I recently purchased a 2010 Toyota rav4 basic. I have been looking into getting satellite radio in the car but I’m not sure what exactly I need. When I talked to a friend he wanted me to get a whole new faceplate for my car which ends up making the whole thing kind of pricy if I do it that way. I thought I just needed the satellite receiver. What are your thoughts? Attached is the current faceplate in my car.
I gave a friend a Sirius/XM reciever several years ago and the agreement required me to renew it annually which I did until this past November when the friend informed me that a new car allowed playing tunes from the cell phone through the radio. I didn’t renew but Sirius sent me a bill and stated that the service would continue and renewal was more than double the previous years rate. After more than a week of calling and being put on hold and posting to a web site I finally sat on hold for more than an hour but finally demanded the service be cut and the reply was that a special renewal rate was offered if I kept the service. I declined but got a bill for the weeks from the expiration date until that call was completed.
If Sirius.XM goes bankrupt they deserve it. They are the AOL of digital radio… IMHO.
I would check with the guys at http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/84-rav4-forum/ some decent and knowledgeable folks there.
XM/Sirius sells a separate receiver that you can mount to your dashboard. Go to their web site and check it out. If you have an auxiliary input to your Toyota radio, you are all set. Power is from the 12-volt port (AKA cigarette lighter).
Open up your owners manual, your radio may already have an XM decoder built in. All you will need is a subscription.
“Open up your owners manual, your radio may already have an XM decoder built in. All you will need is a subscription.”
+1
The button on the dashboard labeled AM-SAT is a clue that this radio likely has the decoder built in. As you implied, the Owner’s Manual would be the first thing that I would check if I owned this car, and if the manual did not contain the relevant info, then I would phone Toyota Customer Service (at the toll-free number noted in the manual) in order to ask a question to which they undoubtedly have an answer.
Something that I wonder about very often, after reading some of the posts in this forum is…
What do so few people ever bother to open the Owner’s Manual and read it?
Agree with Keith. Your radio should be all set to go. You just need the codes off the radio and money to activate it. I’ve got it in one car for the variety and to get weather on the road but I find their programming lacking to pay for it on a second car.
Agree with VDCdriver. However I’ve had XM off and on for the last few years. When I bought my car (used), apparently someone had paid for a year’s subscription, as I had free XM for about a year. I renew it only when there’s a very good deal going on.
It has good and bad points.
The good:
- If you travel, you get the same stations all across the country with no fade.
-There’s a lot of programming available including some rare gems that are hard to find elsewhere.
-(mostly) commercial free
The bad:
-The signal is so compressed that the fidelity is not even as good as broadcast FM stations.
-A lot of stations seem to play the same crapola over and over again.
-It’s pricey, and for the price you SHOULD be able to listen to XM on multiple devices, but you can’t
I agree with the others. Check the owner’s manual. Toyota has including this enabling for many years in even their most basic radios. My 2005 has the capability, but I don’t want to pay a subscription fee.
Sorry, your head unit does NOT have a built in satellite receiver. The RAV4 units that DO have the (((XM))) logo just above the AM-SAT button. Your head unit can be fitted with a satellite kit from Toyota, but it’s around 300 bucks plus installation. I bought a 6-disc changer with XM from a 2011 RAV4 that was listed on Ebay. It was a simple plug and play swap into my 2008 RAV4.