For those who expect to keep their Prius for many years XM offers a lifetime plan for approx. $465.00 + taxes. My Virginia plan was a total of $496.00. Price is high but break even point is somewhere between three and four years. The plan is transferable only in cases of car theft,totaled accident or radio failure. I plan to keep car for at least five years so it made sense for me. Something to consider.
A good deal, financially, if you listen to it. Their limited offerings in the free initial subscription is a pretty bad advert for the whole service. Their web site lists lots of stations, but if you're into the whole of NPR talk, and classical music, it's thin. Still thinking it over with a new fact, thanks to rshimer.
How do you know XM will be around in 4-5 years? What if they change to programming that you don't like? This doesn't sound like a great deal to me.
I guess I am a risk taker at heart. XM will be around in some form for years. My gamble is that whoever is operating the company will honor old contracts. After three years I will consider whatever happens as a no gain or no loss.
My free subscription ran out in Oct and I let it drop. I got a mailer this week and a follow up call for a $4.99/mo offer for 6 months. I'm guessing if you can live without it a couple of months a year you can pick it up pretty cheap by dropping it and taking new offers.
Yea break-even will be more like 6 years considering other pricing options you could get. Plus be realistic, they very well might not be around that long.
The main reason I will not accept any contract with XM is that I cannot receive a decent signal to start with, it keeps breaking-up every 5 or 10 minutes! The 3 months free service was an eye opener! I really wish my Prius had decent satellite reception to give it a fair try! For the prepaid contracts, I had a very bad experience about 15 years ago. I had prepaid a 3 year contract for a pager for my teenager daughter; after 6 months the company folded. The company which took over contacted me asking me to pay the monthly fee. They said that what I prepaid was to the other company, not to them, and they owed me nothing. To show good will they offered me one month free, that's it! Now, I never prepay long term contracts!
XM is like cell phone companies. Anyone paying full price is a fool. What I do is call them up, and say I want to cancel. They will connect you to their retentions department where you can "negotiate" a fair deal and learn how much they are really willing to sell the service for. I've had Sprint for over 10 years for cell phone service. Through heavy negotiating at every contract renewal, I now pay less than $12/mo for service that others are paying over $70/mo for. lol
+1 ... paying full boat is for gentiles i love the satellite radio service can it be better? yes will it get cheaper ... hope so will it be around in six or seven years ... yeah
I guess you roll the dice and take your chances. Wall Street has pegged Sirius/XM as a penny stock. That, and the fact that their customer service is beneath contempt, speaks volumes to me.
I wrote this on another forum: I did a lifetime subscription to Sirius (DISCLAIMER: they still run as separate companies). When it came time to change cars they would not let me transfer it. I told them that this was never explained to me at the time of the subscription and pressed them on it. They relunctantly allowed me to transfer it to another car with a $70 "transfer fee". The net result is not much savings over a regular yearly plan. The company even after the merger is in financial terouble; their stock sells for less than $1/ share and who knows if they'll be taken over or survive. My advise: don't buy the lifetime subscription. __________________
yeah, the customer service is a abysmal when i had an issue, i called the dealership and they intervened
