Danny Boy

In Canada SXM is free for the first three months. I used it twice so far in the seven weeks of ownership. The first time I setup the channels and the second time I tried it out while I was waiting for my wife in the parking lot.

In Toronto and southern Ontario there are loads of AM and FM channels I don’t believe I can justify spending $15-$20/month on the SXM. I have loaded 50+ CDs (folk songs/classical) onto the HDD in case I get bored listening to the radio.

The 90 days trail period is going to expire in six weeks and I am going to let it go like I did in my previous vehicles.

I would be interested to hear what you think of the SXM service.

markAZ

I think it's way overpriced. OTOH, it depends on where you spend your time in the car. Out in the boonies there often isn't much to choose from so XM might be worthwhile.

If you let it expire, they'll send you lots of offers for something like five months for $20 (at least they do in the US). If you go with one of those and then call them before it expires and tell them you want to cancel because it's too expensive to renew they'll offer you lots of deals, usually about half the published rate. Just be sure to do it before it expires or they'll auto-renew at the current published price. At least that's the way it has worked for me.

We don't have an XM sub for our RDX but we have a portable unit that we can move between cars or use in our RV when we go into the boonies or use at home. I've always been able to get decent deals by doing the above. As alway, tho, YMMV.

emsrph

I subscribe since I enjoy the various channels but only because I get the discounted offers as markAZ mentioned above.

Otherwise I'd make my own playlist and use the USB.

Eric

mrgold35

I live in the southwest and I sometimes don't have cell reception in certain areas. It usually takes 4-8 hours to get anywhere before cell reception is at-least 3G levels. I get a lot of use from XM and been a subscriber since 2006 on all three vehicles. I also put around 20,000 miles per year and travel coast-to-coast. Nice to have something familiar on the radio instead of hunting for something locally when you not in the mood for HDD/USB/iPhone. I still have my iPhone, USB stick, and HDD as back-up. Talk radio really helps keep me awake, engaged and alert when everyone else is snoozing on a +3hr stretch of road compared to music.

speed817

who the heck pays full price??? i just call every time my renewal comes up and threaten to cancel to get a deal....

XM/Sirius Radio Subscription 50% off for a year.

Danny Boy

The more I research the more I come across subscriptions at a discount.

You are correct, very few people would pay full price.

dbarnhart

I'm about half way through the trial period. There just isn't anything on SXM that I want to listen to. If the service were $5month then I'd probably keep it.

thephantom

I end up paying about $96 for the year and a discount on traffic, so I end up renewing it, even though I keep saying I won't renew again. However, I am disappointed in the hardware in the RDX as it won't receive much traffic info. My MB E350's hardware gives me 3 times more traffic info/coverage than the RDX.

warrenmr

Sounds quality is too poor, traffic info not detailed or accurate enough to justify spending anything.

lowther420

I bought my A-spec in june of 2015 and I still have the service free , then again I have acura link for 3 years for free as well.

ceb

I was a subscriber since 2002 until 2011 when they started playing games with my credit card. After I realized just how bad the company is (try to cancel - I mean - really cancel) and how lousy the quality was, I looked for other options.

Yes, the coast to coast reception while listening to the same stations was great - in concept, but a stack of CDs, books on CD or (what I mostly listened to on XM) old radio that was available in the Google Play store for nothing is far better and cheaper.

Like others have mentioned, the traffic is terrible (why does Honda use the free ClearChannel traffic that is far better and Acura uses the XM traffic?), the sound quality is so-so and the service is just bad beyond belief.

They would have to pay me to get XM again

mrgold35

I think the traffic is dependent on local reporting on incidents and XM pulls the data from there. It can be instant to way behind depending on what part of country I'm traveling. Traffic is about 10-20 minutes behind sometimes in my city; but, I have limited ways to get to/from work and it is faster to crawl in traffic than to find an alternate route everyone else is taking at the same time.

The weather seems to be pretty accurate and nice to have if you have unpredictable storms when traveling in the middle of no man's land with little to no cell coverage. Snow, ice storms, heavy rains, and extreme winds can happen year round since I travel from sea level in LA to up to 11,000 feet in CO. I have two trips planned to Colorado Springs, CO and Flagstaff, AZ, a week apart in February and I will use traffic and weather to double-check the roads when traveling (H.S. indoor track season). I don't get much use from traffic/weather locally and this was the reason I dropped traffic from my now commuter vehicle RDX when I purchased my long haul traveling MDX.

XM is a nice to have; but, certainly not needed (especially if you have access to 4G 24/7).

Danny Boy

I thought the Acrualink is free in Canada for one year only. In the US it is for three years. Have I missed something?

RDX-Rick

I thought that the traffic information on the navigation screen was obtained via the Acuralink system. I'm confused by all the references to Sirius and traffic info. I let my free Sirius subscription expire and I still get traffic displayed on my 2016 RDX Nav system.

