[motorboat]

FYI

I just got off the phone with OnStar.
They called me to ask me how I liked the OnStar system.

I told him I could not make the phone work. He said that at this time they could NOT give me a phone number because they are using Verizon for their phone service. Where I live there are cell sites for Cingular only.
They hope to have it worked out by this summer so that if I can get ANY signal (not that you can tell), they will be able to give me a number. He also said that if I gave him a different zip code than the one where I live that they might be able to give me a phone number.
So I asked him if the phone would work where I lived THEN & he said that it would. It's just that to give me a number I had to be in an area that had Verizon service, but after that it would work on any of the cell sites no matter whose they were.... He said that he did not know why it works this way it just does...

I asked them how one goes about using the phone in the car to call the office or home & retrieve messages from my answer machine. I told them that I have to punch in a code number.
He told me that I had found a flaw in their system because at this time that could NOT be done, and that they were working on it for the 2005 cars but maybe there would be some update or some kind of keypad to add to the older cars so you could input the code number.

Blaise :seeya

 

[BenC]

You're lucky if you can find a workaround for the lack of phone service. All I'm told in Dallas (for well over a year, with respect to my '03 Avalanche) is that OnStar has not been able to make a deal with a local carrier. You'd think with Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, Cingular, NexTel, etc. all available here, there'd be some way to arrange service. Rather inexplicable lack of service, it seems to me.

 

[Quixotic]

Motorboat,

A very interesting flaw you uncovered. OnStar was not my favorite service before, now I'm a little more disillusioned. My few experiences with OnStar have not been so positive.

One example:

I was looking for a new store that was not in the navigation database, so I called OnStar for directions. After some time, they found the listing. As they guided me toward the store, the static on connection got so bad we couldn't hear each other, then the connection disconnted entirely, leaving me not knowing where my next turn was. Well, we finally found the place, but OnStar didn't help much.

We've had some positive experiences with the concierge service but, generally, it's faster to make dining reservations yourself.