How long should the free satellite radio last?

Hello forum, any idea how long the free sat radio trial should last? I picked up my new car in June 2012, and the sat radio was already working on day 1; I never had to activate, and it is still working. Not complaining! I know someday it will simply stop working, just trying to prepare for the impending loss

I purchased my car in June too and mine expired after the 4 or 6 month "free trial" was over (can't recall duration). I didn't do anything to activate it and it stopped working on it's own. My bad luck I guess

I would think no more than a year free.

I have/had Satt radio in the car. It was undoubtedly the worst option I equipped the car with. Satt radio has commercials. Satt radio claims to give you a certain number of channels... but you'll notice that the same sporting events such as football, baseball, basketball, etc play on multiple channels at the same time effectively limiting the total number of stations you actually get. Call and ask them about it... why? Then all you will hear is them stuttering. Want traffic and weather... think you'll get a dedicated channel for that... nope San Francisco shares the same channel as Washington State.. what? You mean when I get in my car and want to get a quick update so I can decide the best route to work... I have to hear about snow on a freeway in another friggin' state. That was the final straw for me. Sirrus_XM can kiss my a$$. A complete joke.

I had it for 2 yrs. 6 months came with the car. I paid $77 per year which is less than $7 per month. Don't be fooled by these people. Play hardball. That is if you some how can live without it. Satt radio is like cable or satt TV. Over priced and a complete waste of money. HD TV is free. Oh, they will try and tell you that the cost for them to deliver programming is ever increasing.... but its not. Its not like they are launching new sattelites or something. Like I said... don't fall into the trap. Their retention department is more than happy to cave in and give you what you want. You just have to be willing to stand up for it and jump through the hoops of their phone tree. As you can see I'm not a fan. Been there done that. Waste of time and money IMO.

yea I hear ya. My buddy has had Sirius and it was really good until the XM merger came about and then it slowly went downhill. Was going to dish out the $$$ to put it in my 05 but it's not really worth it anymore. Plus they keep jacking up the prices.

The free trial is meant to last only 3 months - You may simply have slipped through the cracks. Enjoy the free meal while it lasts.

As for my opinions on Sirius since the last comments here drifted from the original topic - I'm in that same boat. It is truly a waste of money and the audio quality when you have an upgraded audio system in the car - tragic. The compression they use is awful and makes it all sound like it's being played through a long tin can. If it was free... I still wouldn't be able to listen to it but to pay for it - which I did for a 1 year subscription - worst idea ever. I am looking at a new head unit in the future which incorporates HD radio and we'll see about that but in all honesty I just listen to my own things 100% of the time anyway.

Originally Posted by sigmafour

The free trial is meant to last only 3 months - You may simply have slipped through the cracks. Enjoy the free meal while it lasts.

As for my opinions on Sirius since the last comments here drifted from the original topic - I'm in that same boat. It is truly a waste of money and the audio quality when you have an upgraded audio system in the car - tragic. The compression they use is awful and makes it all sound like it's being played through a long tin can. If it was free... I still wouldn't be able to listen to it but to pay for it - which I did for a 1 year subscription - worst idea ever. I am looking at a new head unit in the future which incorporates HD radio and we'll see about that but in all honesty I just listen to my own things 100% of the time anyway.

You said it all. My car runs off a iTunes Library 99% of the time. Your point in regards to compression and sound quality is spot on BTW.

Now more how to defeat XM expert advice....
Never pay for the service monthly, alway negoitiate 1 yr or more at a time for a fixed price. Pay in full once. Do not put your CC on file with them or give your consent to automatically renew. This will keep you locked in at an agreed price and won't allow them to re up your subscription at a higher price at the end of your subscription term.

I'll leave everyone with this. Just prior to my XM departure, I received a letter in the mail from them telling me that there was going to be yet another price increase due to the royalties artist were charging them to deliver content. They said sorry but we will have to pass this increase along to our customers...

Content delivery. OK.. you guys are in the radio business right? I pay and you play music. Wait... do I have control of the content?? Like I can stop/start it when I want replay or listen to a song over and over.... but the thing is you can't. You get out of the car and you miss content... so what is it you're asking me to pay for here??? I swear all I heard was dead silence on the other end of the phone. I never saw the rate increase for the remaining 6 months I was a subscriber. I'm sure they were happy to see me go... OK I'm done.

I just stream Pandora in my car. No commercials, modest control over content, easy. Get in the car, it automatically pairs and starts playing at the push of a button.

I understand the free Pandora is still quite a bit compressed, pay and you get a larger bitrate... but then your data plan may suffer. I haven't got this far yet with using iPhone's but compression shows up very noticeably on the system in the car, I do listen to MP3's but they have nice big fat bitrates but when I play a CD I hear a huge difference - solution, don't play CD's and shortly thereafter I get used to the MP3 again but I could not ever get past the quality of some of these other services and worry I will hear that with Pandora too. My next head unit will likely have all that Bluetooth nonsense as well, so it will happen.

I pay the marginal extra fee for no commercials and high quality. IIRC the high quality bitrate is 192kbps.

I have unlimited data on VZW, and Pandora accounts for a good portion of the data I consume.

Good to know. I have a 4Gb shared plan for data with VZW - will take a bite into that I am sure... no more unlimited plans for new deals and I just moved over from tMo

Originally Posted by sigmafour

Good to know. I have a 4Gb shared plan for data with VZW - will take a bite into that I am sure... no more unlimited plans for new deals and I just moved over from tMo

Yes. Unlimited on AT&T now means 3GB at full LTE, then throttled beyond. I've come close but have never used all of my "unlimited" bandwidth. I have friends however who do.. they watch alot of videos for news and stock updates. After 3GB they have said you can't watch video until your full speed returns. None of us stream Pandora in the car... but I think its a good alternative to Satt none the less.

Originally Posted by shadowsports

Yes. Unlimited on AT&T now means 3GB at full LTE, then throttled beyond. I've come close but have never used all of my "unlimited" bandwidth. I have friends however who do.. they watch alot of videos for news and stock updates. After 3GB they have said you can't watch video until your full speed returns. None of us stream Pandora in the car... but I think its a good alternative to Satt none the less.

I regularly see 17MBPS+ download, even at 5+GB use in a month.

Spotify is what I use, I am also on free trial. The sound quality is blaw but I do enjoy the news stations

Sent from my Nexus 7

I just pay Sirius annually for $77 + the stupid fees. It's nice to have, but I don't need it. One year at renewal, I said the regular rate is ridiculous. They pretty much wouldn't budge on price. Then I said to just cancel and I'll strem Pandora. The agent said are you sure? I said yes, pull the plug..... then all of a sudden they honored the $77 rate.

I was really surprised they waited until I confirmed twice that I was serious. My renewal comes up in April.... I may keep them, I may not. $77/ year is more of a convenience thing for me to have extra content in the car.

The only reason I don't stream Pandora in the car is that I can't easily control the stations w/o looking at my phone.