OEM Radios Need Improvements
I flew down to Orlando today for a meeting. Spending one day in Florida, I rented a car from Hertz. The car, a 2009 Ford Taurus, was equipped with Sirius Satellite Radio. being a fan of satellite radio, I appreciated that fact. That is until I got into the car. Sure, there was a small sticker on the window letting me know that the car had Sirius, but nothing on the dashboard gave me that indication of satellite radio, nor was the stereo navigation very favorable to satellite radio.
I wanted to tune into CNBC. For those not familiar, that is channel 129. After figuring out how to get to satellite radio, I had to press the UP BUTTTON on the tuner 128 times to get to the channel I wanted! Perhaps their was an easier way, but it was by no means intuitive, and I was in a rental car. I was quickly reminded why I have always appreciated the plug and play type radios. They have easier navigation, more information on the screen, and better features such as artist seek, recording, and jump buttons.
As I drove the car, I could not help but think how the stereo control panel in the Taurus was not doing satellite radio any favors. No button that said “SAT”, no indication that satellite radio was available, and a very poor method from which to explore the satellite radio channel line-up. I can see why a person who is experiencing SDARS for the first time would not be overly impressed.
Knowing that the OEM channel is very important to satellite radio growth, I would hope that the dashboard would do a better job of selling the service. I would have hoped that by model year 2009 that the stereo would be more geared to a service offering over 100 channels than to terrestrial radio which offers a dozen. Alas, this does not appear to be the case
All of that being said, I reminded myself that it in not necessarily the job of Ford to market satellite radio. After all, Ford is not in the SDARS business, or at least not directly. If it is not the fault of Ford, then the responsibility must lay with Sirius XM Radio. The sticker on the window is great, the fact that the car has satellite radio is great. The poor navigation is a big detractor. Something needs to be done sooner rather than later.
Having resolved myself to the fact that there are thousands of these cars being sold with this type of set-up will take time to fix, I listened to CNBC and enjoyed my drive. I even listened to the commercials, because I had no desire to press the tuner button down 100 times to get to some good tunes only to press it up again to get back to CNBC.
A frustrating experience to say the least, but it was not the end of my frustration. Being a rental, I need to return the car with a full tank. Upon opening the gas hatch, I was greeted with, “Ford Recommends BP Fuel” stenciled right on the gas cap. Ired, I longed for at least a “SAT” button on the dash.
The bottom line. These OEM radios need some serious improvement so that the consumer has a better experience.
Position – Long Sirius XM, No Position Ford, Hertz
dont know if this helps tyler but i recently purchased a 2008 chevy and the radio has none of those problems, hopefully all gm’s are that way.
A woman that works with my company bought a Ford Fusion & I noticed it had a satellite antenna on roof so I asked her if it had satellite radio & she said yes, but I haven’t listened to it & I asked why ?
Just because she was used to listening to some crap music station on free FM and hadn’t been exposed to the content. She said she doesn’t even know what to tune to, what it has, so I printed out Sirius channel lineup off the web for her and explained the service and that she has to be crazy to be listening to that crap on regular radio when she has this content for free for 6 months. She then asked if they had channels for kids and I pointed those out to her and she also agreed tht the service was pretty cheap.
I assume she is listening to it now, but this is a big problem that Sirius and XM have. Why doesn’t the car come with a small cardboard channel lineup so that people can see the station descriptions that go with the #’s on the dial. Once this product is introduced properly, it will have a better take rate.
How many people don’t even know it’s there and then it just cancels or doesn’t get converted for this reason ?
I posted this after I went on a test drive:
Test Driving
I went test driving cars last night. Dodge Challenger and Ford Edge.
I have to say the Challenger had a nicer voice recognition setup, it offered suggestions if you didn’t know voice commands. One of the Voice commands was “Say FM, AM or Satellite”
The Ford Dealership had a 6’x3′ display for Sirius which was pretty cool to see.
The thing that caught my attention was that even though I knew both vehicles had Sirius I (even a very technical person) had trouble figuring out how to get the radio to be on satellite. Then I also had a difficult time getting to the channel I wanted. Not to say that after one full day with the car that I wouldn’t have all my favorites programmed but the initial jump in the car didn’t catch my attention.
So, I would like to see a small placard, I say a 3×3 card with a tab on it that fits into the CD player so that it hangs in front of the radio and has SIRIUS Logo and introduction to satellite radio. I think that would be excellent in also selling the vehicle, I mean, you can tell it has a sunroof, you can tell it has leather seats, but there isn’t anything that jumps out that “You are about to buy a special vehicle that is equipped with something special, sirius satellite radio”
I bet there are thousands of people that have sirius in their vehicle that don’t even know it!
Ever since they did away with knobs for tuning and adjusting volume on radios, the head units and the dasboards have evolved to the point that they now resemble a 747 cockpit! Nobody knows how to design anything anymore! People want things to be simple and intuitive, but these assholes keep making everything more complex and annoying. For instance, look what Acura has done to their cars; they have ruined the styling and loaded them up with tons of unnecessary crap.
