As many of you have noticed, the XM reception on the HCHII is horrible. The antenna is placed inside the front windshield, instead of the roof as it should be. This causes the signal to fade out much more often than any "correct" installation. I brought this issue up with my dealership shortly after the XM installation.

The service manager told me that this is a known issue, that Honda is investigating. I would suggest those of you who have noticed the poor reception contact your dealership about it, and voice your complaint. Hopefully, the more complaints they hear, the more likely they will be to fix the problem.

 

I recently went through all sorts of major grief with my local Honda dealer regarding very poor XM reception. In the end, they claimed that the reception in their opinion was acceptable and they refused to honor any sort of further consideration for repair. This of course prompted me to not only write a letter directly to Honda comapining about this sort of treatment, it also gave me lots of ammunition when I filled out the new customer questionaire and survey form. In the end, I went to Circuit city, bought a Terk micro XM antenna, popped it on the back trunk lid and have had outstanding reception ever since. That OEM XM antenna is not only mounted improperly, it's a total piece of junk.

Steve

 

Walnut Creek Honda decided last month to replace the factory XM antenna with the antenna from an Accord Hybrid. Between the time they decided to do that, and this Saturday when we were able to schedule an installation, WCH was able to get an 07 Civic hybrid antenna for the installation.

This was done as a customer satisfaction request, no cost to me, and the XM reception has been improved significantly. No more dropping out at the sight of a tree.

The 07 civic hybrid has the XM antenna mounted in the base of the radio antenna above the rear window. Much like the Accord hybrid.

 

Hi Otto,
Would you be able to elaborate more on the wiring? Would you know how they connected the XM antenna to the 07 civic hybrid antenna? I'd like to get more specifics so that I can give the information to a dealer here in Southern California. Thanks.

 

All of the connections are the same. The roof moutned antenna from the 07 civic hybrid replaced the windshield mounted xm antenna and the radio antenna on the roof on my car.

It was a direct replacement. I can scan the invoice if you need part numbers.

 

Would you please scan the invoice for me. Thanks.

 

Otto,
I guess the other question I have is how did they attach the old windshield antenna to the roof antenna? Did they pull the old wire and re-run it and connect it to the roof? How did they get it to the roof? thanks.

 

The new roof mounted antenna comes with the antenna leads for the XM tuner. The windshield mounted XM antenna was abandoned.

Ill get the invoice tonight.

 

Sorry for the delay, I've been a bit busy. Here is the invoice.

 

My dealer advised that the SkyFi/Terk antenna combination I had is better than -- and certainly a better deal than -- adding the factory XM radio to the new car. So I simply reinstalled in the new car ... with antenna just under the inside windshield, as I'd had it in my Accord. No problems.