Looking for radar detector suggestions.

My trusty BEL just died and I need a new one for a 1,200 mile road trip next week.

Any suggestions? I can't afford the Valentine right now. I want to stay below $150.00 and go wireless.

Thanks,
Brian

 

Ok, no need to respond.....after reading a few reviews.....I'm probably throwing my money away unless I save up for the Valentine. If the $200-400 detectors get such bad reviews, the economy models must really suck. Thanks, Brian

Car and Driver.com - Radar Detector Reviews

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tampabuc
[B]Ok, no need to respond.....after reading a few reviews.....I'm probably throwing my money away unless I save up for the Valentine.

 

the v1 just paid for itself this morning. i was waiting for everybody to get up and decided to kill some time and go out for a drive. i cruised out about ten miles on the highway and the got off and turned around for the ride back. i just installed my hardtop so i wanted to hear some vtec thru the gears on the way back. coming down my favorite on-ramp i hit 105 as i merged and detected the first chirp on the k band. uh-oh, open field all around me (no obvious source for false signal), better slow down. i started breaking immediately and got a full flash as i hit 8 miles over the limit. without the v1 this could have been a very sad easter indeed.

 

I'd really recommend the Escort Passport 8500. It beats the Valentine in many categories. It's got no arrow, but has fewer false alarms than the Valentine. It also scored a 97 out of 100 in a test and RadarTest.com.

http://www.radartest.com/DS4HEM.html

The cheapest I found it is $250 here:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/cyberautosound...pas85radde.html

It's not wireless, but you can hardwire by this method:
http://www.s2000.org/mods/radar/

 

I've got the Escort / Passport 8500 and it really earns its keep... It's very sensitive, but once you get used to it and program it well, you can use the advanced modes and use the bandwidth... that way you can see if "perculiar" bandwidths are being used in areas known for radar... (near stores with alarms on a certain freq...)

 

Buy the one that keeps popping up in its ad in Popular Mechanics magazines or go to http://www.radartest.com

 

Just installed my Passport 8500 yesterday. Got it for a price I couldn't turn down, $199 with my company discount from Ultimate Electronics. I hardwired it through the A-pillar into the windshield trim and out the front between the windshield next to the mirror. Because the direct wire kit is one wire I bought a female-female connector and 2 inch male-male cable just in case there was a problem and connected to the end before running the cable out to the detector. The remote display is under the steering wheel on the left.

I had it on today and drove out onto a major street and WHAM! The thing starts going off like a MF. I had the expert display on and the thing is flashing Ka - one signal all the way to the top. I was going 15 under the limit as I was just turning onto the street and looked left. Behind the fire station, on the other side of the road (with the medium between us) is a police car, shooting me from the side?! He didn't go anywhere, but I thought it was interesting since wouldn't the side shot give an inaccurate result? Even if I was speeding the trees in the median were a challenge to see through - hindering his "visible tracking requirement." He was aiming at me, I could tell that because he had his arm out the window, but weird... No other signals the rest of the day - my gate did set off the x-band, but not much beeping. It didn't seem like I had a lot of false alarms - I had it in highway mode most of the day.

The 8500 looks good and with the remote display down low makes it easy to monitor.

 

I have the Passport 8500, too. I have driven over 3000 miles in the last 2 weeks and it saved me from a MINIMUM of 8 tickets. It has always done an excellent job of giving me warning of radar (moving and stationary) with few false alarms. (If I turned off X-band, I would have zero false alarms.)

My only ticket since I bought the Passport was a situation that the Valentines in our group also didn't catch: we came over a big hill with no traffic in front of us, right at a cop who was coming at us with radar blasting, and he caught me at the crest before I could slow down. None of the 5 radar detectors in our convoy detected the cop before we hit the top of the hill.

 

Buy the Passport 8500 that everybody keeps talking about. It's smaller and has better technology than the Valentine One