Hertz - Sirius-ly, Folks!

Can I just say how HAPPY I am with my current rental with Hertz at PNS airport? I'm Gold, rented a midsize 2-door, paid $23 per day, and got an almost-brand new Ford Mustang.
But the big thing is that it has SIRIUS satellite radio! It's a really fun toy, and I've never used one before, but it's amazingly easy and has good reception.
Is Hertz installing these in lots of cars? Or is Sirius doing it, to give people like me an intro to how much fun it is to have this gadget?
Anyway, I will be writing a very positive letter to Customer Relations when I get back.

It is normally an extra charge.

I had it once - nice to get ESPN radio without scanning for it.

i've consitently had bad luck with reception on the sirius cars i've rented--at least 10 times an hour, the signal will drop for 1-10 seconds. the last car i had couldn't hold a signal at all....

>>couldnt hold a signal<<

Sirius (and XM) are satellite services...that means open skies & line of site to the bird. The recievers do buffer several seconds of audio to compensate for this, but if you are surrounded by tall buildings, in a tunnel, parking garage, etc for very long you will get drop outs.

I had to drive from Philly to NY a few months back, and the comedy channel was a life saver!

I rented a car the other week with the Sirius radio and had no problems with reception. The only problem I see is that you have to scan individually up/down to get to a station. At least that is what I did. I liked the no commercial radio. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RobotDoctor:
The only problem I see is that you have to scan individually up/down to get to a station.</font>

Actually there is a little door that opens to reveal a keypad. You can then input the channel you want directly.

Are the Sirius radios mainly in Mustangs? Has anyone seen them in the Taurus?

I had one in a Taurus at LAX in Jan.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Pointfreak!:
Actually there is a little door that opens to reveal a keypad. You can then input the channel you want directly.

</font>

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif Why didn't you tell me this before my rental two months ago? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

It was a Taurus at TPA, by the way. I had the car over New Year's and was able to listen to several bowl games via Sirius. Very nice!

I doubt I would pay *much* for it, though. Maybe $4.99/day, and only if I knew I was going to be driving a lot.

I would be more likely to pay $9.95/month for the service in my own car, but I haven't reached the Gottahaveit threshold yet where I go out and buy a compatible stereo.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by pinniped:
I would be more likely to pay $9.95/month for the service in my own car, but I haven't reached the Gottahaveit threshold yet where I go out and buy a compatible stereo.</font>
You don't necessarily need to buy a "compatible" stereo. You may already have one (or almost have one) if:

1. You have a cassette player in your dash. You can get cassette player adapters for several satellite radios (similar to -- if not same as -- the ones that you can use to play CDs on a portable in cassette-only car stereos).

2. If your present car stereo has an aux input, several satellite radios will work with that (even tho it may not say so in all the feature summaries). And some car stereos that don't have one automatically can have one added as an option.

3. Some satellite radios can turn the satellite station you select into an FM signal (one of them lets you choose between 87.9, 88.1, and 88.5). If you only need to use your satellite radio in areas where one of those frequencies is never an issue, then that would work with most any existing car stereo.

A "compatible" car stereo is only needed if you want to control the satellite radio from the main car stereo head unit. But the downside of that is (a) you have to buy a new car stereo head unit to do that, and (b)you have to predecide whether you want XM or Sirius for the life of that head unit, because so far there are no head units that work with either XM or Sirius AFAIK. While with any of the 3 solutions listed above, you can use either kind of satellite radio (as well as any portable audio equipment with a "headphone" out or "line" out in the case of solutions #1 or #2).

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Pointfreak!:
Actually there is a little door that opens to reveal a keypad. You can then input the channel you want directly.

</font>

Doh http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/redface.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Pointfreak!:
Actually there is a little door that opens to reveal a keypad. You can then input the channel you want directly.

</font>

I agree on how fun it is - loved listening to the UN debates on Iraq (Feb 2003) on BBC.

I second the DOH!! -- Totally didn't know this and was a real pain to have to go up up up up up etc.. Found out the last 20 min in the car... in traffic was bored.. man! Wish I would have known earlier.

MSP Flyer

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by peteropny:
I had one in a Taurus at LAX in Jan.</font>

I had it in a Taurus @ RIC in December.

Sirius radio in Hertz cars is nice, but the sound quality is NOTHING compared to the XM satellite radio in Avis cars (which I was fortunate to get the one time Hertz was sold out in BOS and I had to rent from red).

The Avis XM cars have the tuner built directly into the car radio and not added on to broadcast through an FM channel. I never thought a radio in an Oldsmobile could sound so good.

Have Sirius in a Mountaineer right now. Very nice, no problems with reception whatsoever.

It is hard to drive and scan stations at the same time though.

Every now and then a Sirius equipped car will be waiting for me, I enjoy them, especially when I'm out in the boonies of the midwest and I'm either stuck with lousy AM reception, all Gospel or all country http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.

I just rented and returned a brand new Taurus at O'Hare last week, where the Sirius didn't even work. It just wouldn't power up, so they dropped me into a nice Jag instead.

[This message has been edited by ontherun (edited Mar 20, 2004).]

