Uhh.. ok... I went to the Scion website after reading in my owner's manual that I needed to buy an additional receiver (even though our headunit has a retail value of about $500, which for pioneer, I would expect that the damn receiver be built in for that price)... Am I seeing this correctly??? They want an ADDITIONAL $695 for the receiver!?!? That's absolutely insane. You can buy an XM receiver in stores for about $150, so why in the hell is Toyota charging $695 for theirs?? Does it feed me and do my hair while I'm driving or something?? I'm just wondering what are your thoughts on this, I think it's blatant price gouging, there's no way in hell I'd EVER pay that much for an XM receiver. Scion/Toyota is nuts.

 

Everything from the factory cost an arm and a leg... I was thinking about XM too but from checking on the channel listing there isn't anything I find interesting.

Well, at least the one that comes with the car plays MP3 (at least from what I understand).

All comes down to "LOOKING CLEAN" you can always add it on... have a little extra thingy on your dash... plus the the hassle of wiring it.

But if I was going to pay 600+ I might consider an aftermarket HU.

 

Yup, that's where they get you - on accessories. They made a proprietary Scion/Pioneer IP bus which makes it impossible (for now) to use regular Pioneer XM receivers. Greedy pigs.

 

Well, it better be made of solid gold if it costs $695. Nothing on XM's website is that expensive, not even their 4 year subscription. You could buy a receiver/tuner, and a 4 year subscription from XM and pay less than just the receiver from Toyota.

 

I opted to not get the XM function. Figured I would never use it. *sigh* and then today, O and A (Opie and Anthony) announced their deal with XM.... so now I have until October 4th to get XM. Not a hard thing to save up for, but seems a bit excessive for just ONE radio program. Will it be worth it? Oh hell yeah. WOW baby!

 

Yeah, screw Toyota/Scion on this one, you greedy bastards.

 

the reason why the tC or any other scion for that matter is so cheap is because scion intentionally did that. they knew everyone would buy their accessories, that's why there are so many. they make all of their profit through the accessories. the reason why most of their acessories are overpriced.

oh yea i forgot about installation.

 

Just because they decided to price the car low, doesn't mean that need to make about 400% on an accessory you can buy anywhere else for 25% of what they charge. That's not something I would even begin to consider for $695.

 

you would be suprised how little mark up there is on some of this stuff...

 

do you think there is any "mark up" in the installation of springs for almost $500?

 

Well, the markup is actually over 400% of retail for an XM receiver, so yes, I would be extremely surprised to find out that there is little mark up on these accessories. The bazooka sub is another instance, as is the auto-dimming mirror that DOESNT have a compass (you can buy regular auto dimming mirrors for around $75), and the TRD exhaust, that costs $500 for a muffler and a short piece of pipe.

They are makinf INCREDIBLE amounts of money from anyone that buys these accessories, it's their bread and butter. Your $16,500 car turns out to be $20-25k very quickly.

 

Here is my question about the XM. I know that currently with all XM setups you have to have a seperate tuner to switch the stations. In the TC, will you use the standard head unit to switch channels?

 

funny thing is, a lot of people don't realize this until later.

 

Yes, you can have station presets as well. Also, you can switch programming types from the headunit too. All this for only $700 plus a subscription to XM! Sounds worth it, right?