Sirrius XM radio

[Sam]

Have to go through the ruse of cancelling and then they make a retention offer and so I get my Sirrius for $25 for 5 months and taxes . So they have this traffic nav stuff and I can group it next time or add it on. I dont know if it is worthwhile to pick it up ($4 a month) but anyone got any thoughts on this? From what I gather, you can get alerts as to road tiesup and things like that so you dont sit in traffic and the occassional trip out of town, might be worth $30 a year or so. Or guess I can google something while stuck in traffic

[jww]

I really like Sirius XM, but have a fundamental issue paying for stuff over the airwaves into my car. For music, nothing beats one of my iPods.

[Rufus]

My wife has it in her new car. We were sceptical initially, but over the past 9 months we've been won over completely. We love the wide variety of stations and the fact that when we travel far from home we don't have to keep searching for a suitable station. I like it so much that I'm thinking of having it in my car and in the house when it goes on special for existing subscribers

[Kyle76]

When Sirius first came out, I paid for a few months and then sent in $500 for a lifetime subscription. I wouldn't be without it. I can drive 300 miles and never lose a signal. I can listen to the PGA, the NFL, CNBC and many other choices. Nearly any musical genre with no commercials. To me, it's totally worth it.

[jww]

I hear that the lifetime subscription was discontinued? Also that it is/was tied to a single vehicle and not transferable.

[Rufus]

I really like Sirius XM, but have a fundamental issue paying for stuff over the airwaves into my car. For music, nothing beats one of my iPods.

Wendell, you might want to re-think this, if you'll pardon my boldness. Everything we receive over the airwaves, radio and television, is paid for by us in one way or another; in commercial terms it's called advertising and its cost is factored into everything we buy. I'm sure that whatever you have on your iPod wasn't free when you think it through. As another example, I absolutely refuse to watch or attend professional sporting events because we, the consumer, pay the disgustingly exorbitant salaries of the players through the price of the tickets and the price of the goods and services we buy from the sponsors. Just follow the money.

[Kyle76]

I hear that the lifetime subscription was discontinued? Also that it is/was tied to a single vehicle and not transferable.

It was transferable to a new vehicle for a $75 fee, up to five times, I think. I had it in two Jeeps and then bought a Toyota Tundra that has an XM radio instead of Sirius. I had to talk to several people to get the subscription to convert from Sirius to XM. They said I wouldn't be able to convert to another vehicle once I get rid of the Tundra.

[brothers]

Our Avalon had it when we bought the car a few months ago. The existing subscription just expired and I also went for the $25 renewal for 6 months. They wanted $89 for a full year, and that's probably what we'll get next time. It's excellent, as is Pandora through Bluetooth.

[jww]

Hmmm, nah still don't think it's worth it for me, I rarely have the radio on. And my iPod content is based on what I want to hear not what a station wants to play. Even when we are in the car together, we spend all our time talking. Don't get me wrong I like satellite radio, just not enough to pay for it.

[rustyblade]

Hmmm, nah still don't think it's worth it for me, I rarely have the radio on. And my iPod content is based on what I want to hear not what a station wants to play. Even when we are in the car together, we spend all our time talking. Don't get me wrong I like satellite radio, just not enough to pay for it.

It's just too expensive in Canada. They want something close to $15 a month (if I recall), whereas I can pay for Netflix for $7.99 and get unlimited video. I understand they have to pay for the satellite infrastructure, but we are talking about audio, and bad quality audio at that. They also advertise commercial free, which is a lie, the Disney Channel ("safe" pop music for my kids), carries ads for, surprise, other Disney stuff. If you are into sports, then I can understand, but I mostly listen to content through my iPhone, mostly podcasts and a little music, all at little to no cost. If you want ad-free talk then CBC radio is available nearly everywhere. Sirius/XM is one of those businesses that will one day soon spectacularly crash and burn in a short period of time and people will wonder how it lasted this long, if they didn't include it in new vehicles it would have been gone long ago. I would pay $3 a month for satellite radio, it's about all its worth. They wouldn't take my offer.

[maskaggs]

Hmmm, nah still don't think it's worth it for me, I rarely have the radio on. And my iPod content is based on what I want to hear not what a station wants to play. Even when we are in the car together, we spend all our time talking. Don't get me wrong I like satellite radio, just not enough to pay for it.

Indeed. Even without something like Spotify, which runs $10/month for on demand music of your selection (actual selection, mind you, not Pandora-style "selection"), podcasts are a lifesaver for me. Our not-infrequent 4+ hour road travel would be grueling without the high-quality educational/comedic/informative shows I can load up before we leave and listen while Mrs. snoozes (and, now, our own future DE user).

[bflotom2]

Sam:

If your question is regarding the value of an XM/Sirrus subscription I'll leave that up to you and your banker.

But if the question is regarding the traffic-NO it's not worth it. Unless Memphis traffic is really bad and is included in the subscription don't bother.

I use to travel 30-35,000 miles per year and had a subscription. I travelled to the same cities and they were on the subscription and often couldn’t tell when or where the traffic tie up’s were. Unless you know where Milton St crosses Weiss Ave you’re shooting in the dark. Often by the time I got to the location traffic had returned to normal.

I don’t drive as many miles now but I use my smart phone and use Google maps or Waze app. With Waze it doesn’t matter what city/town you’re in because its community based and nearly immediate. Google maps can provide turn by turn and show tie-ups.

[Sam]

Tom, it was the second one you posed, about the traffic. No sense in me getting it if the tieups are not in real time. It might be worth $3 a month to avoid a bottleneck on the interstate and wait 30 minutes or more at a standstill while on my once-ever-blue-moon trips. But if I can sorta google map it and keep that app running, might solve that.

[ichabod]

Another vote for the Waze app here. Being community driven or socially networked or whatever makes it very useful. As well as finding routes that avoid bad traffic, it warns you about speed traps, speed cameras and red light cameras. The price is right, as well (as in, free with occasional pop-up ads). I had to get my son and a friend of his to a training session during rush hour last Friday. The week before the friend's mom had driven and taken 50 minutes. I used Waze, went on some streets I'd never driven on before, and got there in about 28 minutes. It'll use some data from your plan, if that's a concern, but not too much - I've used about 30MB so far this month.

We have Sirius in both our cars, and use it a lot. I listen to podcasts the majority of the time I'm driving by myself (almost 100% English Premier League related), but use Sirius to listen to live sports events, music, and news at other times.