On Star Questions

[graytoad]

6 months FREE

I am one of those who keep my Onstar going even though I hardly ever use it. I am with you Schooley, I just like the safety of having it, the immediate emergency call service if in a collision. MY parents were killed in a crash many years ago and I often wonder if they had had more immediate care would the results had been different? The only time I ever used it in an emergency is when an old man in a beat up pick up truck with bald tires went in the ditch on a snowy day, I called him a tow truck.

You also get a monthly diagnostics emailed to you as part of the service. It notifies you that you are due for an oil change, air pressure/tire issues, any diagnostic codes etc.

I do however use my hands free phone and although the minutes are farily expensive BUT you never pay long distance or time of day fees and it has never droped a call and it can always get thru unlike my cell phone that often has no service and drops calls.

Anyhow, I just got delivery of my XLR a couple of weeks back and it had some prepaid time on the hand free and the XM service still up, lucky me! So I finally got around to calling Onstar to register the car to me and get a local number etc. It turns out that if you sign up before May 31st you will get 6 months FREE of service, plus they have a 60 minute hands free package for $4-$5.00 (in the US, we Canadians pay $7.00 ). It is all part of that Call In To Win program they are running right now so if any of you don't have the service and want to give it a whirl, now is the time!

 

[jamsto]

Just so there is no misunderstanding, we kept Onstar active in our cars, we just don't buy minutes for the Onstar telephone. I would never give up Onstar emergency service. When Verizon offered the package for cheaper minutes for the telephone, we opted for that. We will still have Onstar service when the Verzion phone package ends, just not the telephone minutes.

 

[Lola's Mom]

After I read these posts, Ray and I were talking to today and I realized that we had never signed up the Escalade when we bought it even though it came with it for a few months ... that is on my to-do list for tomorrow. Thanks for your stories and reminders ....

 

[BusaMan]

Turn-by-Turn Integration

I just enrolled our XLR in the freebie 3-month Onstar trial, and bought the 300 minutes for $9.99 to give that a try, too. Today, I went out to see how the turn-by-turn feature integrates with the Nav system, as it does very well in our SRX. After being bounced from Onstar agent to agent, I first was told that Onstar doesn't support routing for the AFTERMARKET Nav system in my car!!! When I [diplomatically] told the agent that it was installed by the factory in ALL CADILLAC XLRs, she told me that it would not work.

I'm still numb about that. On the SRX, the routing is downloaded to the car (no Nav) and directions are announced over the stereo system when the event is forthcoming. The technical analyst announced that my '06 XLR did not support the downloading of directions, but that they would be willing to read them to me so that I could write them down! Is this information correct? Do any of y'all use Onstar for the turn-by-turn feature?

Tim

 

[SrChief]

I found out the hard way that On-Star will only give Turn by Turn Directions in our cars. I was on a 2500 mile trip and thats all they would give me and I could not enteraddress in because of a defective disk. A couple of times I did get both systems working at the same time--my nav trying to take me back home and Turn by Rurn to my next stop. When this happens a ladies voice will give you one set of directions and a mans voice the other. Makes for an interesting trip until you figure out how to cancel one. Of course calling On-Star for help was a wasted effort. Thats one reason I no longer have On-Star in either of my cars.

 

[BusaMan]

OnStar Integration

SrChief, I got flustered w/ the first set of answers I got from OnStar, so I called them up again yesterday. Got to a tech support lady who explained the problem to me in terms I could [sort of] understand. It seems that turn-by-turn is only supported on '07 and newer XLR models, and that there is no upgrade for those of us w/ earlier versions.

As someone who spent a career in Information Technology, I find this lack of support for the flagship Cadillac technology model disgusting. Backward compatibility is a very important customer service goal, and should have been developed here as an option for prior customers, IMO. I guess Caddy thinks of it as "taillights in the sunset", or "out of sight; out of mind". At least you have the '07, SrChief, so you have it available to you. Turn-by-turn works like a champ in our SRX.

Good thing my Garmin is on a lifetime map upgrade program, so I won't have to suffer a lot. It's more of a let-down for me, than a problem.

Tim

I found out the hard way that On-Star will only give Turn by Turn Directions in our cars. I was on a 2500 mile trip and thats all they would give me and I could not enteraddress in because of a defective disk. A couple of times I did get both systems working at the same time--my nav trying to take me back home and Turn by Rurn to my next stop. When this happens a ladies voice will give you one set of directions and a mans voice the other. Makes for an interesting trip until you figure out how to cancel one. Of course calling On-Star for help was a wasted effort. Thats one reason I no longer have On-Star in either of my cars.

 

[SrChief]

You are correct--Turn by Turn will work in the 2007 cars, however I like to have my route downloaded to the GPS system and this can not be done in the XLR's. In my Buick I can go in to my computer and load my trip info and send it to On_star and have it downloaded--not so in the XLR!!

