Well I have reached the three month threshold of LS 460L ownership and pretty much on schedule the XM and NavTraffic service abruptly terminated. No advance letter or call indicating when service would terminate without a renewal payment of some kind. However, the same day I had my XM MyFi portable plugged into the Aux jack in the middle console and continued the fine XM service without a beat. I used a simple stereo connector and the sound quality sounds similar if not identical to what came out of the LS's XM receiver.

I love the XM service, including NavTraffic, and have had it for several years before getting the new LS but I can actually get both without renewing since my Blackberry gets web service and I can get immediate up to date traffic maps on it. Certainly prefer though the excellent Lexus interface for both the XM and traffic display on the Nav screen.

I am surprised XM doesn't proactively contact new car customers to get them enlisted before their 3 month free service is completed. Now I am not in any hurry since I quickly found a suitable, if not perfect, solution.

Anyone else reach the end of XM service without any promotion or other contact from XM? Seems strange to leave it to the customer to have to go through the effort to initiate the process as some just may not follow through. I may just wait to see if they ever contact me and see what they may offer when it becomes apparent that my Lexus related account is no longer active.

 

I have always been contacted via mail & email about my XM service - especially when service is about to expire on a new vehicle. Did you move perhaps? Change email addresses? This is out of character for them, IMO.

I too LOVE their service, including XM Weather/Traffic!

 

Yup .. same thing here .. If the dealer doesn't notify XM of the owner info when you purchase your LS, then what we have experienced will happen.

 

Mine stopped working after only 2 weeks. It took a lot of effort and prodding to get XM to reset the subscription and give me my 90 day trial back. They kept insisting I need to go back to my dealer if I want to get the free trial. Given that my dealer is 20 miles away, I refused to do so. I can't imagine why I would need to drive the car to a dealer to reset an account, when the normal activation process is done on line anyway.

In addition, the people at XM I spoke to (including the supervisor) had no idea what the price for the traffic service was, or how it worked, or much of anything about it. They kept quoting me the wrong price, and when I told them that their own web site had a different price than they were quoting me, they couldn't explain it. I think they have some customer service problems going on.

 

I registered with XM at the dealership the day I took delivery of the LS, in order to activate the service, and have received a bit of mail like welcoming me as a new subscriber (though I've been a subscriber for about 3 years) and sending me a updated channel listing. So they have the address.

As mentioned I don't think their customer service and sales follow through is all that good. You'd think they would be all over owners of high-end vehicles to retain them as customers as those owners are the most likely not to worry about the extra cost of XM.

 

XM customer service sux big time. My trial abruptly ended as well and I had to call multiple times and have customer service reps telling me that they re-activated it (after I paid) and just wait 30 minutes, etc. Finally, I had to go through their tech support and find out the customer service reps did not do things correctly.

 

"clambros" is right. Unless the dealer gives the new car owner info to XM or you don't call to give them your owner info (which I did), the service will be cut off. I just called XM since my complementary period ended on January 31st but my XM is still working. The XM person said I was being billed for the next subscription period I had asked for a month or so ago, so there was no interruption in service.

 

When my XM was 1 month old, I called XM and they looked up my account by phone number. I was then offered a 3 year package w/traffic and was told that I would be billed when the 3 monthly trial ended and I would have no interruption of service.

 

on the ls460 the transition from dealer to owner is suppossed to happen like this:

car comes in with xm active

buyer purchases car

dealership rdr's sold unit to lexus

lexus gives xm the customers information and rdr date which is the beginning of the 90 days of service

xm should contact the customer during and after the 90 day trial by direct mail in order to give options for continued xm service

 

"xm should contact the customer during and after the 90 day trial by direct mail in order to give options for continued xm service"


This is the part that has not happened in my case as it appears XM has dropped the ball and not followed through with contact regarding options to continue service. They have only sent generalized "welcome to XM" type mail. This leaves it up to the customer to follow through and probably go through a time consuming process like happened with VelvetBlue, bouncing between customer service and tech support.

 

On the 3rd month anniversary of taking delivery of the car, I received the "welcome to the world of XM radio" package in the mail from XM. I had tried to renew my radio for the past several weeks (knowing that 90 days was expiring) on the XM website, but the site would not recognize my radio number. So, I'm just going to wait and see how long it takes for XM to turn off my service, and then contact them for renewal. My local area does not have the traffic service, but I do like it when I'm traveling to other cities with the service.

 

XM dropped our traffic service prematurely after 2 months, one phone call a satellite reset and it resumed. During this time radio service continued. We rec'd welcome to XM in the mail but still nothing about renewal - our 3 months ended 2/8. XM still works. No point in paying til billed.