Which one do you guys recommend/use. I have had the escort 8500 and have gotten away through many speed traps with that. Everyone insists the V1 is the best, but I have never seen one in action so I am not sure. Just wondering if people say that b/c they cost so much. Also has anyone heard of these radar jammers, are they for real and if so they have to be illegal right??

John

 

I love my V1, so much I have one in each car. Customer service is great too, one of mine was about 3 years old, and I noticed that the sensitvity was not as good as my others. I was able to tell from the motion sensors at the local Wal Mart. Anyway I sent it in to Valentine expecting to pay the $45 fee, and low behold they fixed it without a charge. Thanks Mike!

 

Another vote for V1.

 

i have the escort x50, and its saved me 5/6 times. The one time it went off with only 2 bars and I thought it was a shopping mall ... turned out to be cop... sigh...

the other 5 times it was amazing... especially on long road trips... detected the hiding-cops at least a 1/2 mile away...

I almost am considering upgrading to the new escort 9500i which has GPS inbuilt into it so you can program in the shopping mall areas etc so you get 0 false alarms...

 

go with the SR7! Its probably one of the best around!

 

as they say, once you've experienced the arrows, you simply can't go back.

On the road to Mammoth Lakes (here in Calif), there are great stretches of highway from Southern Cal to really let your car stretch its legs. However, all the little towns in between and a few miles before & after are speed traps.

My V1 has saved my butt a number of times. One time, my friend forged ahead (in his M5 / passport equipped) and just as I called him to slow down, he got nabbed. Oh well, it least it wasn't me

 

The Valentine One is the best!!

http://guysoflidar.com/march-2007/ra...ctor-test.html

http://guysoflidar.com/july-2007/off...ctor-test.html

 

There are big problems with the new Escort 9500i and the majority of people are returning them because of less range than the Valentine One and the 8500X50.

They are locking out signals from door openers and the 9500i is not alerting to cops that shoot radar in that area. Owners of the 9500i are also complaining that signals that they lock out are not staying locked out from the day before. They also say that their Sirius/XM radio is cutting out because of the 9500i and its GPS function.

http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=23027
http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=23178
http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=23183
http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=23036
http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=22800
http://www.radardetector.net/viewtop...torder=asc&sta rt=0
http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=22824
http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=22762

http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=22803

Are you satisfied with your 9500i or returning it?Satisfied with 38% [ 21 ]Returning 61% [ 34 ]Total Votes : 55

 

V1 for me.

 

thanks for the info guys, and radarking...thanks for the site links, i never knew such forums existed for radar detectors, it seems like that is a pretty popular site, got some very good info from there.

 

Another vote for V1.

 

Escort SRX. Have one in both my 55 and Carrera. It's somewhat expensive ($1800 installed by specialty installer; Escort does not sell this item for DIY installs). It has 2 laser/radar sensors and "jammers" in the front and 1 in the rear. Freaky thing though: if the radar unit is left on, when the car is started, the Parktronic will spook it into a "recalibration" mode as they both use some similar frequecies (X band??). You can then reset the unit and it recycles itself and is good to go.

 

get a v1, hardwire it, and call it a day..

 

I have both the Valentine 1 and the Passport Solo. Both work equally well in my opinion. If I had to choose I would take the Solo simply because it's cordless. It takes two AA batteries and has a very easy "quick clip" attach and release from the mounting bracket on the windshield (bracket stays on windshield). Everything about it is nice - small, slim, works very well, less expensive than the Valentine, and no cord!

 

Passport Solo is a very good one to go with works very good!!!

 

Exclusively K-40 in every vehicle. Never had a ticket, and I fly. Had the V1 before the arrow thing is stupid!!! boogie alert what the hell do people think? It is a huge distraction while driving, the thing false'd like no other... And when I was doing it for a living, we installed a dozen V1's for the local BMW dealership, and after much complaints we had to swap them for K40's. The Bell and passport are obviously the same thing, nothing wrong with them, except that they threw too many gadgets on the units, like mentioned GPS, it will be refined to being perfect in a few years, not that I would ever trust it. Not to mention the driver interaction required... come on, do you really need to do all that? there is 2 kinds of radar detector users, the kind that fly and hope it works in time, and the kind that have it for show, because they are always the morons in the fast lane doing 2 mph over the speed limit waiting for a tone. Now compound that with cell phone use, GPS Navigation, and the radio... it is bad enough people don't know how to drive, or think that they know how to drive... too many distractions. At least with the K-40 in city mode I can concentrate on the road, as I am cruising.

And not to defend K-40 at all, unless they want to pay me and then i will, but all these radar tests seem to sell radar units besides k-40... hmmm if I were selling products that weren't K-40, I would make sure K-40 wasn't included in anything or bashed... like they do now.

Also, not one of these companies back their units like K-40 does, 3-5 years?!?!? and one year speeding ticket payment, where they pay your ticket if you get one! so no one else out there does that, they do... And i am an old timer, I believe putting your money where your mouth is, I guess so do they.

Further I was up at the local MB dealer, and they have a company on premises that does everything for the dealership, LINK
They do all the celebrities and rich and shameless, from Lebron James to the fortune 500, they use K-40 and nothing else. Also I believe it is in the installation, they have a link to K40 installs, and a test they did with the old diffuser and cops... they go out of their way. Oh yeah the point, I seen the new Laser defuser from K-40, very nice, comes with a leveling unit to ensure it is straight. In fact those yahoos even test drove the vehicle with the leveler in to ensure it was straight at driving speeds... i think they said they got video from the other vehicle

Also the last thing, 2 itty bitty blue LEDs stealthy mount and a hide away speaker... everything is stealth, and cut to length, unlike the SRX which you still have to coil 20 feet of cable if the installer doesn't want to put new phone ends on...

Sorry for the long post, but this is my perspective of RADAR, and I used to have to do every day for years....

 

Great information Thanks!!!

 

I did forget to mention...

with a K-40 and driving...say 3 AM half asleep... and you get a Laser warning...

you will need a change of underwear

 

K40 all the way and i just got word that the new laser defuser is coming out and its going to be the best one ever. If you have any questions about the system let me know.

 

I already messed with the new defuser, it is very compact, and works well with one in the middle of the vehicle (on a S63) because it was tested in a speed trap, and the vehicle was cruising, cop looked at it funny also. So i have some faith in it. There is a pic of it on Lebrons S63 in the maybach section of esoterics website... http://www.esotericsoundandperforman...view_album.php

 

passprt SR7- V1 is the most sensative (I've had them). That's either good or bad depending on what you are looking for. I mostly drivein the city and like being able to turn off X band (V1 does not offer this). I never found the arrows to be too usefull on the V1. With X band off you get far less false alarms.