I've been an avid reader of Consumer Reports for several decades. I don't recall them ever printing the words "Nanny State", nor do I ever recall them ever printing anything vaguely resembling the phrase that you pretty much attributed to them: "government knows far better how to take care of you than you could possibly know yourself."
Perhaps it would be best if we discuss Radar/Lidar detectors in this forum, not personal politics.
Of course you haven't seen CR use the phrase 'nanny state'. They would find the term offensive. But it accurately describes the view of some that the government has the right, nay the responsibility, to protect its citizens from each other down to the most miniscule level. Rediculously low speed limits and the revenue-generating enforcement of them is a characteristic of our nanny state. Those who relentlessly advocate more and more laws and regulation can be said to believe that "government knows far better how to take care of you than you could possibly know yourself."
The opposite view is best summed up by the foreign phrases 'caveat emptor' (let the buyer beware) and 'laissez faire' (let the market decide), where the government is there to protect its citizens from foreign invaders and criminals, but legal private enterprise should be allowed to work itself out.
I didn't mean to pull us off topic but I was perplexed about how the original poster could infer political motives behind reviewing or not reviewing radar detectors. I am still baffled!
Thanks to those who responded. In any case, back to radar/lidar detectors!
I think the Scottc8 hit my view right on the head about Consumers Reports. I am a loyal subscriber to CR for many years, but I do bite my lip when I read their editorial section. CR tends to get really whiny about needing more Federal government oversight of everything -- healthcare, food supplements and, in a recent issue, cell phones!
CR is obviously staffed by old-school quasi-socialists who think that government intervention is the answer to every little problem (perhaps because non-profits are always looking for gov't grants?). People with this mindset would never consider testing something that might hinder the regulators -- because in their view gov't regulation is ALWAYS good for you.
Be that as it may, I do appreciate the fact that CR doesn't take advertising money in from anyone and buys their product samples for testing. Too bad it wont happen with radar detectors.
Back on topic, I would take a Valentine 1 over my Escort 8500 in a heartbeat if they were the same price. Sensitivity is probably equal but those arrows would be cool. But a $150 to $200 difference after getting the remote V1 module just doesn't make the 'cool' factor worth it.
Intresting comments regarding the arrows on the V1 being useful. Unfortunately, I've never had or know anyone with a V1 to see how useful they are. I have a Passport 8500, and I have found their "expert" display, which shows number of radar sources and relative strength by band, to be very useful. I'm sure the arrows can be interpreted to give you pretty much the same info, however on my usual commute knowing how many K band sources are out there is important. I go by a shopping center area, and there are always 3 strong X band sources and at least 2 weaker K band sources, since they apparently have started letting door sensors and such use K band. One day I saw 3 K band sources, slowed, and saw a police car sitting off the side of the road running radar.
That said, my Passport has some flaws that I'm wondering if they are common or not. If you expose the unit to engine starts and stops, and sitting with power on and no engine running, low voltage conditions can cause the s/w to loop or get into some kind of sneak path and it starts acting very weird, constant alarms, lots of falsing, an alarm whether or not anything is on the display that you can't mute or turn off. If you go through the "reboot" process (turn the unit on while holding all 3 buttons down, the two on top and the mute on the front, the unit will read the s/w build number and reset).
Guess it's time to break down and get off my tail and hardwire it in to a switched power line.
Hawaii just put in place a photo-laser speed enforcement system this month that I suspect no detector will be useful against. They have contracted with a private company to dispense speeding tickets using the new system.
Thankfully many states in the continental US have banned photo radar and thus probably this system. I know my detector works well against photo radar, but am pretty sure a laser-based system would be deadly.
Piece of cake in the LS. Plenty of power at the fuse box behind the passenger side kick panel, the A pillar trim pops off & on easily, and it's easy to sneak wire under the headliner. I stick the V1 right under the rear view mirror, and there's a little cutout right there in the headliner for the wire to the moisture sensor.
