XM Radio Deals

[Ron B]

It never occurred to me to hang on to the window sticker. But today, good news. I got the following email from Toyota as part of my ongoing efforts to clear this up:

Dear Mr. B,

Thank you for providing an update regarding your Sirius XM data services and ongoing interactions with Mr. Timothy Regan at Toyota of Walnut Creek.

According to your 17-digit Vehicle Identification Number, xxxxxxxxxxx, your 2013 RAV4 EV is equipped with a High Definition Display (HDD) head unit. This head unit supports XM Data Services including NavTraffic, NavWeather, Fuel, Sports and Stocks. Access is complimentary for three years.

We sincerely apologize for any confusion with the previously provided information and hope this provides further clarification.

Your email has been documented at our National Headquarters under file #xxxxxx. If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,

Kym Strong
Toyota Customer Experience

So presumably I'm in the clear until traffic disappears in 3 months. More to (no doubt) come.

 

[duggie]

I wonder if this has anything to do with transferring the car's satellite membership to an existing account. For example, I have an existing SiriusXM account from my old car. When I transfer my Rav over to that account, I wonder if somehow I'll lose the traffic and other data services. I'm starting to think that same thing happened on my old car as well because I lost the data services on that one as well.

So to you people that have had this problem, did you have an existing account with SiriusXM before buying the Rav?

 

[quartzav]

It might have something to do with it after 3 months trial ends. During my call with SiriusXM, I got the sense that during dealer activation they meed to activate both all access for 3 months radio, and Data for 3 years.
FYI' I have an account with expired trial on another car but my data on RAV4 "all access" trial was never active.

 

[user 340]

Sirius cut off my NavTraffic etc. XM data services today. I bought my car on June 1, and they first cut off traffic etc on June 7 when they transferred the account from the dealer to me. They then gave me a 2 month trial that expired today.

During the past 2 months I sent Sirius numerous emails and called them and Toyota Care numerous times about the issue. A month ago a manager at Sirius said that he 'got it' and that I'd get my 3 years of NavTraffic etc. Didn't happen. Today Sirius blamed my Toyota dealer for not communicating the subscription info to them correctly and said that their hands are tied until that happens. Toyota customer care then told me that they will enter my car for another 30 day trial of NavTraffic etc data and will try to get this resolved before that ends.

I am truly impressed, but not in a good way...

 

[miimura]

Just curious... is there any message on the NAV screen about the expiration or does the traffic info on the map just disappear?

 

[quartzav]

@tgreene
Try to call their service center and ask to speak with a manager about the account needs to have an active data service for 3 years and not wait till trial expires. I was told the same about "their hands are tied." But I insisted that they need to have it resolved now with Toyota when the website and Faxed over windows sticker both said I should have 3 years of data. They are able to do it over the phone and get it changed.

 

[n3ckf]

Actually i never knew any of that stuff lasted very long. XM & the data service stopped working on my Rav4EV about 2 weeks after i bought it. I called in and subscribed and they magically"extended" my 3 month trial and added a year to it when i bought it. The data service they just turned it back on. (I had to do that separately actually).

 

[user 340]

@tgreene
Try to call their service center and ask to speak with a manager about the account needs to have an active data service for 3 years and not wait till trial expires. I was told the same about "their hands are tied." But I insisted that they need to have it resolved now with Toyota when the website and Faxed over windows sticker both said I should have 3 years of data. They are able to do it over the phone and get it changed.

I was on a conference call with Toyota and a Sirius customer service supervisor on July 10, and Sirius said that they would fix the problem in 5-10 business days. That did not happen. I also emailed them a PDF of my Entune page showing that I had NavTraffic / data services for 3 years. I got a response saying that they 'escalated' the situation and said they would not shut off the services. They shut the services off. Today I talked to another Sirius supervisor and told him that I was tired of them not doing what they said and he solved the problem by saying that he would not do anything for me!

I wonder if I can take Sirius or Toyota to small claims court?

 

[quartzav]

Oh, wow...that is frustrating... Maybe you need to get Toyota headquarter to give you an email confirming the 3 years data service and then demand XM's resolution over the phone. If they don't then take them to small claim or arbitration? Hopefully they will do the right thing and not giving you the run around again...

 

[BloomRAV4_EV]

Add me to the list of people with this issue. After reading the thread and noticing (but ignoring) a while back that my traffic data had vanished (miimura, no warning of any kind, just noticed that hey that information isn't displayed anymore), I went through the screens and discovered that it thought I needed a subscription to activate the data services.

Aside -- has anybody figured out how to coerce the horrible interface into tuning to satellite channel 000 so you can get the radio identifier info?

Friday I tried calling SiriusXM service twice. After some befuddlement on their part, they realized that at one point I had a demo of the data, but at some subsequent point that was disabled. While he was looking for some way to assist me, the call dropped. On my way home from work, I still didn't have data access, so I called them back. This time I got someone who saw the notes from the previous call, and claimed that my trial had not been set up properly before but that the prior agent had set me up properly. I countered that clearly he hadn't, since I still didn't have the data access I'd purchased with the vehicle. She said she could activate that immediately, but as a new subscription. Naturally, when I declined to pay, she then referred me to the dealership.

Saturday (because of course there was no way to reach the dealership before they closed through Friday rush hour traffic), I visited the dealership with my window sticker and indicated that I'd really like to have the 3 years of data service I'd purchased with the car, and that SiriusXM had referred me to them. After he suggested that I had to set up Entune and I assured him both that I had and that per Entune I was eligible for 3 years of free data, the guy photocopied my sticker and said he'd call corporate on Monday and get back to me; I helpfully borrowed a highlighter from the receptionist and annotated the specific line (to avoid any "but he's got the trial" nonsense).

