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Xm Or Sirius Dealer Installed?


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We've had our 2006 RX400h for six months now and the wife would like satellite radio. Searching here and reviewing the Lexus web site, it seems that Lexus dealers can install either XM or Sirius upgrades that fully integrate with the car's radio display (we have Mark Levinson option).

Any information from the experts here on prices and your experience with dealer installed satellie radio options -- either XM or Sirius -- are much appreciated.

Jim

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We've had our 2006 RX400h for six months now and the wife would like satellite radio. Searching here and reviewing the Lexus web site, it seems that Lexus dealers can install either XM or Sirius upgrades that fully integrate with the car's radio display (we have Mark Levinson option).

Any information from the experts here on prices and your experience with dealer installed satellie radio options -- either XM or Sirius -- are much appreciated.

Jim

They are both good. The only big difference I see is for Sports.. XM is more of Baseball and Hockey I believe.. Sirius has Football and Basketball.. I had my Sirius installed and love it.. The only problem I have is going under passes and losing the signal...

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there were a couple of dealers in CA owned by the penske group who have a direct connection to satellite radio. they were offering free installation and nine months free service on any new car they sold. i bet that is where alaterreur got his. the company Vaistech, you can google them, makes aftermarket units that are incorporated behind your dash with an antenna on the windshield. it displays thru your radio. many fellow members have been happy with that setup.

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there were a couple of dealers in CA owned by the penske group who have a direct connection to satellite radio. they were offering free installation and nine months free service on any new car they sold. i bet that is where alaterreur got his. the company Vaistech, you can google them, makes aftermarket units that are incorporated behind your dash with an antenna on the windshield. it displays thru your radio. many fellow members have been happy with that setup.

I had mine installed at the dealer.. I did not get the 9 months free though... It is integrated and I beleive they used the Lexus ES parts to make it work.. I do not have a Sat button and use the AM button.. Works great payed 500 for it.

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  • 2 months later...

We've had our 2006 RX400h for six months now and the wife would like satellite radio. Searching here and reviewing the Lexus web site, it seems that Lexus dealers can install either XM or Sirius upgrades that fully integrate with the car's radio display (we have Mark Levinson option).

Any information from the experts here on prices and your experience with dealer installed satellie radio options -- either XM or Sirius -- are much appreciated.

Jim

I've had my 400h for a year, and just had the dealer install XM last week. They used the Vaistech SoundLinq w/ XM and auxiliary ports (which I'll use for MP3 player). Cost around $700 total, including installation.

Overall, verdict is still out. While it's nice to have XM integrated into the radio, I thought the sound quality would be better. So far, it seems about the same as FM, certainly not better than FM and absolutely inferior to CD, which is disappointing. Satellite is an all digital signal and, with the direct connections wiring the XM to the car radio here, I was expecting something close to CD sound...in fact, I thought I had heard others saying it was. Maybe I'm just more picky (I do work in the record industry...)

Also, XM's set-up process is a pain in the *$@ for a car radio, especially for someone who typically makes all short trips in a city...you have to leave it on the preview channel for about a half hour, in clear view of the sky -- meaning that if you don't regularly make trips of more than a half hour, you have to plan one just to get your XM working. I used to have Sirius, and it was a painless set-up process that took less than 5 minutes.

Finally, the LCD display text is severely cut off -- only 10 characters for channel name, then for artist, then for song name (you have to push text to scroll between them). Obviously, many band names and song names are more than 10 characters, especially since a space is a character.

One of these days I'm going to call Vaistech and see if any of this can be remedied. There's also an XM unit and Sirius Unit from Factory Interactive (also discussed at length on another thread in this group). Not sure whether that one has any advantages. I just used Vaistech because that's what my local dealer had in stock.

Good luck.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Where does the dealer normally put the attenna? Does anyone have a picture of how large it is?

the antennas are small for both sirius and XM.

as an aside, i just got my rx400h two days ago (thrilled), and had sirius installed. it's not integrated with the stereo or nav system. it's connected via FM modulation, which is essentially a hardwired line directly to the antenna of the radio, which enables the satellite radio to send a very strong FM signal to the car's radio, which should trump anything else coming in from the airwaves.

pictures of the radio and antenna are on the sirius forum: http://www.siriusbackstage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89953

this car rocks, by the way, as does this forum. i spent days on this forum before making the purchase (and will likely spend days after as well).

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  • 17 years later...

I have had my 2006 Lexus GX 470 for 14 years and would like to incorporate Sirius xm into my car.  I don't know the first thing about how to go about having it done - would the Lexus dealer even touch it or do I have to go to a car radio place to have it done?  Do I keep my factory radio (with the CD changer in the glove box!) or do I have to have someone change it out, etc.?  How much would all of this cost and do you think it's even worth it at this point?

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