Did earlier models use Sirius for traffic info?

Edit: I did not see any weather data when my free Sirius was functioning. How do you access that information?

mrgold35

My mistake, I expanded the conversation to include traffic and weather on top of XM service. The older Acura's used XM x-mitted traffic/weather you could add on-top of your subscription; which, I like because of spotty cell coverage in the southwest.

RDX-Rick

Thanks mrgold35 for the clarification.

With regards to the cost of Sirius, there is no friggin way that I would pay the advertised price of $15.99 a month.

I would get a lot more content from television services like Netflix, Crave and Shomi at a cost of $7.99 to $8.99. Based on these TV services I would only ever pay $5.00 for Sirius.

Joe Las Vegas

Let it expire, wait for the letter in the mail to offer it to you for $25 for 6 months, renew it then, and a day or two before the 6 month deal ends, call to cancel and tell them it's too expensive, and they'll offer you the same $25/6 months deal again. I've been doing this for 3 years on my other car.
In the end it adds up to $50 a year plus tax, don't know about Canada and if they'll offer it to you guys, but you can wait and see if you get an offer in the mail, usually within 2 weeks after the free trial expires.
I only use SXM, tired of FM and their damn commercials all the time, always talking for nothing.

JACN

I barely listen to it. The selection is pretty poor. Even the FM stations in Toronto play better stuff.

And I now have 37 ripped albums on the HD and a 16GB USB key plugged in with tons of MP3 files. So I got more media than I need anyway.

Plus I can stream Bluetooth to the car. So podcasts and streaming audio services make up for radio anyway.

In my case I really don't see any reason to pay for radio at all. Even if I'm out of radio range, I have plenty of other choices... for free.

Joe Las Vegas

I understand, I have stuff on My I-pod, but it's always the same so it gets old, FM here sucks (in the USA in general IMO), streaming thru my phone is unreliable thanks to Sprint and their spotty signal strength and reliability, always breaks up, so in my case I like SXM, just turn on the car and it's there, plus for $50/year it's ok, now if I was stuck at $15/month, I would forget about SXM, that's for sure.

5 Acuras

iTrader: (1)

Never give them a credit card number. Makes it very easy to cancel.

ceb

Not really. They've been known to continue service then send a collection agency after you.

Be sure to read the comments

and there there is this and this. Quite frankly, anyone who gives money to siriusxm is just begging for trouble.

dirleton

Never took advantage of the "free" trial period in the first place. Apparently a good call.

ceb

The trial period is set up by the dealer and expires automatically. Not even SiriusXM would be that stupid to auto-renew without ANY payment info.

They operate by getting your payment info (credit card, check) then auto-renewing. If the credit card expired, then they'll just blame it on you and send the collection agency after you.

They are an evil company selling a mediocre product.

markAZ

I've started and cancelled several time with no problem except them trying to get me to stay when I call to cancel.

ceb

It also depends on which call center you speak to.


The last time I renewed (for about $80 a year) I was assured several times by the call center in the Philippines that this price included traffic and weather. Of course it didn't and I finally escalated it to a US call center and told them to pull the call logs. They said they'd call back and actually did.


While they said there were no call logs, they readily agreed to give me the traffic and weather. In that call I told them that I would be paying with a one time credit card and would not be using that card for any renewals. I told them to remove all forms of payment after that charge and that I too was recording this call for quality assurance.


I cancelled shortly before the year was up and got notification that they tried to charge my (now defunct) ShopSafe number. I called SXM, got the US call center again and they said that the conversation never took place. After asking if I should play the recording for them or for the FCC, they meekly agreed to cancel my account and were magnanimous about waiving any charges.


Any mailings from them go straight to the shredder.

visiter555

Been using XM since 2004 and you can always get a large discount from their "MSRP" on ALL radios.

Midnight Mystery

Sorry to bump a thread, but I have a question...

Is there a way to only get certain channels for a discounted premium, I only really use 34 and 37, so I don't want to spend $200 a year for all 300 channels... I'm sure I could look around, but you all have been through subscribing before...

ceb

Nope. If you really want the hassle of dealing with Sirius, then get a discounted subscription for ~$100. Spend the extra $2 to get a mailed bill so you won't get caught in the auto-renewal loop that they are (in)famous for.

Midnight Mystery

Good to know...

visiter555

My last renewal was Jan 2016, and the full year for "Select" was $82.50...where do you get $200 from? Anyone can negotiate down to ~$100 per radio

ceb

The lowest in the US for a full year is about $85. When you add "tax, tags and processing fees" (), then it comes out to a few dollars under a hundred.

Joe Las Vegas

You have to go online and compare the packages and the channels that come with them, then decide what package you want.

jcross1231

It appears SXM doesn't offer weather for the 2016 RDX, much to my chagrin. No reason given. It's an XM decision, not Acura's.