I am interested in adding Sirius to my satellite-ready radio but my dealer says I must first purchase and have installed a receiver and antenna for about $700. It seems ridiculous that I should have to shell out that kind of money for the "privilege" of spending another $15 per month for the subscription service. Oh, and he also told me my radio can only be upgraded to XM right now since a Sirius receiver won't be available for at least a few months. Does all this seem correct and are there any better solutions? I really want to control the satellite through the factory-installed radio as opposed to adding a portable reciver with all the extra wires, etc.
Thanks for your input.

 

i was about to have sirius installed by my dealer. then the installer let me know there were still having problems. it was going to cost about $500 to have them install it.

eventually, when the bugs are worked out...i will get them to put a factory one in...but for now, i bought the new sportstem and installed it my self. it sits in the compartment under the ac...all the wires are completely hidden..and the sound is really good. you can't control the stations with the steering wheel, but it comes with a remote, so i just use it to change channels. you can preset all your favorite stations and then set your remote to go from station to station...of only the stations you have set as a pre-set.

 

My TCH came with factory/port installed Sirius radio, my dealer didn't charge me anything for it and I got 9 months free service. I'm not sure what the problem with the Sirius is, mine works well and I really can't find anything wrong with it. Since I bought the car back in June with serial number around 3200, I must have the recalled receiver but seriously I don't know why would they have a problem with it.

 

have you had sirius radio before? does the factory camry sirius radio sound as good as the old one?

my dealership told me the issues were crappy sound, but if have you never had sirius before, you wouldn't be able to compare.

also many people are getting drop outs. you may be in an area that has better coverage than others.

 

I just put in an XM reciever myself. The wiring is plug-and-play. Cost for the receiver and install kit was $250 (I believe you can get it from the internet for around $225). But your dealer isn't far off on his quote my dealer told me figure 4 hours for installation labor at $130 per hour. So that's up over $700 just too expensive.

I though installing it myself was rather easy but I've experienced with put in reciever in the past. Let me know if you'd like to look over the Toyota factory instructions and I'll scan it. The install took me 2-1/2 hours. Or you could just buy the reviever and kit and have it installed by car audio dealer.

 

No, I never had Siurius before and to be honest, never wanted it that much either. How does Sirius supposed to sound? Mine sounds pretty much similar to CD and I did check specifically for distortion others talked about, there is none that I can hear. Depending on the weather I do have dropouts sometimes when driving underpass or some dense tree cover but since the signal comes from sattelites and it's very high frequency I would expect that to happen. In general, if I get GPS signal I get Sirius signal. The fix for Sirius radio (shorting 4 pins in the connector) is so low tech that if the dealer knows about it, all they need is some piece of wire. If Toyota needs months to get this resolved, I'm really scared, how long will it take to fix something more serious. Bottom line: it works pretty good, can't beat the price (free) and with 4 CD/Mp3 player and aux input, it becomes a little redundant.

 

I have a post delivery dealer installed XM system, sound is great. My dealer hit me for $500 but that was including labor, which is a pain, especially wiring the antenna (from what I understand, the wiring channels in the car are crowded as heck).

Portable units are cheaper, but you have all the wiring, the magnetic antennas are not so good for the paint over extended periods and they don't talk to the sound system....

 

I had an XM receiver installed by a Toyota dealer (not the one I purchased the car from) for $495. I can control it through my NAV screen and all. I do get some drop out in dense foliage areas. Other than that it works fine.

The reason I went to another dealer was that my selling dealer told me that it would take till September (I took delivery in May) for them to get the receivers. The dealer that installed the unit actually had an XM and a Sirius receiver in stodk. I selecte XM becuase I alread was a subscriber from a previous car.