XM Radio & Brake Squeal Thank You!

What I'm seeing is a combination of issues with the Cadillac dealers in my area. It is a mixture of trying to service a car that is very new to them and quite different, and having only one tech trained to work on the XLR's. Mix that with the fact most of them rarely see one in for service and you have a recipe for disaster.

The remedy seems to be their willingness to admit to the issues above and our willingness as owners to work with them as they try and resolve our problems.

If the dealer is a good one, they will meet us half-way and admit to the fact they don't have all the answers.

The less-than-good ones will try and blow smoke up our butts, however that's harder to do when we seem to know more than they do on some issues.

Forums like this provide solid information that equates to power if you use it correctly. My service writer has reached a point now where he asks me "have you read of anyone else having this problem?" before he assigns the job to the one mechanic who works on the XLR's in his shop.

Case in point was the recent swap-out of my daytime running light bulb. His service books tell him to remove the wheel for access, however someone here (sorry, I forgot who) told me their mechanic was able to do the job by simply turning the wheel all the way out to a point where he could do the job. They tried that first and saved themselves from having to lift the car.

XM ENDING (Long One

Well, I've cancelled the XM subscription, now I'm only out the $325.00 for the dealer install/antenae. I'm a real estate lawyer--any of you class-action lawyers out their need a plaintiff? I want my $325.00 back, plus 2 or 3 million from XM & GM for punitive damages, to teach them not to waste our time & money--not to mention that I've altered the appearance of the car, and to remove the antenae, requires body work to the trunk, paintwork, etc.

As much as you guys want to defend and love GM/Cadillac, I've got a different attitude.

I'm a "former middle class, coupon clipping guy, who went way into debt to get thru law school (2nd career) found his niche, and "made it to the big-time."

I DON'T appreciate being lied to, and being forced to return 3 times to get the problem fixed.

The way I see it, GM & Cadillac have 2 strikes against them, lying and wasting my time for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. The lying is forced on the dealer by GM's lack of backing--if GM said "change the guy's rotors and pads" the dealer would've done it, but apparently, GM must torture every owner before allowing the dealer to be paid for fixing the problem.

What a beautiful business model. 1) build an awesome car 2) charge a lot for it 3) market it brilliantly 4) sell it 5) send 2,000 questionnaires to each owner for quality control 6) ignore all customer complaints/issues and questionnaire results 7) bail on customer, hope he'll go away (don't worry, we will--the Ford GT is looking very good to me) 8) finally, if the customer gives you 2 or 3 chances, (maybe) fix the problem we should've gone berserk to fix the first time the customer came in 9) get sued, spend a fortune defending our incompetence and 10) wonder why the cusomers are all gone.

HEY GM, WE ACTUALLY WANT TO BUY AMERICAN. WE ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO HAVE THE BEST CARS IN THE WORLD. WE ACTUALLY WANT TO HELP YOU SELL THEM VIA WORD OF MOUTH. WE ARE YOUR RICHEST, MOST PROFITABLE CUSTOMERS. I KNOW YOU DON'T NEED US RIGHT NOW (THERE ARE PLENTY OF BUYERS) BUT IN 2 YEARS THERE W O N' T B E A N Y, J U S T L I K E A L W A Y S.

I don't work in the auto industry, but as a business-man and attorney who has only bought American cars for 20 years, I have a free suggestion for Cadillac/GM. Since you are going to fix all of the problems anyway, with or without arbitration and lawsuits, why don't you fix them THE FIRST TIME????????????? HOW DOES IT HELP YOU TO HAVE US COME BACK 2 OR 3 TIMES FOR EVERY STUPID THING?????? DO YOUR DEALERS GET MORE MONEY THAT WAY???????? DO YOU???????? WE WANT TO HELP, BUT YOU'RE MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE! I WANT TO LOVE THE ENTIRE XLR EXPERIENCE SO BADLY, I CAN TASTE IT--WHY ARE YOU TORTURING US?? :banghead

OK, we may have gotten a bit off-thread...Let me throw in a few items on XM/Sirius and reception issues...

1) XM and Sirius use very different satellite orbits so comparing one, particularly in the northern areas, against the other isn't really a good comparison. XM uses two (soon three) geostationary satellites. If your XM system picks up either one of the two satellites then you will get a signal. In addition, in most cities there are ground repeaters to allow receivers to still pick-up the signal when the satellites are blocked by tall buildings/parking garages.

2) Sirius uses a system of three satellite that orbit in what is called a modified Molnyia orbit that is geosynchronous but not geostationary. Basically while each satellite takes 24 hours to orbit Earth, the high point is over the northern hemisphere and further away than geosynchronous orbit, while the low point is over the southern hemisphere and closer. This allows the satellite to "hover" over northern points of its orbit longer than the southern points. It also means that the "look angle" is much higher in the northern hemisphere than would normally be for a geostationary satellite. Three satellites are needed to fill-in gaps and normally two satellites are received. The operation of this type of system is much more complex but Sirius also needs less repeaters and should provide a better northern signal.

3) Rain fade is not common with S-band signals used for XM and Sirius - you should not see any difference in rain or sunshine. However, vegitation-fade is common. As the tree leaves get fuller during the summer what could be happening is that the tree leaves are starting to impare the signal. Just because Ku-Band satellite TV fades, doesn't mean that an S-Band signal behaves the same way.

4) Both Sirius and XM use a 10 second buffer to help off-set these effects. So, you have to loose the signal for around 10 seconds prior to not hearing anything. The impressive part is this means that there is 10 seconds of data from all of the channels over one second of reception.

5) XM is partially owned by GM.

If you have no signal or an intermitten signal when out in the open, then you probably have a system problem. If you have an intermitten signal when driving on the Taconic then the trees are probably getting you and the problem will go away once the leaves start falling. Thinking about a good place to test the system in Westchester - the middle of a large park or the Saw Mill area near the Taconic where there are no trees or hills would probably work. In the middle of any large open park with no trees nearby is a good test.

I hope that helps.

On the other front, I have still not had a reoccurence of the break squeal since the tires were rotated. It has been very nice. I'm sure it will return but so far, so good. It has been a welcome rest from the squeal from hell.

Andy