 

[sschooley]

Do any of y'all use Onstar for the turn-by-turn feature?
Tim

I found out that On-Star will only give Turn by Turn Directions in our cars. A couple of times I did get both systems working at the same time--my nav trying to take me back home and Turn by Rurn to my next stop. When this happens a ladies voice will give you one set of directions and a mans voice the other. Makes for an interesting trip...

Got my XLR back last night and experimented on this On-Star turn by turn vs the built in Nav system issue. I made a fairly lengthy trip ( 2 to 3 hours) and programed both systems to take me to our family farm. Turn by turn programed into the XLR and gave directions with a male voice. The built in Nav also programed without a problem but gave directions in a female voice. Both worked flawlessly and simultaneously.

Since I am accustom to having a woman's voice telling me what to do I was more inclined to follow her commands. Those shrill, panicked female demands to turn around at every missed turn seemed far more natural to me than having some dude calmly saying he would just recalculate and all would work out fine....

My XLR is a 2008. It worked well for me using both systems. No complaints here.

Steve

 

[ChicagoDave]

Since I am accustom to having a woman's voice telling me what to do I was more inclined to follow her commands. Those shrill, panicked female demands to turn around at every missed turn seemed far more natural to me than having some dude calmly saying he would just recalculate and all would work out fine....

Steve

... Glad you made it back to Indiana safely. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow in Ohio.

 

[XLRATING]

Since I am accustom to having a woman's voice telling me what to do I was more inclined to follow her commands.

Steve

I changed my nav in my daily driver to a man's voice so I would hear something otherwise nonexistent: a man finding out directions and providing them correctly to others.

 

[Crimson Pearl]

That reminds me of this joke:

Why did NASA put female astronauts on the shuttle flights?

So if they got lost, they would have someone onboard that would stop and ask for directions!


And, for the other side:

Why did they have to redesign the shuttle when NASA decided to put 2 female astronauts on the shuttle?

Because they had to enlarge the bathroom so they could both go at the same time!

 

[XLRATING]

That reminds me of this joke:

Why did NASA put female astronauts on the shuttle flights?

So if they got lost, they would have someone onboard that would stop and ask for directions!


And, for the other side:

Why did they have to redesign the shuttle when NASA decided to put female astronauts on the shuttle?

Because they had to enlarge the bathroom so they could both go at the same time!

One plus, one minus on these!

You know the group bathroom trips are just for plotting against you guys!

Amy

 

[sschooley]

I changed my nav in my daily driver to a man's voice so I would hear something otherwise nonexistent: a man finding out directions and providing them correctly to others.

You know the group bathroom trips are just for plotting against you guys!

Amy

What happened to sweet, shy, subservient, Amy?....... Now we have another one of those strong minded Cadillac Girls... Oh, no.....

Gee, who saw this coming? HELP......

Steve

 

[XLRATING]

What happened to sweet, shy, subservient, Amy?....... Now we have another one of those strong minded Cadillac Girls... Oh, no.....

Gee, who saw this coming? HELP......

Steve

Tee hee fooled another one! Although I really don't know how on earth I threw off a "subservient" vibe ... I must be even more skilled than I thought!

You are slipping Steve, wouldn't have thought that would get by you - guess it was because I haven't unpacked my "shrill, panicked female demands" yet!

 

[XLRATING]

This thread got way off track (including making up stuff about me), but I do agree with this:

Phone minutes are a good thing but I am a HUGE on-star fan for other reasons.

Any way I advocate spending the money to anyone who remotely has a potential for such help and to all others. It can be a lifesaver!

I agree on spending the $$$ on the emergency service, it's definitely worth it. I was in an accident a few years ago where the air bags deployed. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, but it was nice to have OnStar take care of calling the police for me, and she recited to me my location as she would be giving to the police, to be sure it was correct before passing it along (it was). I can only imagine how critical it might be to have that if I had been hurt -- plus no need to try to find where my cell phone ended up in the car after getting bounced around.

The only confusion happened when I immediately ran to the back of the car to check on my young child after the accident, right before the OnStar lady called into the car. So when I got to my son he asked "who is that lady talking?" I was confused too until I figured out what was going on!

All's well that ends well on that one.

 

[sschooley]

I agree on spending the $$$ on the emergency service, it's definitely worth it. I was in an accident a few years ago where the air bags deployed. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, but it was nice to have OnStar take care of calling the police for me, and she recited to me my location as she would be giving to the police, to be sure it was correct before passing it along (it was). I can only imagine how critical it might be to have that if I had been hurt --

All banter and kidding aside; I completely agree with Amy that OnStar is a must buy item; particularly if you or your passengers are potentially subject to any emergency need for medical help or other assistance. The cost is minimal compared to the benefit it can render on that fateful day the unthinkable happens. I encourage everyone to take Amy's story to heart...
Such tragedies happen everyday.

Steve

 

[BoughtTheXLR]

It's unfortunate that Onstar won't offer an "emergency only" service at low cost. With onstar now available in non-premium cars, they could probably do enough new business to offset the full-service defections to it.