I'm a coward when it comes to tearing into the interior of a nice car, but it was quick & easy.
I'm running the Passport 8500 from the center- console outlet of my new 2002 Explorer XLT, and fortunately, I've not yet encountered any of the symptoms you describe. In fact, thus far my 8500 has been a real gem and a pleasure to have on-board. (As it turns out, my truck's center-console electrical plug places the "mute" button of the 8500's Smart Cord just below my right hand when my right arm is resting on the center arm-rest, and I can effortlessly extend a finger and press this "mute" button as needed. Very sweet, indeed).
The DC police have a radar not laser based system like that in Hawaii. The DC police set it for 2-3 MPH over the posted limit. The DC police chief brags about how much money per month he is getting from the tickets. I noticed that the Hawaii system uses a van with a digital camera. If you go back several posts I now know what I saw in a van was the digital camera.
In my neck of the woods, the state troopers drive around with the radar on most of the time. Today I passed one who was sitting in line waiting at a stop sign, perpendicular to my direction of travel. The V1 went off less than a mile from him, showed him ahead, then of course to the side as I passed by, then behind, and it went silent pretty quickly. Accoding to the Valentine user's manual, speed radar doesn't work from the side. Can they easily turn their radar to track cars going perpendicular to their direction? This guy apparently didn't, and I wasn't going fast enough to worry anyway, but it made me curious.
Radar can detect your speed even though the radar is perpendicular to you. The radar signal can be bounced off the pavement in front of or behind your car. The radar beam then reflects off the front or rear of your car from the pavement, causing the doppler shift that the radar uses to gauge speed. This doppler shifted beam bounces off your car. Some of the energy hits the pavement and bounces to the detector perpendicular to your direction of travel. The fact that your detector alerted indicates that a radar beam had hit you.
Car&Driver just did a full-on test of all the radar detectors, and the Valentine scored 97 out of a possible 100. Unlike Escort/Passport, when Valentine upgrades the internals, they will upgrade your existing detector. I've had one for about 4 years and can attest to the usefulness of the arrow. The V1 picked off a radar unit in an unmarked car approaching from the rear while there were 2 other cops sitting over a rise up ahead. Without the arrow, I never would have known it was coming from behind.
As for radar, C&D explained about some really new units that will get you from any direction. It's an interesting read.
I've always read and heard that radar is decreasingly accurate and reliable as the angle increases from head-on or straight-away. I sort of understand your explanation of radar picking up speed from a perpendicular angle, pat, but that doesn't mesh with my understanding of the doppler effect.
Radar measures the doppler shift of the radar frequency, which is based on the speed of something approaching or going away from the radar gun. A car moving perpendicular will not cause the frequency to shift very much at all to the radar gun.
I think Scott's experience was just a cop who left his radar gun on. That used to happen all the time, though much less so now. Several years ago, most police had radar guns that were not instant-on, and they left them spewing radar all the time. When they really wanted to nab someone, they would clear the display and point it up the road.
I own an old Bel 745stiPlus which continues to keep me out of jams here in South Florida. Law enforcement here keeps their radar on which sets all of ours off which makes everyone slow down. Also, alot of departments are going strictly with LASER (which is REALLY annoying). The state uses VASCAR (from overhead aircraft)in addition to everything else.
Too bad the V1 is $300+. If it were 100 less they'd sell twice as many.
The explanation for "perpendicular" radar readings is essentially correct and conforms to your understanding of the Doppler effect.
Some of the radar waves reflected off the car, say from the front end, is directed into the forward directions. Because the vehicle is moving, that radiation is Doppler shifted. Then, if some of the Doppler shifted radiation gets reflected a second time, for example, from the pavement, the radar device will register something moving.
This will pretty much coincide with the vehicle's speed. You are correct in saying that it is less reliable than a reading coming off a vehicle directly approaching or receeding.
for the responses & interesting discussion. This one really got my attention because the V1 usually gives me a couple miles' worth of warning if radar is coming toward me from ahead, & it was a surprise to be so close before it lit up.