Received a Taurus ($14 a day, no less) with Sirius at SEA on Friday for a weekend trip to PDX. Was nice to have a constant signal the 150 miles down and look forward to it going back.

I enjoyed the Sirius so much last week in a Taurus (paid for a F - got a Sirius equipped car just by luck) that I went into the Gold booth and requested a vehicle with Sirius. She switched me into an Infiniti G35 (at BNA airport Nashville).

The problem: unlike Taurus, the Infiniti has the Sat Radio built in to the car - so their is no Audiovox module with keypad - just the Seek/Tune buttons on the radio. But I can only get like 6 channels. I think it must be a "trial" or something? I get 001, 026, 105, etc.. I can't remember all. So - I don't know if this is a problem with this car or all the Infiniti's. Not sure - when Hertz installs the Audiovox modules on the Fords - it works - but maybe someone didn't "register" this one right or something?

FYI - test it when you get it (it is hard in a garage as you need the sky exposure) but - check right away. I see they actually are charging me $3 a day for this (she didn't tell me that - I saw it on the charge when I switched). side note: As a Five Star - you would think I would get "a free upgrade" at least once. - but that is a seperate issue.

For now, I would stay away from the Infiniti G35's IF you want the sat radio - the cars with the Audiovox panel/radio seem to have worked the best. The BBC and Raw Dog comedy channel are hilarious.

MSP Flyer

edited: called the Nashville Hertz - they said they would take the Sat Radio charges off my bill - which is fair. I really wanted to listen to BBC and Comedy - if those were part of the 6 or 7 I could get - fine. But e! Entertainment True Hollywood story on Anna Nicole Smith - isn't quite what I would pay for. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by MSP Flyer (edited Mar 23, 2004).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MSP Flyer:
I enjoyed the Sirius so much last week in a Taurus (paid for a F - got a Sirius equipped car just by luck) that I went into the Gold booth and requested a vehicle with Sirius. She switched me into an Infiniti G35 (at BNA airport Nashville).

The problem: unlike Taurus, the Infiniti has the Sat Radio built in to the car - so their is no Audiovox module with keypad - just the Seek/Tune buttons on the radio. But I can only get like 6 channels. I think it must be a "trial" or something? I get 001, 026, 105, etc.. I can't remember all. So - I don't know if this is a problem with this car or all the Infiniti's. Not sure - when Hertz installs the Audiovox modules on the Fords - it works - but maybe someone didn't "register" this one right or something?

FYI - test it when you get it (it is hard in a garage as you need the sky exposure) but - check right away. I see they actually are charging me $3 a day for this (she didn't tell me that - I saw it on the charge when I switched). side note: As a Five Star - you would think I would get "a free upgrade" at least once. - but that is a seperate issue.

For now, I would stay away from the Infiniti G35's IF you want the sat radio - the cars with the Audiovox panel/radio seem to have worked the best. The BBC and Raw Dog comedy channel are hilarious.

MSP Flyer

edited: called the Nashville Hertz - they said they would take the Sat Radio charges off my bill - which is fair. I really wanted to listen to BBC and Comedy - if those were part of the 6 or 7 I could get - fine. But e! Entertainment True Hollywood story on Anna Nicole Smith - isn't quite what I would pay for. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by MSP Flyer (edited Mar 23, 2004).]</font>

If it comes down to a Taurus with 150+ channels or the G35 with 6 channels, I would take the Infiniti!

Ditto on the G35 over the taurus.

The first G35 I had came with Sirius and had no such problems. All the channels were available. My only issue with it was you couldn't scroll through the channels on the steering wheel.

I think these need remotes.

I rented a Taurus at BDL with the Sirius. Listened to disco for 200 miles. I loved it.

If you need an up to date program guide because the laminated one provided by Hertz is out of date, try this link

http://www.sirius.com/pdf/streamguide.pdf

Siruis & XM have announced a joint hardware deal where begining in 2005 they will agree on a common platform that can recieve both services. Right now, it's just one or the other (like VHS/Betamax for those over 30).


(...and if you have a few extra bucks, check out their stock (SIRI). It's been very low the last few weeks compared to XM, but has begun to rally in the past few days.)

The only thing that is an annoyance when you get a Sirius equipped car is that you can't also have NeverLost too. Oh well. Of course, if you could have both, Hertz would charge you $11-12/day for the package.

If you need an up to date program guide because the laminated one provided by Hertz is out of date, try this link

http://www.sirius.com/pdf/streamguide.pdf


Thanks for the link. I just got a Taurus this week and look forward to some commercial-free satellite radio. ;)

One thing I noticed is that my cell phone signal drops 2-3 bars when I'm in the car and the Sirius receiver is on. Turn that off and the cell phone works fine. It's a Nokia with AT&T Wireless, if anyone is interested. :)

I had a Mazda 6 with Sirius over the weekend and liked it (it was a Totally 80s weekend for me on Channel 8). I noticed, with the unit on, the regular FM stations got a little fuzzier on the reception and no AM reception at all (including some stations with blowtorch transmitters in Rosarito, Mexico). When I turned off Sirius, everything worked fine.

I wonder if the person driving the car now has figured out that I added 88.5 to the FM1 and FM2 presets. :)