I borrowed one from a friend once (actually he saw my 9500i and said "you gotta try my valintine - escorts suck...).


My impression from using it for a week of driving 128 miles a day?

I liked it - a lot.


I felt like the arrows where a bit gimmicky (I personally am going to slow down even if the radar is coming from behind me ).


...and the 70's styling made me want to put a disco ball in the S too - but I couldn't fit the disco ball.

So I stuck with the 9500i.

 

V1 owners are like a cult, w/ heads stuck in the sand thinking there couldn't possibly be anything better.

I'd had, and loved, a couple of V1's, but since then made the swithc to Escort 8500's. If I was to get a new detector today, it would prob. be a 9500.

My exp. is that both Escort and V1 offer similar range, but V1 has much more false alarms, even w/ X band turned off. Escort is easier to program as well. IMO, a 9500 w/ arrows would be the best of both worlds.

 

how about slow down

 

They are legal in some provinces (Alberta, BC, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia). They are not legal in Ontario, which is where I suspect you're going if you're also going to Michigan.

 

I've had mine for over nine years it would have to say that it is as good as all of the above posts suggest. Plus, mine did fail long after the warranty expired. Per the company's instructions I sent the unit to them for repairs with a check for 40 or 50 bucks. Less than two weeks later my v-1 comes back along with my check and a handwritten note saying the failure was due to an assembly issue and they fixed it for free. Little things like that make me a customer for life.

Can't speak for the new Escorts or other units buy my Valentine has never let me down and undobutably saved me several trips to traffic court.

 

Srsly. I set the cruise control for 78mph and don't think twice about any of it (hills, blind corners, on ramps, rabbits, being alone on the road, helicopters, UFOs, solar flares, false alarms, etc.) I estimate my commute takes 3 minutes longer, but I'm less stressed from not worrying about tickets and less crazed from not driving like a maniac.

For the record I had a V1 and still got 2 tickets with it. After it got stolen, and no longer driving like a dick, I've had none.

 

I disagree, Chris. The 8500/9500 are good detectors and I actually have an 8500 in my Yukon, but the V1 is in my fast car for a reason. It's 15 years old too and still works great. The only issue is one of the strength LED's has finally stopped working.

 

78 mph on the highway, around here, will net you a ticket. I don't drive like a maniac either. I think some people read this as us hauling the mail around town constantly. Hell I don't speed on city streets, ever, never. It's just for highway use. As I stated before it's just a tool, and not a replacement for scanning and/or common sense.

Just a few weeks ago I was headed out of town on a 250 mile drive for a gig. I was driving with a pack of cars, in the fast lane, trying to get through some clogged traffic on the highway. I think the speed limit was 65MPH and I was doing 80. I got a Ka alert, slowed, then right over a hill a trooper was sitting right there. He lit them up, entered the highway, and got behind the guy behind me in the fast lane. That driver started merging over and he kept straight behind me. I then began to merge over and he went straight after the guy in front of me who wasn't running radar and didn't slow down. He got the ticket and I didn't get pulled over.

 

if i get pulled over doing 120 mph, that's my bad.

but many times i got pulled over for... the officer's daily mood, his so-called "trained eye" (when my speedometer, a device purposely built for measuring speed, never went over the indicated speed limit), doing 5 over the limit in slow lane when everyone else was going 10-20 over... etc.

the way i see it,
a radar won't help you go invisible when you are clearly doing something crazy or illegal.
but it can be a great tool to help you get away from making "forced donations" or wasting time in unfair situations.

anyways v1 is the only radar detector i would buy.

 

In NJ it might still get you run over by faster traffic. As far as LEOs go, they generally don't bother for anything less than 80. Either way, I understand the rest of your post and don't disagree.