Many years ago, I bought a radar gun that was calibrated in 1 /10 's of a MPH for a project I was working on. The instruction manual described exactly how to aim in front of or to the rear of a car when you were perpendicular to the vehicle. I checked it out. It did work. Interesting that most of the manual described how to be a witness against anyone caught speeding. It had refernces to legal cases that established that radar was accurate and legally admissible as evidence etc. The rest of the manual described how to actually use it. It had a pistol type site on it. I could get car speeds so far away that I had to line up on them with the site, since the car was such a small object. I estimated that the car was about a 1/2 mile away.
Great information, pat. I didn't know that a radar gun could be used in such a way.
How reliable (free of erroneous readings) and accurate was the radar gun? Did you have any obviously wrong readings, and did it return consistent readings on several cars going the same speed?
I know I've passed some of those signs equipped with radar (the ones that say "Slow Down! You are going ___ MPH. The speed limit is 45 MPH.) and got absolutely wrong readings. One time I was in a whole line of cars going about 10 mph and the sign flashed that we were going something like 40 mph.
The radar gun was very accurate. It seemed to be right on as to what the speed seemed, even perpendicular to the car. It gave me a healthy respect for what a radar gun could do
I would take *any* review of radar detectors with a grain of salt. Usually there are some conflicts of interest involved that the writers don't disclose. Car&Driver takes loads of ad $ from Valentine and C&D's chief editor Patrick Bedard is supposed to be on Valentines payroll as a 'consultant'. The huge differential in rating makes me wonder.
Other tests have the V1 and Passport 8500 neck and neck (Radar Test, Speedzones), but some have argued about the bias of those testers.
I do have an 8500 and think it is sweet, but I wouldn't mind trying out a V1 if I had the money. I've owned 3 other detectors and think both kick sand in the face of the low-end detectors that are out there.
The V1 is the only detector I've ever owned, so I'm not qualified to offer comparative opinions. From what I've read it seems like, if you've used the V1 and become accustomed to the directional arrows, you don't want anything else. OTOH, if you never have, you don't miss it a bit. I have no regrets, but "when in doubt, save the $100" might be good advice.
Hi All, after reading all the compairsons, I have decided that Passport 8500 was probably the best one within my budget. Yeap, ordered mine and got it last week. After a week of city/highway use, I found a BIG problem with my Passport 8500 (okay, it could be my fault. That's what I'm trying to figure out here).
My 8500 gives false "laser" warnings ALL THE TIME!! No matter what mode I use (auto, city, or highway), the total number of laser warning is (((MORE)))) and all other bands combine!! When I am driving in city, laser warning beeps more than once in a minute. When I took a long drive yesterday from Dallas to Houston, a 4 hr interstate trip, laser warning beeped about once every 3-4 minutes.
I thought it could be some interference coming from my car, but it was doing the same thing when I tried this Passport 8500 in my parents' car.
What do you guys think? Is this a common symptom for high-end radar detectors to be so sensitive? I always thought that X band was the only one would confuse detectors, not laser. Is my detector functioning properly, or did I receive a defective detector?
I think you have a defective unit. I just did the Dallas/Houston run myself on Wednesday and Friday and received NO Laser alerts from my Valentine One!
I have read that electrical voltage variations can cause false alerts.
If you had a recurring problem in two different vehicles I would think the unit is defective.
I also think your unit is defective. If you haven't done so yet, call up Cincinnati Microwave and see what they have to say. I think you need a new unit.
I have two 8500's and a V1. The only time the 8500 has gone off on Laser is when I was get shot by Laser. The V1 on the other hand, can once in a great while give a false Laser alarm when you get close to very high RF fields like Airports. I say get a new detector.
