Free XM

Monday I had my truck in for the 40K service and 3rd Brake Light leak fix.

Yesterday, I received an email from XM letting me know that I have a free 3 month activation. Not just in my truck, but on the app as well.

No credit card needed and it will expire if I don't choose to renew it.

I gave them my junque email address, so the incessant offers will go there.

They could have had me back in 2020 if they had agreed to my offer of $5.00/month with auto renew. Nope, that wasn't on the menu, so I let it go.

A month after subscribing to Pandora for $56.00/year XM decided to offer me a spectacular deal of $5.00/month for the truck radio and the app.

I really wonder what their marketing people are thinking.

 

They sent me the same, but if i forget to cancel it after the 3 months it will continue, and i will be billed for it. I guess their hoping many will forget when the 3 months are done.

 

They are a pain in the ass. You call because it's about to expire and you have to play the hour game to get the good price.

Recently I changed the subscription from my truck to my car. Took 5 minutes. The tried to charge my 15 dollars for it. I said cancel both car subscriptions. They couldn't drop that fee fast enough. Lol.

 

I get e-mails all the time for the Tacoma and the Rubicon always $5.00 a month. Special offer it says and I just tell them I didn't want the auto renew and they still give me the price. Now I've got over 3k of my favorites on a USB drive. Haven't had xm in almost a year.

 

XM can suck it. Not playing the call and haggle game with anyone for service anymore, I have better things to do with my time. Only things I pay for today are fios, youtube, netflix, and audible. And in the truck it's usually youtube (for music) and audible. I get my unlimited data's worth on Visible wireless lol

 

Interesting, I like about 15 channels and to me $5 a month would be responsible. It's like cable I have not cut the cable yet because I have not found an antenna that works in our area. When I do it's gone,

 

Sirius pretty much sucks. Oh well, the actual radio is good with good channels, but dealing with their billing is insane. And that $5 a month offer is basically their standard "cheapest" offer. I don't think anybody pays the MSRP or suggested retail pricing for Sirius anymore. And those offers for 3 free months with no credit card needed, well, I would like to hear from anyone who has taken them up on it and it just ended at the end of the 90 days with nothing heard from Sirius. If that were to happen, then I would do that all the time, as they do offer it seemingly all the time. While I must admit that two years ago, when I drove across the country, I used Sirius for a 30day thing where they charged me only $1 for the 30 days, just enough time for my roundtrip! It was really good to be able to listen to a channel without going "out of range" as happens with AM-FM. So I liked that. I currently do not use Sirius and it does not work in my truck, only the continuous ads if I tune it in, asking you to subscribe to Sirius. I only leave it in for the rare occasion when I decide to do another cross country trip. Then, I might swing some kind of promotion with them, just so I could use it for the trip.

 

I love sirius, had it free for over 2 years for whatever reason.

 

You can get it for $6 a month for the online listening + truck. And you don't have to call them anymore, they have a live chat that I have been using every year to keep my $6 monthly price, just FYI.

 

Visible is the shit

 

In my experience the best way to get their best offer, with the least amount of hassle, is to cancel the service before it auto renews at their regular rate. Don’t try to negotiate, simply cancel and be willing to live without it for a bit. The low rate offers will eventually come in. In their view, anything is better than nothing but they’ll try to hook you full price first.

 

I really like XM, but the sound quality isn't the best. Sounds hollow.... If it was only $5, I wouldn't mind, but they want $15 a month here in Canada

 

You can just sign up for the trial every 3 months. I have been doing it for 2 years with the same email and haven’t payed a penny lol

 

https://www.antennaweb.org/?msclkid=884657846e9111163834360c20d4ad3f

From there search Amazon for a Yagi TV antenna. Stick it on the roof pointed where antenna web says and you are golden.

A cheap Yagi will get you more then those “HD” antennas. I’m running a $30 Yagi and it works great, you can try the more expensive ones but for the $30 try the cheap ones first, most don’t need the bigger ones.

 

A co-worker of mine told me about haggling them on price as it worked for him and I. I called them and they offered me service initially at $15/month and I declined they then offered it to me at $10/month and I declined that as well then moments later an offered it to me at $6 and some change/month and I agreed to that. Been paying for the service for the last 3 years at that price and to me that is worth it. Every year they have tried to increase the price and every time I state it is not worth anymore to me than $6/month so I'll just cancel and for the last three years they have reinstated the $6/month price. Not sure for everyone else but the haggling has certainly worked for me and one of my co-workers, this also was 3 years ago maybe they may not be as lenient anymore.

 

My wife’s Jeep does this maybe every other year. It’s nice to have, but not something she wants enough to pay a fee for.

I have my BIL’a account on my truck and while I do use it, it isn’t anything I’d pay for. I think I’d feel different if the Tacoma had the antenna that did the full range since a lot of channels I like are in the 300s and don’t come in with the stock Tacoma stereo. Madison makes listening to Channels 34 and 36 painful, which is super frustrating because it’s during my commute.

 

I'm on liveX live (formerly slacker).

It can be tuned to play the more obscure music compared to Pandora, for those that don't want to hear the hits over and over.

5 bucks for ad-free, 10 bucks to cache stations offline for those areas with no signal. Bonus- Entune has it in it's app suite, which is cool.

It's pricey, but I'll take it over XM any day.

 

I like Sirius. If you agree to a year plan they send you a reminder before renewal. If you have any plan less than a year no reminder will be sent. I put in the expiration date about a week before into google calendar. If you forget to call them to get a reasonable price before the expiration date and they charge your cc at a ridiculous price you can call them. When I have forgotten I call and ask for the cancellation department they will give you the reduced price and prorate so you’re not stuck with the high price if it renews and you didn’t call them. Before I put the reminder in my calendar and I had less than a year‘s plan the only way I noticed it renewed I would see large charge on my American Express card.

 

I have had XM since 2006 in several vehicles. I finally decided to quit. With the cost of everything I buy going up it's time to cut out a few more frills out. I found the easiest way to cancel was to do it in chat. They did offer me 5.99 plus taxes are royalty fees for the mostly music deal. i still said no thanks. I been using FM, my mp3 collection on my phone and Amazon prime while I still have that and don't really miss XM and it's been a week so far.
Kinda the same as last spring when I canceled cable tv. Once I got some free streaming apps and my outdoor antenna set up good it wasn't missed.
If anyone is looking for advice on Tv antennas I
can help up with some sources of information like
Rabbitears.info
Antennaweb.org - though they tend to underestimate signal strength
https://www.solidsignal.com/
Channelmaster.com
Antennasdirect.com
Wineguard.com

I even know a person that does a personalized antenna recommendation service based on your location.
https://www.antennamanpa.com/index.html
And his YouTube channel
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCySjheRcVJ21B3Jo3HcWMTQ

 

I have a new Tacoma about a week now. I just received an email saying "do not ignore" action required. They want me to confirm my email address. I will not be using the truck until Feb when of course the initial 3 months would expire. Is there a way I can delay the 3 months of free service until after storing the truck and start needing service in Feb. So far is has been nice to have music in the boondocks of Wyoming. ps I just discovered that Dubois is the most remote city in the lower 48.