The desires of the consumer are ignored by most of the business world. The few that care about their customers do well. The ones that neglect their customers go out of business. Hey Sirius/XM, the ball is in your court!
That smiling grill on the Acura makes it resemble a clown car. I can’t believe anyone would buy a car with a big happy face on the front. I wouldn’t.
It would be nice to see a picture of that radio Tyler. I have a plug n play, and its the only type of radio I will go with. I feel that pushing for this merger really hurt both companies on the marketing front. I remember when I first got my XM system, and every 3-6 months when they would rearrange their channel line up, I would get a nice laminated channel guide in the mail.
sxminvestor says:How many people don’t even know it’s there and then it just cancels or doesn’t get converted for this reason ?
RE: To many as far as I am concerned.
I remember one night years ago, when XM/Sirius first came out, and I had just installed my system, I went out with a few people to the pub. I was talking about the service, and how great it was. Well needless to say, no one seemed to care, and their eyes just glazed over.
I wonder if SIRI can sue the NAB for spreading anti-satrad commercials over the airwaves? Is it not illegal to run smear campaigns against rival companies? Ironically thats what turned me towards satrad, once I started hearing the propaganda, I new it must be better!! Never went back!!!
It seems like most people are clueless to the product, lemmings running off the cliff, or I am Mr. Hand (Fast Times @ Ridgemont High), and everyone is on dope!!
Just got an email from XM.
Lifetime subscription with best of Sirius for 499.00+tax. Up to 3 radios.
Offer good until the end of the year, from what I was told over the phone.
Unfortunately, they were having technical problems, so I have to call back. LOL!!
This article is good timing for me. I have SIRI in my car and have been a subscriber for years ( mostly to XM). I had to take my son’s car (who listens to his iPod so doesn’t want SIRI) to the dealer this morning. The drive to the dealer was unbearable. While I was going through the channels trying to find any music at all I stopped to listen to O & A talk about all of the firings at SIRI XM. I finally found a station that played music and ended up listening to two songs during my 20 minute drive.
After I dropped the car off and got the loaner, I was glad that it had SIRI activated. But even though I was a SIRI subscriber, I really haven’t paid that much attention to the channel numbers that I listen to. So it took me a minute or two to find the channels that I wanted. my point is that even though I am a subscriber, it was difficult to find what I wanted.
Also, for most of the years I have been listening to Sat Radio, I was an XM subscriber with an after market radio. It has been less than a year that I have been listening to an OEM radio. Although the improved reception of the OEM radio more than makes up for the lack of features that my after market radio had, I really miss the pause and rewind functions, the artist and tune select and the ability to record songs.
I am thinking about getting a Lincoln next time since it seems to have the most features in the dashboard.
Jon
Just proves one more time that Mel isnt in touch with life and the realities-We are all licking our wounds when we talk of this company-Its easy to armchair quarterback- but this company has no focus and no connection with the customer
they need a new leader plain and simple
how much would it cost to laminate a current list of sat radio channels and post it behind the visor with instructions???-frankly if the company cant even supply this simple task-they need to go-
whomever is going to the meeting thursday-give em hell.
Mel sold advertising on radio… which is not a tangible product. Therein lies the problem.
agreed…my thought is that if the OEM installs contained the same features as some of the docking units the loyalty base would grow. I have a car that has XM and another that has a docking Sirius, each time I drive the XM car I wish for the docking unit so I can move around easier and enjoy the features.
Personally I don’t think either GM or Ford have very “user friendly” OEM satellite radio systems in their vehicles. Chrysler, on the other hand, is a different story. I have factory Sirius radios on my ’06 Chrysler Pacifica and my wife’s ’08 Jeep Liberty and they’re so easy to use that a child could figure it out.
While its not the job of Ford to market satellite radio, it is in their interest, as they do receive a share of the revenue from each subscriber. I’ve been disappointed by the OEM experience as well — and believe if they would improve the user experience it would translate into higher take rate.
I recently rented a “budget” car from Alamo. I was shocked that it was equipped with sat. radio (Sirius). No mention of it anywhere. In fact, I suspect most people renting that car would not have even noticed it had sat radio. Only because I was looking for it did I find it. You would think a company like Alamo would promote sat radio- but I suspect its still a random amount of their fleet that has sat. radio.
This company better get a reverse split or it may disappear. It is sad that such a good product can’t seem to find a viable business model.
Dylan,
You say what the press and the critics have all said! Acura has gone and destroyed the simple yet appealing designs of all their cars. They are almost universally bashed by everybody! It goes to show you how little people in high places know, and how out of touch some of these companies are with their customers. Sirius/Xm should try to learn from the foolish track record of Acura and their horrible decisions. They could avoid a lot of heartbreak!
That is why I spent ten minutes programming MY favorites into the three levels of satellite presets. I do agree it could be easier….