Thanks , Jeff, Timadams, and Srhawkins! I just called the customer service. They said that a replacement will be sent to me once I return the defective unit back to the warehouse. I guess it's going to take at least 2 weeks or so before I get another one. Good thing is that they are sending me a new detector, not trying to fix the defective one
for a cross ship. If they are willing to send a replacement unit now, I'm willing to give them my CC# incase they don't get the defective unit. Then send UPS/Fedex or registered mail with return receipt so you can demonstrate they have it.
Shouldn't cost them anymore and you get the replacement quicker.
Valentine just revised their unit within the past year. Made it a little thinner and lighter and supposedly upgraded the Ka range, which was a little weak.
The basic appearance of the unit didn't change though.
If I have to, I'll end up buying the V1. But still looking in the under 200 area for a good radar detector. A friend of mine swears by her BEL 936...does anyone have any experience with this unit?
GOT A $155 FINE FROM A LASER GOING OVER THE CLEARWATER CAUSEWAY (RT 60) 69 IN A 50, WAS TOLD NO WAQY I COULD AVOID IT , MY RADAR DETECTOR WAS TOO SLOW, IT WAS AN ESCORT SOLO 5, ARE THERE ANY BETTER DETECTORS THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED. THE COP[ LET ME POINT THE TRIGGER TO SHOW ME HOW TO WORK IT.
From my understanding, any laser/radar detector will be ineffective if you are zapped by a laser gun. Your speed will be captured by the time your detector goes off if your car is the one targeted. The only advantage a laser detector gives you is if it detects some stray light as the cop zaps a car in front of you, perhaps giving you some time to slow down.
If you were the only car that was available to illuminate, then the unit you have functioned as designed. The advantage comes if another car was illuminated first, then your unit should have gone off.
In addition to my Valentine 1, I keep an Escort Solo 5 in my wife's car, instead of switching the V1 between vehicles when we travel in hers.
The Solo 5 is very convenient, as it works on four AA batteries and doesn't need to get plugged in. The only minor problem with it is that it's virtually useless for detection beyond a quarter of a mile from a RADAR or LIDAR gun.
I had ordered a Valentine a year or so ago got it to replace my Escort 7500. Well I got 3 tickets with the V1 versus none with the 7500. The range on the v1 seemed terrible and the falsing seemed constant. I now have an 8500 and there is no comparison. I love the AUTO mode on both the 85 and 7500. I my opinion the best radar detector out there. I worked for a store which sold Bel as well which also offers a very good product. I reccommend staying away from Whistler or Cobra, Uniden and all the other cheap brands. They are worthless even in their more expensive models. Spend the extra money get the 8500 and don't get those high cost tickets. I alos sold k40 which is only good in their very high price installed detector
Did it ever occur to you that the circumstances behind your tickets might have made them inevitable no matter what detector you had at the time, and that the tickets avoided with one might have also been avoided by the other? Yours is hardly a legitimate comparison test of these detectors.
When I had my V1 alongside an Escort 8500 in various modes, the 8500 solidly lost as far as detection went. The 8500 is better in the noises it makes and falsing, and I like its dot matrix display. The V1's directional arrows are extremely useful.
I agree that the V1 makes a lot of X-band noise. I wish I could make it shut up about X bogeys until they are 1/2 or more up the strength meter.
I have heard that the Auto mode on the 8500 is not a good one to use.
"I hate the V1" What a laugh! This had to be written by a 16 year old. Hey deplorableone, do you really think your 3 tix are the V1's fault? Could it be that you thought your were invincible and drove extra fast? Or maybe the unit was defective. Have you read all the reviews? The V1 is very highly rated. So is the 8500. Neither one is going to make you invisible. Get a clue!
After reading all the helpful posts in this forum and researching various comparison tests, decided to purchase a Passport 8500. It was a close call. Both units are excellent. Probably would have bought the Valentine if it were $100 less. Thanks to all of you for your postings.
In the 22 years I have been driving (and I drive alot), I have NEVER been pulled over and ticketed for speeding. However my recent purchase of a sports sedan coupled with my eagerness to break in the 260 hp engine; I am tempting fate.
