Hertz - Second Straight Rental with Inoperable Siruis Satellite Radio

I'm on my second straight week in EWR, and for the second straight week, I've picked up my car w/ Sat Radio, only to find it doesn't work once I'm on the road. (The cars are under concrete in the airport, so I can't test it until I'm pretty much gone...).

The radio just says "Call 1-888-SIRIUS", and won't change channels or emit any sound.

I told the attendant this last time and he gave me a $15 credit which was nice enough, but truth be told...I just want my Howard in the morning!

Anyone ever experience this and figure out a way to solve in mid-trip (i.e. getting a halfway intelligent Hertz employee on the 1-800 line who actually knows what you're talking about)?

I tried calling Hertz and the guy on the phone didn't know what Sirius was, and after explaining it, he suggested calling them. Duh.

Anyhow - likely nothing I can do, but wanted to check anyway.

Thx.

Where are you driving to? Just go get a different car at EWR or another Hertz station. If you're paying for it then it's their responsibility to provide a working SAT. You don't have to wait until the end of your contract period to bring the car back.

DFW is hitting about 100 with me on the Sirius radio offerings. I think in the last 10 rentals I've had with a sirius radio installed, about 1 has actually worked. Since it's a gimmee option and not something I'm paying for, I ignore it, but it IS a tease!

DFW is hitting about 100 with me on the Sirius radio offerings. I think in the last 10 rentals I've had with a sirius radio installed, about 1 has actually worked. Since it's a gimmee option and not something I'm paying for, I ignore it, but it IS a tease!

I was told it doesn't work all the time ~ towers can die, signals can interrupt, etc. Perhaps it is still in the testing phases who knows. But theres not much they can do to fix it. Just another car I suppose.

I was told it doesn't work all the time ~ towers can die, signals can interrupt, etc. Perhaps it is still in the testing phases who knows. But theres not much they can do to fix it. Just another car I suppose.

Huh? It's nothing to do with the Sirius infrastructure end. They have millions of paying individual customers (including me). That part works fine. If it's really broken in the Hertz car, than yeah, all they could do is another car that is true. But it's nothing to do with towers, signals, whatever. There are places where it can be touchy getting a signal, but I can't imagine the OP is driving in such a small area that it would constantly be signal interruption that's the problem.

Do these cars you're picking up have the Hertz tacked-on Sirius module? Those should work for sure, but you do have to tune to 88.1 on the FM or something because they use the FM transmitter. The one time I got Sirius in the car (didn't order it, they just happened to assign me a car with it) it was somewhat cryptic at first how to use it until I stumbled upon this by accident. I may have later noticed it said to do this on the keychain tag (the keys had an extra tag with Sirius logo), but I'm not sure if it did or not.

If they are using the built-in stereo unit, this is touchy. When they get a new car in, it's possible they are using a trial period. Once this ends, that function wouldn't work anymore unless they sign it up for a subscription. If this is the sort of car you're getting, maybe they are trying to not pay for too many subscriptions. You need to get a newer car. ;) This is speculation, though. I don't really know what they are doing, but if you want working sat you need to push them. Turn right around and go back if possible once you get out in the open. It's annoying time but well spent if you're going to be in the car a lot.

Or, just get your own Sirius portable unit tacked onto your subscription. (If you listen to Howard, presumably you already have your own subscription. :)) It pays for itself pretty quickly if you rent a bit. 2 days of paying Hertz for it more than covers a month of service. I've rigged my Sirius Sportster unit up in several Hertz cars now. (Looked really tacky on the G35, but hey. ;))

Do these cars you're picking up have the Hertz tacked-on Sirius module?
I've gotten both the tacked-on and in-radio versions at DFW. Neither work the majority of the time. You get the message as was mentioned before about contacting Sirius. As for it being an infrastructure issue, I test the radio several times over the rental period in hopes that it WILL work. So far, no success.