Naturally, it's Monday, and I haven't heard from the dealership. I'll probably call them tomorrow, or maybe stop by if I've got enough range (have to run 40 miles to the airport, 27 miles from there to work, 31 miles from there to my doctor, and 3 miles back home; a detour to the dealership adds another 9 miles to the total trip). OK, range isn't the limiting factor, I can do 115 miles on a normal charge and will do an extended charge tonight just to be on the safe side. I'll stop by the dealership if I don't hear from them (not that I expect to) and if I'm not totally worn out by the rest of the day's activity (will be leaving for LAX around 5am).

FWIW, "Trial Ends: 10/04/2013" "Your trial's ending soon." says the SiriusXM website. That gives me just under 2 months to get this sorted out, before I have to harp on the fact that I don't care at all about the radio. HD Radio lets me tag to my iPod, and oh yeah, I can use my iPod. Or my phone. Or Pandora as an Entune app.

 

[user 340]

Add me to the list of people with this issue.

Aside -- has anybody figured out how to coerce the horrible interface into tuning to satellite channel 000 so you can get the radio identifier info?

Friday I tried calling SiriusXM service twice.
Naturally, it's Monday, and I haven't heard from the dealership.

Sorry to hear that you have been afflicted too. Some comments:

1. see p. 190 & 238 of the Nav manual (2013) for tuning to satellite channel 000.

2. You may want to bypass the dealer and call Toyota Customer Care directly (800-331-4331) and establish a case. I am now dealing with them and not the dealer; they seem to have some experience with SIRIUS and this problem (if you get a knowledgeable agent).

 

[BloomRAV4_EV]

Aside -- has anybody figured out how to coerce the horrible interface into tuning to satellite channel 000 so you can get the radio identifier info?

Friday I tried calling SiriusXM service twice.
Naturally, it's Monday, and I haven't heard from the dealership.

Sorry to hear that you have been afflicted too. Some comments:

1. see p. 190 & 238 of the Nav manual (2013) for tuning to satellite channel 000.

2. You may want to bypass the dealer and call Toyota Customer Care directly (800-331-4331) and establish a case. I am now dealing with them and not the dealer; they seem to have some experience with SIRIUS and this problem (if you get a knowledgeable agent).

Page 238 only says that you can get the radio ID from "CH 000", and refers you to page 190. Page 190 didn't make it immediately obvious to me that I had to get through steps 4 and 5 from page 191 to tune to channel zero ... I kept hoping it wouldn't be 3 menu levels deep, and that there might be a way to tune directly to 000 instead of having to skip through every channel from whichever preset was closest.

At any rate, I made that an aside because the first phone rep found my account (though all I have is the radio trial initiated by Toyota) by name and ZIP code, the second phone rep confirmed that my cell phone was the number linked with the account, and the online rep was able to pull my radio ID from my VIN ... which the online account can't display or give me a way to enter. (I chatted with an online rep because I wanted to see "my account" online for myself, but couldn't sign in without the radio ID, and their site wasn't accepting my VIN even though it was one of the three ways they said I could identify myself.)

I'll likely stop at the dealership tomorrow afternoon and ask whether I might be better off dealing with Toyota directly.

 

[BloomRAV4_EV]

I'll likely stop at the dealership tomorrow afternoon and ask whether I might be better off dealing with Toyota directly.

Wow, even better than anticipated! I hit the dealership at about 6pm, stopped for a car wash after that, and the car is now charging after its 117 mile day (with 25 miles of range remaining, it thought).

I'm not as dead tired as I thought I'd be, and I'm glad I stopped at the dealership, because they introduced me to a SiriusXM rep on site who was able to fix it with a phone call. I now have weather and traffic info, for three years!

I could learn to love this.

 

[BloomRAV4_EV]

I now have weather and traffic info, for three years!

I hope. According to the SiriusXM website, my account has the data added to the 90-day trial. The rep at the dealership confirmed with the person on the other end of the phone that said data trial would be extended to three years, but there's no hard evidence that has been done.

Looks like I'll keep the cork in the champagne bottle until I see an expiration date in 2016. Still, I have more traffic data than I had all month.

 

[user 340]

I am also hopeful that SIrius has finally given me the 3 year trial of XM data services that are included with the purchase of our cars.

Recap: My XM data services (NavTraffic etc.) worked for a few days after my June 1 purchase and then disappeared. I had numerous calls with Sirius and Toyota Customer Care, sometimes with both at the same time. They both agreed that the car should come with 3 years of XM data services, but SIrius initially gave me a 2 month trial and said different things about why they were not giving me all 3 years (lately blaming Toyota for not communicating the sale properly). My XM data services died on Aug 8 last week, as expected from the trial end date shown in my online SIRIUS account. I called Toyota and they got SIRIUS to give me another 2 month trial.

Resolution: Today I received an email requesting that I fill out a survey about my most recent call to SIrius. This was the first one that I got - I think that Sirius had mistyped by email address initially (although it was fine in my online account profile). I was pretty negative in my survey responses, and within 5 minutes a Sirius Customer Advocacy Team member called me. He looked up my account, confirmed that the car should come with 3 years of XM data services, and entered the info into his computer (including "branding" the entry whatever that is). Presto, I see now on my online account that I have Complimentary 3-Year Trials of NavTraffic, NavWwather, and Travel Link. This is the first time that the full 3 years have shown up in my online Sirius account, so I am hopeful.

I asked the rep why I had so much trouble previously when he could do this so quickly. His answer was basically Sh** Happens (I'm paraphrasing here).