2008 Highlander Limited Satellite Radio

[AnthonyF]

When I purchased my 2008 Limited the dealer installed a Sirius Satellite unit that was inline with the factory radio. It was installed by an outside vendor. I complained about the reception on tree lined streets of drop outs. The antenna was changed with a slight improvement. It has a roof mounted antenna. Well it recently got on my nerves again and the dealer is now offering to put in a new Toyota Sirius Unit and remove the aftermarket unit. I have no idea what brand the aftermarket unit is or of the quality of it. Does anyone have a factory satellite unit in thiers and how is the reception? I can understand some dropouts when in tunnels, under a large bridge or streets that have heavy tree coverage but this happens on just normal tree lined streets. I have had other cars with sattellite radios and been in other friends cars with Satellite radios and theirs doesn't do it. They offered to do it at their cost for the unit with no labor charges. Thanks for your reply.

[Ralph6410]

My stock antenna on a base AWD (Canadian) is excellent. I experience some dropout when traveling in a certain direction when I have my car top carrier mounted but overall have no complaints. But.. I have not driven much in the vicinity of highrise buildings or under large trees.

[TrailDust]

Just an observation that Sirius utilizes longer wavelength S-band transmissions which should be affected very little by vegetation, but since this seems to be the case I suspect they transmit at relatively low power. Shadowing by trees and blockage by buildings are proportional to the size of the obstacles, as well as the speed of the vehicle. Urban areas will obviously cause the most problems, with signal blockage in urban and residential areas due to shadowing by trees with overhanging foliage being a common problem. I suspect Sirius chose this frequency band as much that is was what the FCC had available, as it was that S-band provided the best coverage for users. In short, line of sight to the satellites versus local terrain and trees is responsible for the variation experienced between users.

[todd_raleigh]

Did they use the stock XM car antenna with a Sirius tuner? My understanding is that an XM antenna will not pick up the Sirius signal quite as strong as the Sirius antenna.

I've had various XM and Sirius radios/antennas for years. Both work(ed) very well. For some reason, one of my Sirius receivers/antennas had reception problems for the life of the radio. Even though I never knew what the root cause of the problem was, I suspect it was a poor quality antenna/radio. Not a great answer for you, but others have experienced that as well. The satellite is fixed in the Earth's orbit, so it probably has nothing to do with time of year, etc.

Nothing is worse than having your sat radio fade in and out. I would take them up on their offer under the condition that if the problem continues after 2 or 4 weeks, they take their equipment back for a full refund.

Good luck.