I have had a similar experience at others agencies (Thrifty and Dollar I believe). I get in and the channel selector is stuck on channel 164. Don't know if it's a Sirius issue or not. But this has never happened with XM. Could be a coincidence. . . .

i've had sirrus die on me in the middle of LA on the 101. it worked fine while in the middle of nowhere (California City, CA), but in LA it went flakey for a few miles and came back. this was with the add-on Hertz module

i never pay for sirus on a rental so I don't mind, but it can be a bit annoying to be in the middle of a good song and then to just get fuzz

also, I thought sirus was all satilite. the only thing that would break connection to the satilite is if you didn't have line of sight (e.g. tunnel or winding mountain). if that's not the case, there are sbscription or equipment issues.

I have had a similar experience at others agencies (Thrifty and Dollar I believe). I get in and the channel selector is stuck on channel 164. Don't know if it's a Sirius issue or not. But this has never happened with XM. Could be a coincidence. . . .

That's how one rental I had was. I got a Chrysler Cirrus (heh) at PIT back in Jan that had a built-in sat tuner module. It doesn't tune from 164. My understanding is that's because there's no subscription on it. When the car is new, it might have a promo subscription for a few months, but these cars weren't destined to be Sirius cars in the Hertz fleet, so after that they just don't work. 164 on Sirius is the promo channel, preview, try to get you to buy.

Could be a coincidence, yes. XM I think always has a trial period with a new car (maybe they both do), so the coincidence could be (if you're not paying for sat) that you're getting newer cars with XM vs Sirius. Or maybe XM's trial is longer.

i've had sirrus die on me in the middle of LA on the 101. it worked fine while in the middle of nowhere (California City, CA), but in LA it went flakey for a few miles and came back. this was with the add-on Hertz module

i never pay for sirus on a rental so I don't mind, but it can be a bit annoying to be in the middle of a good song and then to just get fuzz

also, I thought sirus was all satilite. the only thing that would break connection to the satilite is if you didn't have line of sight (e.g. tunnel or winding mountain). if that's not the case, there are sbscription or equipment issues.

Annoying, yeah. That 6 I had was a pain driving up the coast in NorCal. The trees blocked it! Signal went in and out, finally went back to CDs and/or the iPod. Got better once we were in from the coast a bit.

In larger metro areas, they have ground-based repeaters to help the signal. I live right outside the repeater area for Pittsburgh, in fact. I notice it when I drive home. I go under various underpasses downtown with no signal loss, but when I exit the highway closer to my house and pass under a bridge, the signal cuts out. The reason it doesn't cut out closer to town is because of the ground-based repeaters. (On my unit if I feel like it I can get a breakdown of how much signal is coming from the sat and how much from ground based. I never look at that screen anymore, but it confirmed why, for instance, it works in my downtown parking garage which has several floors of concrete above me at all times.)

Finally, the thing that might most explain the situation you described with the Hertz add-on unit: too many FM broadcast stations in LA. Works great in the middle of nowhere, but when you get into a city with a crowded FM dial those stations interfere with the signal from the Sirius unit. On mine, I can select any FM frequency I want so I could try to tweak it. Also, it seems to have a fairly powerful FM transmitter (better than some others I've used). The Hertz gadget is, if I recall, at least the version I used, fixed to one frequency, so you're at the mercy of what is at that point on the dial in the cities you go through. That's probably what caused the fuzz in the case you describe.

Thanks All...good to know I'm not alone. I think I'm just going to start lugging my Starmate radio along with me on trips from now on, this is too much of a hassle.

Thanks for your responses.

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Finally, the thing that might most explain the situation you described with the Hertz add-on unit: too many FM broadcast stations in LA. Works great in the middle of nowhere, but when you get into a city with a crowded FM dial those stations interfere with the signal from the Sirius unit. On mine, I can select any FM frequency I want so I could try to tweak it. Also, it seems to have a fairly powerful FM transmitter (better than some others I've used). The Hertz gadget is, if I recall, at least the version I used, fixed to one frequency, so you're at the mercy of what is at that point on the dial in the cities you go through. That's probably what caused the fuzz in the case you describe.
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I had my own Sirius rcvr in an extended Hertz rental in LA this winter (several months) and want to add that yeah, this is probably the problem. Except when I had an Impala with the aux-in plug, I had to keep all the presets programmed in my receiver and switch RF channels depending on where I was. I think I regularly used 4 different FM channels...

RFTraveler :D :D