XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
#1
05-15-2006, 01:26 PM
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Northern Virginia (gotta LOVE the traffic)
Posts: 30
XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
I know this is pretty long, but I think you'll find it intersting and perhaps scary.
The following story is meant as a heads up to anyone who may have already been victimized and a word of warning to those that may be considering the dealer installed XM option as an add on to your factory NAV equipped Civic.
On 1 May, I purchased a 2006 Civic Hybrid w/NAV at a Virginia Honda dealership (that’s as specific as I’m going to get). I went in intending to pay cash and purchase the 8Yr/100K/$0 HondaCare extended warranty. I also traded in a pretty beat up 93 Pontiac Grand Am, which they only offered me $100 for. I wasn’t going to go for the offer, but the sales manager came over and said “I’ll throw in the XM install for free”. Well, knowing how much they usually charged for that (I’ve heard as high as $900), his offer sealed the deal for me and we went ahead and signed the papers. I dropped off the cashier’s check the next day and drove home, very pleased with the new car.
I got a call a few days later telling me that the parts were in and to bring the car in for the install. I dropped it off last Sunday night with 139 miles on the odometer, expecting to pick it up late the next afternoon. I got a call from the service department at around 2PM the next day and they said that they had accidentally broken a wiring harness during the install and the car wouldn't be ready until the following afternoon. I figured, no big deal, it’s a free install anyway and went back to whatever I was doing.
I called before leaving for the dealership the next day to make sure the car would in fact be ready and they said it would be ready at 2PM. When I got there, the car was in the wash bay getting the final touches. When they drove it up, I climbed in and began trying to make sure that the XM was in fact working. As soon as I switched to XM mode it was broadcasting the XM preview channel and from having 2 other XMs prior to that, I knew that the rest of the activation was a piece of cake.
So, I started home. I hadn’t driven more than a mile when I looked at the odometer and it now read 176 miles! I started to wonder how the 37 extra miles got on the car, but then I began to question whether I was remembering the original drop off mileage correctly. I decided to let it go and just chalk it up to my memory not being as good as it used to be.
I got home and began trying to get to the XM channel that displays the “Radio ID”, but couldn’t get anything to display other than the “Disc #” and “Track#”, as if it was still in CD mode. It was weird. The Disc# field represented the hundreds numeric position of the XM channel and the Track# field showed the remainder of the channel number. For example…XM channel number 175 showed as Disc# 1 and Track# 75.
Without the radio code, I was dead in the water, so I called the dealer to see if they had the box for the receiver around or had written the radio code down anywhere. They told me they didn’t think so, but they’d check and get back to me. Ten minutes later the sales manager called and asked what I needed. I explained it to him and he said “I’ll have the guy that installed it give you a call”. Now, I figured the call would be from one of his service guys, but imagine my surprise when the caller ID showed up as H******’s Auto Audio! I looked them up on the net and found that they were located about 20 miles from my Honda dealer. I guess that explained the extra miles that were put on my car WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT. Anyway, the guy was helpful and gave me the radio ID, make and model and assured me that once the radio was activated I would see more of the XM functionality that I was used to (Category, song title, artist, etc.).
Once the radio was activated, I saw no added functionality AT ALL! No way to change channels, except by pressing the channel up or down button repeatedly. No way to save preset channels. If you wanted to go from channel 5 to 175, you had to push the button 170 times! This version of XM was totally non-functional and unacceptable to me and I immediately called the audio shop and told them as much. They now said that was the way it would look and that they had done at least 20 of these installs for that dealer and had never had a complaint. I told them that that was probably because I was the first one that actually knew what XM was supposed to do. I also pointed out to them that I had looked the XM receiver that they had installed up on the net and found that it was in fact supposed to display all the usual XM features. Their answer to that was yes, that tuner would display those items, but not when married up with the Honda factory head unit. I told them I was not going to accept the system as is and the owner said, “give me a half hour and call me back”.