I checked the five western suburban Chicago stores that sell the Passport's, and they were all sold out.... Called Escort direct, and they will have mine shipped to the house in 2 days delivery fees waived...What great customer service!.
My theory on shortage: Easter weekend and spring break, everyone on the road. I bet there will be alot of Passports returned after the holiday; Travelers getting their "free" usage. Can't wait to see how many cops are stationed alongside the expressway between here and Detroit!.
I've been running the 8500 in my new V8 Explorer XLT for ~4 months now, and I'm quite impressed with this detector. I've not gotten any tickets, but then again, I don't view the detector as being an invitation to drive recklessly or to speed excessively. Rather, I view the detector as being most helpful in possibly knowing when it's advisable to slow down with respect to the flow of SURROUNDING traffic on a highway. For example, I recently drove ~3400 miles on a vacation to Florida (mostly along the I-75 corridor); quite frequently, traffic was flowing at ~75-88 MPH, but especially when I received a K-band, Ka-band, or laser alert, I slowed down with respect to the rest of the "pack". One should take any K, Ka, or laser alert seriously until proven otherwise, and with the advent of these deadly instant-on and same-lane guns, if you're out there flying past everyone else, you're chances of getting pinched are high. Also, keep in mind that K, Ka, and laser do not seem to travel far, and this makes it less likely that the stray signals from these guns will be detected from afar.
In my opinion, a fine detector is in some respects little more than a source of fascination and amusement on the road that can help to stave off boredom, as well as a potentially useful tool. It's one thing to speed along at the same rate as the flow of traffic around you, but if you're out there on unpopulated stretches of road, screaming along, these instant-on guns will likely nail you, and in this type of situation the only thing your detector may tell you is that you've just been artfully pinched, so you can have your license, registration, and credit card ready to hand-over if the cop decides to stop you.
Not sure why 'ocuihs' is posting what is basically advertising for the V1 here. No expression of opinion or anything. This is not much better than spam imo.
I also don't understand why people feel the need to trash a detector to make theirs look good -- in the last case the person who was trashing the V1. I would say the V1 and the 8500 are great detectors -- it would have been hard for me to choose between the two if they were the same price because their performance is so similar.
I've owned both Passport and the V1. The Passport got stolen so I replaced it with the V1. The V1 wins hands down on the twisty, hilly roads here in New England. Although the V1 is $100 more, when it comes time for a manufacturer to upgrade the technology, Passport doesn't update your detector. They want you to buy a new one, for full price. It's been that way since Cincinnati Microwave went down.
I had an old V1, and when I called them about upgrading it because of the new technology they have, they told me to send it in and they'd send me a brand new one in the box. And, they credited $125 off the purchase price for the old unit, too. It's a better deal, since it's smaller and more user-friendly.
Well, I'm a little disappointed. I thought the upgrade was free. I just checked my v1 serial number and discovered that I could get an upgraded version but it will cost me $189.00!!! That would make my total v1 investment nearly $600.00!!! Huh, let me think about that.
Your total V1 investment is nearly $600? Using that logic my current car investment is astronomical. I think you have to consider whether it is time for you to buy another radar detector or not. If it is time, you can buy a NEW V1 for 189 or a new passport for whatever they charge. Looking at it the way you are doesn't make sense to me. They did tell you when you checked your serial number out that they do NOT reccomend trading in your unit as it is still perfectly serviceable, didn't they? That is what they told me, but I wanted the smaller case so it would fit in my car better so I was glad to get a $200 discount on a new V1, which is exactly what you end up with.
Comments
I've been an avid reader of Consumer Reports for several decades. I don't recall them ever printing the words "Nanny State", nor do I ever recall them ever printing anything vaguely resembling the phrase that you pretty much attributed to them: "government knows far better how to take care of you than you could possibly know yourself."
