So first time I say "Play Born to Be Wild" I get the song. "Head out on the highway, looking for adventure" etc. The next time I try to play it I get "Born to Be Wild radio station" and a similar genre song. How do I force it to play the original song?
To do so you need a paid premium account. Otherwise, sometimes it will repeat the same song but most of the times it won't.
The manual documents it quite well. Basically login with your slacker premium account. The limitations you’re mentioning are due to the slacker plus that come with the car. Replay requires premium.
For those of us without premium, it seems to play the song I request every time...as long as the requests for a single song are at least 24 hours apart. (The window used to seem more like two days, but one day has been working for me lately. Two days ago I played a song around noon, and yesterday when I requested it at 11 it failed, but again at 12:30 it worked. Maybe it's just chance, but it sure sounds like a 24-hour window). If it's been less than a day, yeah you just get the station and a bunch of "similar" songs. But often if you just skip several songs, it will end up playing the one you want.
One of the nice things I noticed about slacker. If you favorite songs on your usb drive it will add those to you favorites station in slacker.
I have clicked on "favorites" many times for songs I like but when it plays again I have never seen the favorites icon highlighted a second time. Am I missing something?
I've decided to try a premium account, solely for this ability. I'm still getting the same behavior as the OP. Before you ask, yes I have ensured that I'm using my Premium account and not the Tesla account that came with the car. What are others'experiences with a Premium Slacker account?