Okay, now I’m getting both curious and p#ssed off! So while I was waiting, I made a few calls and found that the proper Honda authorized XM kit runs about $369 (as opposed to the $100 unit I’d received) and is readily available at most dealers.
After the half hour was up, I called the audio shop and the owner said he’d hook me up for another $350! I told him that I knew that was the price of what I was supposed to have gotten for free and asked if he was joking. He assured me he wasn’t. Thinking the audio shop might be screwing both the dealer and me, I asked if I needed to call the Honda sales manager, thinking that if the audio shop was cheating he’d be hesitant to have me do that. He simply said, “I’m doing what I was paid to do, you do what you think you need to do”.
My next call was to the Honda sales manager, who had apparently already gotten a heads up call from the audio shop. I told him what I knew about the specs, performance and price differences of what they’d installed versus what I had expected to be installed. He said that what I had was what he had promised and that he never would have offered me the ACTUAL Honda recommended XM receiver installed for free. In his eyes, I was receiving an XM signal, so I should be happy. I explained that there were no caveats when we made the deal and that the only reason I ever accepted his $100 offer for the trade in was because he threw in the free XM. It got a little silly then as he insisted that he couldn’t do anything about it and even offered to take the car back and give me my money back, no questions asked! I asked him…are you really willing to give up an approx $26K deal over a $350 item? He said he was, so I asked to talk to his boss. He said, “I am the boss”. I pointed out that I was looking at the picture of the dealer’s GM on their web site and it wasn’t him! He now said, “well, he’ll back me up too”. I asked him if he thought that Honda Corporate would back both of them up when they found that my car had been taken off their premises, without my permission to have a non-Honda authorized XM receiver installed? Here’s where it got real fun, because I could hear him telling everyone to get away from his desk and there was now a little fear in his voice. He asked me what he needed to do to satisfy me. I told him that all I wanted was what I had been promised. He said “I’ll call you back in 10 minutes” and quickly hung up.
When he called back, he told me to work with the manager at the audio shop and he would install the right tuner, at the dealer’s expense. I got the work done 2 days later and am now VERY happy!
My main reason for posting this is to make everyone aware of the fact that there are always people trying to cheat you. Always make sure you get what you pay for, EVEN IF you’re getting it for free!
My biggest fear is that in addition to some others like me, who got a lame excuse for XM for “free”, there are probably at least a few who paid the full price and got the lame system and don’t even know it!
BEWARE!
The following story is meant as a heads up to anyone who may have already been victimized and a word of warning to those that may be considering the dealer installed XM option as an add on to your factory NAV equipped Civic.
On 1 May, I purchased a 2006 Civic Hybrid w/NAV at a Virginia Honda dealership (that’s as specific as I’m going to get). I went in intending to pay cash and purchase the 8Yr/100K/$0 HondaCare extended warranty. I also traded in a pretty beat up 93 Pontiac Grand Am, which they only offered me $100 for. I wasn’t going to go for the offer, but the sales manager came over and said “I’ll throw in the XM install for free”. Well, knowing how much they usually charged for that (I’ve heard as high as $900), his offer sealed the deal for me and we went ahead and signed the papers. I dropped off the cashier’s check the next day and drove home, very pleased with the new car.
I got a call a few days later telling me that the parts were in and to bring the car in for the install. I dropped it off last Sunday night with 139 miles on the odometer, expecting to pick it up late the next afternoon. I got a call from the service department at around 2PM the next day and they said that they had accidentally broken a wiring harness during the install and the car wouldn't be ready until the following afternoon. I figured, no big deal, it’s a free install anyway and went back to whatever I was doing.
I called before leaving for the dealership the next day to make sure the car would in fact be ready and they said it would be ready at 2PM. When I got there, the car was in the wash bay getting the final touches. When they drove it up, I climbed in and began trying to make sure that the XM was in fact working. As soon as I switched to XM mode it was broadcasting the XM preview channel and from having 2 other XMs prior to that, I knew that the rest of the activation was a piece of cake.