Perhaps it would be best if we discuss Radar/Lidar detectors in this forum, not personal politics.
scotian: I meant to convey my impression of Consumer Reports' attitude about speed laws, not my own. Also being a smart aleck.:)
The opposite view is best summed up by the foreign phrases 'caveat emptor' (let the buyer beware) and 'laissez faire' (let the market decide), where the government is there to protect its citizens from foreign invaders and criminals, but legal private enterprise should be allowed to work itself out.
Thanks to those who responded. In any case, back to radar/lidar detectors!
tidester
Host
Aftermarket & Accessories
CR is obviously staffed by old-school quasi-socialists who think that government intervention is the answer to every little problem (perhaps because non-profits are always looking for gov't grants?). People with this mindset would never consider testing something that might hinder the regulators -- because in their view gov't regulation is ALWAYS good for you.
Be that as it may, I do appreciate the fact that CR doesn't take advertising money in from anyone and buys their product samples for testing. Too bad it wont happen with radar detectors.
Back on topic, I would take a Valentine 1 over my Escort 8500 in a heartbeat if they were the same price. Sensitivity is probably equal but those arrows would be cool. But a $150 to $200 difference after getting the remote V1 module just doesn't make the 'cool' factor worth it.
jb
That said, my Passport has some flaws that I'm wondering if they are common or not. If you expose the unit to engine starts and stops, and sitting with power on and no engine running, low voltage conditions can cause the s/w to loop or get into some kind of sneak path and it starts acting very weird, constant alarms, lots of falsing, an alarm whether or not anything is on the display that you can't mute or turn off. If you go through the "reboot" process (turn the unit on while holding all 3 buttons down, the two on top and the mute on the front, the unit will read the s/w build number and reset).
Guess it's time to break down and get off my tail and hardwire it in to a switched power line.
Thankfully many states in the continental US have banned photo radar and thus probably this system. I know my detector works well against photo radar, but am pretty sure a laser-based system would be deadly.
For more details go to www.honoluluadvertiser.com
jb
I'm a coward when it comes to tearing into the interior of a nice car, but it was quick & easy.
I noticed that the Hawaii system uses a van with a digital camera. If you go back several posts I now know what I saw in a van was the digital camera.
The fact that your detector alerted indicates that a radar beam had hit you.
As for radar, C&D explained about some really new units that will get you from any direction. It's an interesting read.
Radar measures the doppler shift of the radar frequency, which is based on the speed of something approaching or going away from the radar gun. A car moving perpendicular will not cause the frequency to shift very much at all to the radar gun.
I think Scott's experience was just a cop who left his radar gun on. That used to happen all the time, though much less so now. Several years ago, most police had radar guns that were not instant-on, and they left them spewing radar all the time. When they really wanted to nab someone, they would clear the display and point it up the road.
Too bad the V1 is $300+. If it were 100 less they'd sell twice as many.
Some of the radar waves reflected off the car, say from the front end, is directed into the forward directions. Because the vehicle is moving, that radiation is Doppler shifted. Then, if some of the Doppler shifted radiation gets reflected a second time, for example, from the pavement, the radar device will register something moving.
This will pretty much coincide with the vehicle's speed. You are correct in saying that it is less reliable than a reading coming off a vehicle directly approaching or receeding.
tidester
Host
Aftermarker & Accessories
Interesting that most of the manual described how to be a witness against anyone caught speeding. It had refernces to legal cases that established that radar was accurate and legally admissible as evidence etc. The rest of the manual described how to actually use it.
It had a pistol type site on it. I could get car speeds so far away that I had to line up on them with the site, since the car was such a small object. I estimated that the car was about a 1/2 mile away.
How reliable (free of erroneous readings) and accurate was the radar gun? Did you have any obviously wrong readings, and did it return consistent readings on several cars going the same speed?
I know I've passed some of those signs equipped with radar (the ones that say "Slow Down! You are going ___ MPH. The speed limit is 45 MPH.) and got absolutely wrong readings. One time I was in a whole line of cars going about 10 mph and the sign flashed that we were going something like 40 mph.
Other tests have the V1 and Passport 8500 neck and neck (Radar Test, Speedzones), but some have argued about the bias of those testers.
