greg0723

do anyone have this installed in thier Is250 from the lexus dealer or came with the car? if so how is it? do they install it in the dashboard and replace the radio/cd player you have (no nav). any pics?

Brian231

I believe Lexus has a contract with XM to have the factory tuner box. I would have hoped Sirius would have been an option as XM tends to be flooded with commercials now and have some dishonest billing services. But that is another story. as for the Sirius install, you can simply get a plug and play unit. I am not sure if you have navi, but the below may help.

http://itsabove.com/videosearch/watc...eo=9SVkYKWm5VE

http://item.express.ebay.com/Lexus-I...mdZExpressItem

fluxx

iTrader: (1)

in my previous car i had sirius and loved it. when i purchased my car i asked if i could get sirius and they told me no, but i told them on that on the website the sell the products. my dealer went into further detail and told me that they do not sell the sirius tuner bc their tuners/recievers which ever you want to call it, are faulty and until the make higher quality tuners they will not stock them. i can pretty much vouch for sirius tuners as being mediocre in the course of a year i had 3 of them( all covered under warranty) but still 3 is alot to have, my friends had the same issues as well.

even with those issues ive contemplated on getting sirius for my car now, cause its awesome. its pretty simple to obtain what you need. ie through sewell lexus and a adapater from vaistech at a discount at that

under 300 dollars for all the parts and i am pretty sure i saw some very well written diy's on the forum

what youll need from sewell
sirius tuner $200
http://www.lexus-parts.com/parts_det...id=87759&all=Y

radio fitting kit $100
http://www.lexus-parts.com/parts_detail.asp?id=87765

shark fin adapter kit , its optional, but if you have the sharkfin attena id go this route, instead of having the sirius satellite atenna randomnly on your car.
http://www.vaistech.com/

forgot to mention i think we still get 15% of at sewell lexus, the first to links. theres a promo code somewhere on the site

Brian231

Great post, you have possibly inspired me to look into this!!!

greg0723

sirius bought out xm i heard recently?

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

Negative.

The two companies are in merger talks- but they've got a bunch of government hurdles to jump to get such a deal approved... the justice dept. recently said they were ok with it, but they're the least likely to have said no... probably a while still before a final decision comes down.

Brian231

I guess the DOD and Justice department has to get involved for natioanl Security being this merger will effect how two different 5 diffrerent satelites operate. Kind of interesting to see what happens, this merger has been proposed many years ago. On February 19, 2007, XM announced a merger deal with Sirius Satellite Radio. If approved, the merger will combine the two radio services and create a single Satellite Radio network in the United States and Canada. On March 24, 2008, the United States Department of Justice announced it had closed its investigation of the merger because it "concluded that the evidence does not demonstrate that the proposed merger of XM and Sirius is likely to substantially lessen competition.

XM: Satelites called Rock and Roll launched via the old Atlas pads at the Kennedy Space Center. Both at a Geostationary orbit affixd to a the equator. Those satellites had a solar wing design flaw and it was cheaper to launch new satellites to compensate for the original 2's reduction in lifespan.

Sirius: Three geosynchonous satellites that are in constant mnotion aorund the earth.

Sirius’ spacecraft Radiosat 1 through Radiosat 4 were manufactured by Space Systems/Loral. The first three of the series were orbited in 2000 by Proton-K Block-DM3 launch vehicles, with the final three-satellite constellation completed on November 30, 2000. Radiosat 4 is a ground spare, in storage at Space Systems/Loral’s facility in Palo Alto, California, ready to be launched if any of the three active satellites encounter transmission problems. The satellites are based on the Space Systems/Loral 1300 platform.

Sirius' satellites are named Radiosat because there is already a fleet of satellites named Sirius, launched by Sweden's NSAB (Nordiska Satellitaktiebolaget, or Nordic Satellite AB, and known today as SES Sirius) and used for general telecommunications and satellite television throughout Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia.