So, I started home. I hadn’t driven more than a mile when I looked at the odometer and it now read 176 miles! I started to wonder how the 37 extra miles got on the car, but then I began to question whether I was remembering the original drop off mileage correctly. I decided to let it go and just chalk it up to my memory not being as good as it used to be.
I got home and began trying to get to the XM channel that displays the “Radio ID”, but couldn’t get anything to display other than the “Disc #” and “Track#”, as if it was still in CD mode. It was weird. The Disc# field represented the hundreds numeric position of the XM channel and the Track# field showed the remainder of the channel number. For example…XM channel number 175 showed as Disc# 1 and Track# 75.
Without the radio code, I was dead in the water, so I called the dealer to see if they had the box for the receiver around or had written the radio code down anywhere. They told me they didn’t think so, but they’d check and get back to me. Ten minutes later the sales manager called and asked what I needed. I explained it to him and he said “I’ll have the guy that installed it give you a call”. Now, I figured the call would be from one of his service guys, but imagine my surprise when the caller ID showed up as H******’s Auto Audio! I looked them up on the net and found that they were located about 20 miles from my Honda dealer. I guess that explained the extra miles that were put on my car WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT. Anyway, the guy was helpful and gave me the radio ID, make and model and assured me that once the radio was activated I would see more of the XM functionality that I was used to (Category, song title, artist, etc.).
Once the radio was activated, I saw no added functionality AT ALL! No way to change channels, except by pressing the channel up or down button repeatedly. No way to save preset channels. If you wanted to go from channel 5 to 175, you had to push the button 170 times! This version of XM was totally non-functional and unacceptable to me and I immediately called the audio shop and told them as much. They now said that was the way it would look and that they had done at least 20 of these installs for that dealer and had never had a complaint. I told them that that was probably because I was the first one that actually knew what XM was supposed to do. I also pointed out to them that I had looked the XM receiver that they had installed up on the net and found that it was in fact supposed to display all the usual XM features. Their answer to that was yes, that tuner would display those items, but not when married up with the Honda factory head unit. I told them I was not going to accept the system as is and the owner said, “give me a half hour and call me back”.
Okay, now I’m getting both curious and p#ssed off! So while I was waiting, I made a few calls and found that the proper Honda authorized XM kit runs about $369 (as opposed to the $100 unit I’d received) and is readily available at most dealers.
After the half hour was up, I called the audio shop and the owner said he’d hook me up for another $350! I told him that I knew that was the price of what I was supposed to have gotten for free and asked if he was joking. He assured me he wasn’t. Thinking the audio shop might be screwing both the dealer and me, I asked if I needed to call the Honda sales manager, thinking that if the audio shop was cheating he’d be hesitant to have me do that. He simply said, “I’m doing what I was paid to do, you do what you think you need to do”.
My next call was to the Honda sales manager, who had apparently already gotten a heads up call from the audio shop. I told him what I knew about the specs, performance and price differences of what they’d installed versus what I had expected to be installed. He said that what I had was what he had promised and that he never would have offered me the ACTUAL Honda recommended XM receiver installed for free. In his eyes, I was receiving an XM signal, so I should be happy. I explained that there were no caveats when we made the deal and that the only reason I ever accepted his $100 offer for the trade in was because he threw in the free XM. It got a little silly then as he insisted that he couldn’t do anything about it and even offered to take the car back and give me my money back, no questions asked! I asked him…are you really willing to give up an approx $26K deal over a $350 item? He said he was, so I asked to talk to his boss. He said, “I am the boss”. I pointed out that I was looking at the picture of the dealer’s GM on their web site and it wasn’t him! He now said, “well, he’ll back me up too”. I asked him if he thought that Honda Corporate would back both of them up when they found that my car had been taken off their premises, without my permission to have a non-Honda authorized XM receiver installed? Here’s where it got real fun, because I could hear him telling everyone to get away from his desk and there was now a little fear in his voice. He asked me what he needed to do to satisfy me. I told him that all I wanted was what I had been promised. He said “I’ll call you back in 10 minutes” and quickly hung up.