I do have an 8500 and think it is sweet, but I wouldn't mind trying out a V1 if I had the money. I've owned 3 other detectors and think both kick sand in the face of the low-end detectors that are out there.
jb
My 8500 gives false "laser" warnings ALL THE TIME!! No matter what mode I use (auto, city, or highway), the total number of laser warning is (((MORE)))) and all other bands combine!! When I am driving in city, laser warning beeps more than once in a minute. When I took a long drive yesterday from Dallas to Houston, a 4 hr interstate trip, laser warning beeped about once every 3-4 minutes.
I thought it could be some interference coming from my car, but it was doing the same thing when I tried this Passport 8500 in my parents' car.
What do you guys think? Is this a common symptom for high-end radar detectors to be so sensitive? I always thought that X band was the only one would confuse detectors, not laser. Is my detector functioning properly, or did I receive a defective detector?
I think you have a defective unit. I just did the Dallas/Houston run myself on Wednesday and Friday and received NO Laser alerts from my Valentine One!
I have read that electrical voltage variations can cause false alerts.
If you had a recurring problem in two different vehicles I would think the unit is defective.
Jeff
Shouldn't cost them anymore and you get the replacement quicker.
TB
Click on buttons on the left.
The basic appearance of the unit didn't change though.
jb
Thanks!!
If you were the only car that was available to illuminate, then the unit you have functioned as designed. The advantage comes if another car was illuminated first, then your unit should have gone off.
In addition to my Valentine 1, I keep an Escort Solo 5 in my wife's car, instead of switching the V1 between vehicles when we travel in hers.
The Solo 5 is very convenient, as it works on four AA batteries and doesn't need to get plugged in. The only minor problem with it is that it's virtually useless for detection beyond a quarter of a mile from a RADAR or LIDAR gun.
When I had my V1 alongside an Escort 8500 in various modes, the 8500 solidly lost as far as detection went. The 8500 is better in the noises it makes and falsing, and I like its dot matrix display. The V1's directional arrows are extremely useful.
I agree that the V1 makes a lot of X-band noise. I wish I could make it shut up about X bogeys until they are 1/2 or more up the strength meter.
I have heard that the Auto mode on the 8500 is not a good one to use.
Hey -- Where'd deplorable's last message go?
Steve
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SUVs, Vans and Aftermarket & Accessories Message Boards
In the 22 years I have been driving (and I drive alot), I have NEVER been pulled over and ticketed for speeding. However my recent purchase of a sports sedan coupled with my eagerness to break in the 260 hp engine; I am tempting fate.
I checked the five western suburban Chicago stores that sell the Passport's, and they were all sold out.... Called Escort direct, and they will have mine shipped to the house in 2 days delivery fees waived...What great customer service!.
My theory on shortage: Easter weekend and spring break, everyone on the road. I bet there will be alot of Passports returned after the holiday; Travelers getting their "free" usage. Can't wait to see how many cops are stationed alongside the expressway between here and Detroit!.
In my opinion, a fine detector is in some respects little more than a source of fascination and amusement on the road that can help to stave off boredom, as well as a potentially useful tool. It's one thing to speed along at the same rate as the flow of traffic around you, but if you're out there on unpopulated stretches of road, screaming along, these instant-on guns will likely nail you, and in this type of situation the only thing your detector may tell you is that you've just been artfully pinched, so you can have your license, registration, and credit card ready to hand-over if the cop decides to stop you.
I also don't understand why people feel the need to trash a detector to make theirs look good -- in the last case the person who was trashing the V1. I would say the V1 and the 8500 are great detectors -- it would have been hard for me to choose between the two if they were the same price because their performance is so similar.
jb
I had an old V1, and when I called them about upgrading it because of the new technology they have, they told me to send it in and they'd send me a brand new one in the box. And, they credited $125 off the purchase price for the old unit, too. It's a better deal, since it's smaller and more user-friendly.
Just my $.02.
Mike