Are New Car Sensors Ruining Your V1?

[yellowcab]

Upgrading my v1 through valentine one's website has a cost of $289 plus shipping. That is 2/3rds the cost of a new one. For that kind of money why not buy a new one and keep my old one as a backup or sell it on Craigslist? I thought upgrades were supposed to be free. When i bought my v1 upgrades were called firmware updates and i thought they were free. Other members on this forum have mentioned their v1's were upgraded for free. Why is mike valentine giving me such a bad deal on an upgrade proposal?

The upgrade for you will probably result in you getting a new V1. There have been significant hardware upgrades since you purchased your V1.

[Veil Guy]

Upgrading my v1 through valentine one's website has a cost of $289 plus shipping. That is 2/3rds the cost of a new one. For that kind of money why not buy a new one and keep my old one as a backup or sell it on Craigslist? I thought upgrades were supposed to be free. When i bought my v1 upgrades were called firmware updates and i thought they were free. Other members on this forum have mentioned their v1's were upgraded for free. Why is mike valentine giving me such a bad deal on an upgrade proposal?

The upgrade for you will probably result in you getting a new V1. There have been significant hardware upgrades since you purchased your V1.

Exactly. But think of it as a bargain. Roughly half the price of a Redline (or Max) and right up with performance.

VG

[bluesteel]

Don't know your budget, but if you can get a new V1, the Traffic Monitor Filter (TMF) which includes the Junk-K Fighter, is very effective at reducing false alarms. According to others, it does reduce the K-band sensitivity, but I don't notice any loss in performance. As opposed to all the falses, TMF (now TMF2) is well worth the tradeoff.

With all the V1 true believers out there, I bet you could sell your old unit for at least half the cost of a new V1. If you don't know about the V1C option, then check it out and be sure to include an extra $50 or whatever that is now. Using V1C and/or the YaV1 app, brings the V1 back from obsolescence.

[camkuhns]

Pertaining to the thread title.....in a word..NO.

[The Blur]

The problem is, V1 customer service is horrendous in my experience. I would never deal with them again.

[North Alabama]

To the Op: I think you will get sent a new unit if it is very old, a very good deal. When you put the serial number in, it should tell you the info. Revs and some repairs are free. Within one year old performance checks are free also, upgrades have never been free. Did you turn off the POP mode? J arrow down. That will get rid of the semi trucks alarms which are very common and reduce other false alarms You may can program your V1 to some degree on K band. Go to the V1 website and find the programming chart. But if you are like me, I have one MS Trooper with his Enforcer III K band using POP and I/O, thus any filtering is out of the question. Try the V1 at a lower tab volume for weak K band and press mute to keep the volume low, in little l mode, programmed 7 and b arrows down. Did you pay $500? I would be angry too!......

[travel_man]

I sent in one of my V1's to be upgraded recently to deal with the truck / car vehicle false alerts. they were driving me crazy. I use my V1's on my motorcycle and ride about 50,000 miles a year all over the US and Canada competing in long distance endurance events and riding long distance endurance rides like New York to San Francisco in less than 45 hours or riding 6100+ miles in less than 92 hours. My V1 along with a Laser Interceptor really make these rides possible. When I received my updated V1 back a couple week sago I quickly went out and did a 1560 mile ride around Florida in 22 hours with some long breaks and the V1 was back to how I like it. It was very quiet except for the real KA and K radar. I have over 600,000 miles on the V1 and it has been updated twice and still out performs the other radar detectors out there. When I am riding with friends who have other brands and our radar detectors go off they quickly ask me over the CB where is it since I can tell with the V1's arrows.

If the extra noise on the V1 is bothering you send it in and get the upgrade it will make a difference.