The current, primary uplink facility for Sirius is located in Vernon, Sussex County, New Jersey. The original facility was located on the roof of the building housing the Sirius studios in Rockefeller Center in New York City but has since been decommissioned.

Sirius does not as yet use geostationary satellites, though plans to expand their network in 2008 will add one. Currently, its three satellites fly in geosynchronous highly elliptical orbit (Tundra orbit) in a 24-hour orbital period. Sirius claims the elliptical path of its satellite constellation ensures that each satellite spends about 16 hours a day over the continental United States, with at least one satellite over the country at all times. The orbit allows the satellites to broadcast from directly overhead the continental United States, avoiding the problem of large buildings or objects blocking the signal and requiring a much smaller terrestrial repeater network than does competitor XM. The three sats are called RadioSat 1, RadioSat 2, RadioSat 3.

mikes rx

iTrader: (14)

For either nav or no-nav, here are the choices, and either one can be bought from Sewell:

1) XM: it is a fully factory-integrated kit. All you do is tap into a plug in the trunk by the right wheel well, and connect the supplied harness between the tuner and the factory amp (also located in the right wheel well). It is very easy, and it is the way it comes from the factory as an option. Also, because the XM kit is a factory kit, it has factory toyota part numbers for everything and is covered by your warranty (length of warranty varies---see lexus website regarding factory accessories)

OR...

2) Sirius: as mentioned before, Sirius either was a factory option at one point, or was destined to be a factory option. But, either way, there were problems with the kits (Note: Sewell told me this when I was looking last year, so it should be considered reputable).

Anyway, sewell now makes a kit that allows you to use the factory radio, but it itself is NOT factory. What Sewell does is make a harness kit to connect the factory radio to the satellite tuner. But, there are some downsides to this system----

first, you must take out the factory radio to do this, as the harness connects behind the factory radio. Second, you must remotely mount the Sirius tuner somewhere (Sewell recommends under the front seat, and I believe that you even have to cut some carpet to accomodate the tuner). And third, I believe it's a generic Sirius tuner (ie- the Sirius connect, which is used with different aftermarket systems). It's really no different than other kits that you see on ebay that take a generic sirius or xm tuner and have a special harness to allow your factory radio to communicate with it. [Not to judge the quality of Sewell's unit at all. I would definitely buy it from Sewell before anyone else.....I'm just trying to compare the physical items and idea]


I hope this info helps. Lexus now states on their website that Sirius is available as an accessory, so they may have gotten the bugs out. I'm honestly not sure.

greg0723

i asked the dealership said it would cost $996 not including taxes. i wish they put that on the site instead of $486.

fluxx

iTrader: (1)

holy junk. my quoted me about 750 for parts/labor for xm and that was ricidulous.

i forgot to mention i dont know how much you trust bestbuy or circuit citys installation crew. but i asked them a little while back how much they would charge for the install and the both quoted me around 65-80 bucks for sirius installation.

Brian231

The satellite radio install is in the DIY section and is really not too bad. You have to remove the trunk carpet molds for the XM tuner box which integrates into the Smart Key assembly bracket. Dealer wants way too much to do this easy plug and play with OEM kit.

Bichon

Even if the two companies merge, they are still planning to operate XM and Sirius as separate services, with content similar to what's currently available. At some time in the future they'd offer dual band radios capable of receiving content from both networks.

Jay M

Has anyone used the sirius Sewell kit with navigation?

I have XM now but I have sirius via internet in my home so it would cost less per month if I had Sirius in my car also.

how is the sound quality? I assume one is equally as bad as the other.

How well does the Sewel kit integrate? How is it different than the Factory XM kit?

thanks,
~Jay

mikes rx

iTrader: (14)

Don't know about the sound quality, but look 6 posts up for answers to your other questions.

fluxx

iTrader: (1)

heres a link to the diy install of sirius that has been provided by lexus-parts

http://www.lexus-parts.com/import/pdf/01is.pdf

fun stuff