Woo - I was on the fence before, but at this lower price, I can probably convince my wife to let me get it now Now that I'm in AZ and haven't found a local news radio station, and that my commute is going to be a bit longer, I'm going to really enjoy this.
It sure is a lot better price. But still about 100$ more then I'll spend on radio. The problem is you still got to pay 12$ a month. I can't get over that. 12$ a month buys a spindle of 100 Cds. And I can burn a lot of music on 100 Cds. If you keep the car for two years, and factor in the cost of the unit + two years of XM, the car is costing an additional 25 bucks a month. Is XM really worth it?
Well, I don't know where you get your $12 number from as the monthly charge is <$10 if you pay month to month. If you do a multi-year contract you can get it for closer to $8/month. If you're lucky and check out my XM Radio for 1/2 Price thread you may be able to get it for $6/month. If you only listen to music and don't care at all about live sports, news, weather, comedy or any variety of kids programming and public radio then I agree, it's not worth your investment. But this is not "just radio"...it's more like cable TV for your car...sans the video. If I were you, with your mind for counting the pennies, I'd hold out for XMDirect (~$100) when it's available for the Prius, then get in there. I find my XM absolutely a great investment.
Aren't you the one who just spend thousands of dollars to upgrade the sound system in your car and hundreds more to change the HID bulbs so that you'd have bluer headlights? :roll:
lol... Yes. Well I didn't spend thousands. I spent 1100$ on the system and 100$ on the headlights. But they were great deals. That’s why I bought them. I buy useless crap all the time, but I'm happy with it as long as I got the best deal possible. That XMDirect sounds interesting. I'll research up on that.
The metrotpn.com site says that you have to have the JBL audio system. Can the coastaltech.com solution use the stock radio in the 2005 Prius? Will any integrated XM system work with the stock radio? Merci!
If I had to choose between TV and XM, I would first disconnect TV. CDs are good, but I don't want to buy a CD because of two or three songs and I am NOT paying $1 for compressed music either. FM sucks since all stations are owned by two or three monsters like Clear Station or Infinity Broadcasting so all playlists are the same and never change. I seems that all Led Zeppelin ever created was 'Stairway to Heaven', 'Kashmir' and 'I can't quit you baby'. Not counting 20 minutes of commercial per hour. I Seattle area I can only get one classical music station and it sounds awful. On XM there are at least three very decent channels. I own three XM receivers. All three cost me less than I am paying for cable TV out of which I onle want two or three channels, but can only get them in overpriced 'packages' fille with junk.
I love Clear Channel and Infinity... Kbig ... The Coast 103.5. I sign along when they say.... "and it's 68 Degress along... the Coast!" Here in SoCal, (The best place ever) we have pretty good FM channels. I know we have 4 Classical stations that can be picked up in all of LA and OC. We have 6 or 7 rock channels.. And we even have some weird Techno station that broadcast in German. I don’t know why but its one of my local station pre-sets and every time I go into LA it turns into this German station.
Clear Channel & Infinity Broadcasting are killing the music business. I have XM so I don't have to support them.
I hope you're aware that Clear Channel has quite a stake in XM then, http://www.xmradio.com/newsroom/screen/pre...1999_06_08.html I don't have any idea if they hold sway over the programming or not, so I'm not trying to make that into something it may not be; but still, best to know.
Yikes, I didn't know that! Thanks for the link. Sounds like they are more in it for marketing/advertising than for music control - I hope. "We are always exploring ways of complementing our existing assets to produce value for our shareholders. Examples of this effort include our ongoing internet strategy, our investment in USA Digital, and now our investment in XM Radio. Every day we help thousands of local businesses across the nation market their products and services through our FM and AM radio stations, as well as our television stations and outdoor displays. We will soon have the further ability to serve entirely new categories of listeners and advertisers through this new, truly national distribution platform," said Lowry Mays, Chairman and CEO of Clear Channel.
XM Direct and Coastal XM is definitely worth it. I have a long commute and am bored to tears. Having a selection of rock, classical, hip hop, comedy, news, live events, and being able to instantly see what is playing right now is a life saver. I just bought an XM Direct (actually a TimeTrax unit). I am planning to wire it through Coastal Dave's video interface to the touchscreen. (Hopefully. ) Why? By pluggin the XM Direct into a computer and a touchscreen, I can have the computer tell me when one of my favorite artists is on and quickly jump to what I want to hear, as well as see a list of what is playing across all channells. I can even record shows that occur later, and listen to them on my next commute. Think about it. YOu know you want it.
Is the $299 XM radio from: http://www.coastaletech.com/xm_radio_in_prius.htm the same as this one for $499: https://secure.priusxm.com/order.html thanks! Chris
"I hope you're aware that Clear Channel has quite a stake in XM then" Actually, ClearChannel sold off most of the XM holdings and are now a very minor investor. You can do a search at http://www.xmfan.com for more info on this.
The one we offer is the same as coastal. I do not have instructions for the Prius with my kit though which coastal and priusxm do. If the one on priusxm is the toyota kit, then i would say they were not privi to the fact that toyota dropped the price on the kit or they are privi and are just wanting to get max dollar for them. Hope that helps.
This is incorrect. The PriusXM is now $295 -- It's a steal at that price? I want it someday <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chris_b_01\";p=\"49067)</div>
Just a quick plug for Eddie at Metro Toyota (toyotapartsnow). I called him late last Tuesday to order an XM kit. I had been waiting to see if the new lower cost XM would be available for the Prius, but knowing I was about to spend another twenty hours in the car driving to and from my in-laws for Thanksgiving pushed me over the edge. Eddie shipped the kit to me overnight and I installed it Wednesday evening, with a lot of help from the pictures and stories here on PriusChat (thanks Nate!). Eddie's kit doesn't come with instructions, so you either need to figure it out for yourself (no too hard) or get install instructions from Coastal or PriusXM. Anyway, all I can say is XM makes a huge difference on a long drive, especially when a good part of that drive is in the middle of nowhere. Well worth the money and the three hours to install. Thanks for the great service Eddie! Geoff
Geoff - Thanks for the kind words. I am happy the install went well. When I finally broke down and got XM I had to question myself as to why I waited so long? Thanks again.
I have to agree - Eddie is great. The Solara XM kit, which is used in the Prius, comes with tuner, cable, antenna, and brackets for the Solara (which you discard). It looks like PriusXM matched Eddie's price of $265 and tacked on $35 for the installation DVD and extras. It really is a wash which one you go with; the tuner, cable, and antenna are the same. You have to buy the DVD from PriusXM anyway for $29.00 if you get the tuner from Eddie. I can not even contemplate tearing apart the entire Prius dash without that DVD... You start at the far left air conditioning vent and work across to the far right one. PriusXM throws in a couple of extras like velcro mounting tape for the tuner and a wire tie standoff. Getting these locally cost me under $5.00. But you have to go get them. The radio is fabulous, and the installation is not bad. Although significantly harder than it looks in the DVD. I have no unbroken finger nails... And there are a couple of Gotchas. Eddie called me to confirm order, and that he has no installation instructions. I give him A+ for service. I also owe him a writeup on the installation process... Robert