When he called back, he told me to work with the manager at the audio shop and he would install the right tuner, at the dealer’s expense. I got the work done 2 days later and am now VERY happy!
My main reason for posting this is to make everyone aware of the fact that there are always people trying to cheat you. Always make sure you get what you pay for, EVEN IF you’re getting it for free!
My biggest fear is that in addition to some others like me, who got a lame excuse for XM for “free”, there are probably at least a few who paid the full price and got the lame system and don’t even know it!
BEWARE!
Last edited by DarkHorse2160; 09-24-2006 at 10:10 AM.
#2
05-15-2006, 04:20 PM
Re: XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
Anytime you have any accessory installed in a vehicle, especially with an extended warranty, always have the details written up in your main vehicle contract or else in a secondary contract (same document for the car); otherwise, Caveat Emptor (Lat. for Let the Buyer Beware).
If the dealer does not register the XM Radio in your contract (with Honda Finance) you may not be covered by any warranty.
If the dealer does not register the XM Radio in your contract (with Honda Finance) you may not be covered by any warranty.
#3
05-15-2006, 04:58 PM
Re: XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
Shady dealers really **** me off, but it's a good thing you were well-informed and knew how to deal with them. Still, sounds like a lot of work and aggravation you had to go through... but at least the third-party audio shop was honest, they didn't seem to do anything wrong.
#4
05-15-2006, 06:06 PM
Re: XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
Originally Posted by DarkHorse2160
On 1 May, I purchased a 2006 Civic Hybrid w/NAV at a Virginia Honda dealership (that’s as specific as I’m going to get).
#5
05-15-2006, 06:39 PM
Re: XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
Its amazing how the mention of Honda Corporate resolved things very quickly. The actual physical installation of the XM unit is a bit frightening to look at and I wouldnt ever chance anyone taking apart my dash like that unless truely necessary.
I use the Delphi Sky Fi without any difficulty via the MP3/auxillary jack. The kit was like 40 dollars and I have had the receiver for many years now.
I use the Delphi Sky Fi without any difficulty via the MP3/auxillary jack. The kit was like 40 dollars and I have had the receiver for many years now.
#7
05-15-2006, 06:58 PM
Re: XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
Test: https://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/.../signature.png
Well there's nothing wrong with the anchor tag parsing, so you must have misused the url tags somehow. In any case, you should put it in [ img ] tags.
Well there's nothing wrong with the anchor tag parsing, so you must have misused the url tags somehow. In any case, you should put it in [ img ] tags.
#8
05-15-2006, 06:59 PM
Re: XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
Thanks for the heads up. When we bought our Hybrid we asked about XM radio and the salesman said that the car came with it and it only had to be activated. When I got home I tried to activate XM and found out that the head unit is XM ready but requires a 900.00 tuner install from the dealer. My wife was pissed because we could have negotiated a deal to include the XM radio or atleast gotten it discounted.
Last edited by traderfjp; 05-16-2006 at 03:45 AM.
#9
05-15-2006, 09:14 PM
Re: XM Radio Scam by Dealers???
Alot of people are pissed off about the so-called "XM Ready" radio in the 2006 Civics. Lots of people were complaining about it way back in September when the '06 Civics started arriving.
#10
05-15-2006, 09:18 PM
Roady-Skifi work great-cheap-
I have a roady it works great. I have it set up for use in the house and in the cars. It was cheap-$50-works great.
I'm switching over to the Skifi I bought a while back when I get around to calling XM to find out how to change over without being double charged.
I like being able to switch it from vehicle to vehicle to home. Of course, being $50 doesn't hurt either. Charlie
I'm switching over to the Skifi I bought a while back when I get around to calling XM to find out how to change over without being double charged.
I like being able to switch it from vehicle to vehicle to home. Of course, being $50 doesn't hurt either. Charlie
