presets could be nice. but with voice control, the presets are more for the wife than for me. The Honda is my vehicle, she drives a Nissan.

"Tune to" followed by a radio channel number for Am/Fm stations and "Channel" followed by either the Siris/XM channel name or number and I'm on the channel I want to be. I never bothered to learn the voice commands for the 2013 Pilot I had as it seem finicky, but with the 2020 touring it has been both accurate and responsive.
 
#19 ·
I would agree if this was 5 or 6 years ago, and I can see where more presets could be nice. but with voice control, the presets are more for the wife than for me. The Honda is my vehicle, she drives a Nissan.

"Tune to" followed by a radio channel number for Am/Fm stations and "Channel" followed by either the Siris/XM channel name or number and I'm on the channel I want to be. I never bothered to learn the voice commands for the 2013 Pilot I had as it seem finicky, but with the 2020 touring it has been both accurate and responsive.
Is this without Android Auto or Apple CarPlay in use? I didn't realize that the car had its own voice commands!
Thanks.
 
#12 ·
We're aware, but that's a ho-hum workaround at best. Not only does a voice command take longer than simply hitting the "next" or "previous" buttons on the steering wheel or touch screen, but there are plenty of times where we don't think of tuning directly to a channel - we simply flip through presets until we find a track or program we want to listen to. I'm glad it works well for those of you with fewer presets, but the lack of flexibility is rather stunning in this day and age, and given how good the Honda system seems to be, otherwise (knocking firmly on wood).
 
#13 ·
I understand the idea, but at what point is there enough presets? 18, 24, 32, 38? Between 12 & 18 seem to be the standard, usually being 12. Everyone is different in their wants/needs, but Honda had to make a choice somewhere.

For me I only need one FM preset for the local public radio station on Saturday morning. I want to hear The Best of Car Talk at 9:00 a.m. Other than that my unit is on SirisXM or playing music from my Honda music or a USB.

If I lived somewhere like New York City with their 128 FM stations and 75 AM stations it would be a challenge. So many options to choose from. Her we have 42 FM channels from 30 stations in the area. Several of our FM stations are low powered, non commercial stations that are either Christian broadcasting or belonging to entities like some of the towns in a 60 mile area while some of the others are HD sub channels.
 
#14 ·
This is really odd -- the 2018+ Accord doesn't seem to have any limit to the number of stations that can be stored, so I'm not clear why Honda would remove functionality for more expensive models.

As to the question of how many is enough -- as many as you want. It takes so little memory to store a station, that even having hundreds stored should be inconsequential. Honda doesn't have to make the choice, as we aren't talking about hard buttons here, and the station presets should scroll indefinitely.
 
#15 ·
...my point - being "let the user make that decision" - stands. It's so simple that I can't believe Honda of all companies would wiff on this. Give 'em 30 presets across ALL bands; let 'em see fit to divide/ use as needed? Heck, the FJ Cruiser that this Pilot replaced let us do exactly that - and WITHOUT even having an infotainment system.

And as for the worry about "overwhelming the user" - my aging GMC's system lets me choose how many presets to play with, up to (if memory serves) 30-something. (Yes, that's overkill). Want fewer pages/ presets to scroll through? Select 6/12/18/ whatever you desire. It's a crappy system in other regards, but they at least got that part right.

You keep mentioning FM - we only use 2 FM stations, but the Pilot gives us another 10 preset spots left open on that band that we will most certainly never use. Same for AM - nary a station to tune into here. Why can't that leftover memory be used for Sirius, where we regularly DO scroll through tons of others?

Again, I overall do like the Honda system, and I guess I'm happy it fits your use case - but it's a pain point for others. Given how other OEMs are completely capable of giving more flexibility here, it's surprising - and sad - to see Honda opt to go the other direction.
 
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