Greg Rice
www.gregrice.com

[SpeedingVolvo]

The frequent false alarms caused by new features in new cars (blind spot monitors, adaptive cruise control, etc) is destroying my experience with the V1. On a decently crowded highway it falsest all the time. I put my serial number in V1s website and this is what it says:

V1 Description: Radar circuitry known in-house as V1.8.A-POP2 with Euro Mode.
Comment: This is our latest and best performer on both radar and laser, but more recent software improvements described below add significantly to capability.
Upgrade Recommendation: You already have our best performer on radar and laser, enhanced by crystal-controlled frequency tuning. More recent V1s, however, have additional features. If you drive abroad, you will appreciate our Improved Euro Mode which increases protection on photo radar as it is used in some countries outside the U.S. Extended Serial Protocol (ESP) enables two-way communication with SAVVY and V1connection. You'll also get Traffic Monitor Filter to block false alarms caused by SpeedInfo (www.speedinfo.com), a traffic-flow monitoring system that sends frequent K-band radar bursts into the traffic stream, and Junk-K Fighter to eliminate false alarms caused by lane-change warning systems in some newer cars. If you drive in an area with SpeedInfo, this upgrade will pay off immediately.

I thought this would be fairly cheap to upgrade; but no. The price is $289 + shipping. I know they send you a new detector; but this seems very expensive for a detector that only needs a software upgrade. Considering selling my V1 and buying a new V1; or selling the V1 and getting a bel/escort. It would be nice to have a detector that you could upgrade the software/firmware yourself but I could not find any. Thoughts?

[Veil Guy]

The frequent false alarms caused by new features in new cars (blind spot monitors, adaptive cruise control, etc) is destroying my experience with the V1. On a decently crowded highway it falsest all the time. I put my serial number in V1s website and this is what it says:

V1 Description: Radar circuitry known in-house as V1.8.A-POP2 with Euro Mode.
Comment: This is our latest and best performer on both radar and laser, but more recent software improvements described below add significantly to capability.
Upgrade Recommendation: You already have our best performer on radar and laser, enhanced by crystal-controlled frequency tuning. More recent V1s, however, have additional features. If you drive abroad, you will appreciate our Improved Euro Mode which increases protection on photo radar as it is used in some countries outside the U.S. Extended Serial Protocol (ESP) enables two-way communication with SAVVY and V1connection. You'll also get Traffic Monitor Filter to block false alarms caused by SpeedInfo (www.speedinfo.com), a traffic-flow monitoring system that sends frequent K-band radar bursts into the traffic stream, and Junk-K Fighter to eliminate false alarms caused by lane-change warning systems in some newer cars. If you drive in an area with SpeedInfo, this upgrade will pay off immediately.

I thought this would be fairly cheap to upgrade; but no. The price is $289 + shipping. I know they send you a new detector; but this seems very expensive for a detector that only needs a software upgrade. Considering selling my V1 and buying a new V1; or selling the V1 and getting a bel/escort. It would be nice to have a detector that you could upgrade the software/firmware yourself but I could not find any. Thoughts?

Sounds like you have a pretty old version (relatively) and I believe there are also hardware changes that will be applied, not just firmware. I have always found their pricing policy reasonable, so the choice is yours whether to sell the older unit and purchasing a brand new one; whatever works out more for you.

VG

[grkgeek]

Is anyone else's V1 going off every time you drive next to or pass a new car with blind spot sensors? The new Buick enclaves and now the new Chevy Tahoe are the worst. It hits hard when you pass a new car with sensors just like it would a real threat and it doesn't J out so it is impossible to tell a actual threat from a fake threat now. And if you are behind a new car with sensors it will hit 500 yards away from the back of the new car with sensors. Are we supposed to throw away our $500 V1's now that they are useless? Can we send them in for a firmware update to fix the problem?

I recently sent mine in to get upgraded. Since the upgrade I have noticed a significant decrease in the amount of times my device goes off due to the vehicle next to me and like the original poster there are certain vehicles that still set my V1 off which is annoying. The way I see it there's not really anything I can do about it. I see people on here talking about going in there and customizing your filters but I just haven't found the time to sit down and do that yet.... maybe someday.
In closing its my belief and my experience that upgrading the firmware was worth it. The upgrade has provided me a significant reduction in the frequency that other vehicles set my V1 off. Before the upgrade I was giving serious thought to selling it and just accepting that radar detectors were a thing of the past.
I still don't understand why anybody would want another radar detector that doesn't tell you the direction(s) the signal(s) is/are coming from but that's another story