8500 Training

New member.

I just bought a escort 8500 off CList for $50 as sort of a radar use trainer with the intention of upgrading to a state of the art unit down the road.

It has been in use for 3 days now and seems to be doing some odd things. I live in an Atlanta suburb and drive 12 miles to work on 2 lane, 4 lane and interstate roads.

Questions-
1st day I got 2 laser alerts on 4 lane roads usually by traffic signals. The next day I had no warnings at all. Last night coming home @ 8 PM. I had 5+ laser alerts on the intestate and 5+ laser alerts on other roads. There is no way there are this many police lasers...

I have yet to get any K or Ka warning even when I drive past law enforcement vehicles.

Does any of this sound normal?

Put the detector in Highway mode and note if it detects false alerts in town (door openers, etc). These are on X and K radar. If you get no alerts then we will need to service it. Laser false alerting could also be from laser like signals from other vehicles (lane change warning, some LED tail lights, etc). If it laser alerts a lot and for long amounts of time then we will need to service it.

This is an older unit...Got my windshield clip off Amazon and mounted it properly. Yesterday I started car up and got a "Service Required" alert. Later I started car again and alert was gone. How do I deal with the service alert?

Im I supposed to send it some where for service....is it not reading accurately????

THX

A unit that old, sounds like it just needs to be tuned. Last time I checked Escort was charging $99.95 for a 8500 and $79.95 for the X50.

Make sure it has a serial number and PM EscortRadar. If it does not have a serial number on the bottom of the unit you are out of luck on getting it serviced.