Sirius vs Guardian vs Uconnect - what's what???

[Kukailimoku]

So I just went over one year in my new 20 Laramie 1500. Did NOT renew the Sirius nor the Guardian.

What exactly did I lose and what comes with the truck (not with Sirius)?

I know I lose the sirius satellite radio, duh.

Seems I also lost the ability to remote start my truck from my phone.

Appears I've also lost the ability to search for new navigation destinations, yet any that I somehow saved are still fine to look up routes for. Weird.... also, the nav still follows where you are (moving map).

I can still bluetooth my phone, did I lose car play and android auto tho?

WTH is the difference between Uconnect and Guardian and Sirius, and where is the line drawn between what comes with the truck (from FCA) and what comes with Sirius?
I thought "UConect" was the hardware & software combo that runs the 12" screen and nav, but it seems "Uconnect" was also some of the remote stuff which appears to be tied to Sirius. Those fukerz...

 

[Dennis Younker]

Sirius is satellite radio. Guardian is some extra features offered by Sirius, including as you found out, remote start. Most of us don't renew that one because it's value vs. cost don't work for us. Uconnect, as you surmise has to do with the 12" screen and nav. It will still work fine despite your deciding not to renew Sirius and Guardian.

You did not lose Carplay nor Android Auto.

 

[BNeal]

I despise this subscription-based BS that regulates hardware/software that each of us paid for regardless of wether or not we choose to pay their ludicrous fees. Like, oh... you want your engine to run after the 60 day trial period?... That will be an extra $150/mo. Arrrrrgh!

 

[yillbs]

I despise this subscription-based BS that regulates hardware/software that each of us paid for regardless of wether or not we choose to pay their ludicrous fees. Like, oh... you want your engine to run after the 60 day trial period?... That will be an extra $150/mo. Arrrrrgh!

I mean, to be fair, they tell you BEFORE you purchase the truck what you get and don't get after the one year trial. The OP in this case just didn't know what he purchase. By him asking " what am I losing " shows he never bothered to learn about it either, so what does it matter what's lost, he didn't care. Ram doesn't hide what you lose, 100% something you wanted to deal with when you purchased the truck.

 

[BNeal]

I mean, to be fair, they tell you BEFORE you purchase the truck what you get and don't get after the one year trial. The OP in this case just didn't know what he purchase. By him asking " what am I losing " shows he never bothered to learn about it either, so what does it matter what's lost, he didn't care. Ram doesn't hide what you lose, 100% something you wanted to deal with when you purchased the truck.

My point is, it's not so much the disclosure thing, it's that they load these vehicles up with expensive tech that you and I pay for when we purchase the vehicle, but in order to use it, we have to subscribe and pay monthly fees. If we never intend to use the service, we just pissed away who knows how much for things we don't want. And if you buy a premium trim, you can't cherry pick what you want and what you don't.

 

[HDGoose]

My point is, it's not so much the disclosure thing, it's that they load these vehicles up with expensive tech that you and I pay for when we purchase the vehicle, but in order to use it, we have to subscribe and pay monthly fees. If we never intend to use the service, we just pissed away who knows how much for things we don't want. And if you buy a premium trim, you can't cherry pick what you want and what you don't.

Pretty sure You can order what you like, and what you do not like,by playing with the different trims. I have a rental Bighorn that has a lower trim than my Tradesman does. Custom order for rental fleet? Maybe? But enterprise also wants to sell them later.

Depending on what happens with this CP4.2 debacle, I am considering investigating the custom ordering of a 2021/22 truck. Avoiding the things with the upper trims I dislike, and obtaining what I do like.

 

[Kukailimoku]

Sirius is satellite radio. Guardian is some extra features offered by Sirius, including as you found out, remote start. Most of us don't renew that one because it's value vs. cost don't work for us. Uconnect, as you surmise has to do with the 12" screen and nav. It will still work fine despite your deciding not to renew Sirius and Guardian.

You did not lose Carplay nor Android Auto.

Excellent Cliff Notes version of the phone book-sized bunch of fine print that i now don't have to read. Thanks!

So according to your premise, I should still be able to navigate to a new previously unused destination. I have only tried it two times since the subscription ran out and both times the search for the destination failed to the error "unable to get information' (not exactly what it said, i paraphrase).
Those could have been one-off events - the system has occasionally failed to find nav destinations here and there while it was under subscription so I wasn't sure if they were one-offs or if they were directly attached to the subscription running out.

I guess I'll have to go sit in the ruck and experiment more to isolate the cause.

 

[Kukailimoku]

I despise this subscription-based BS that regulates hardware/software that each of us paid for regardless of wether or not we choose to pay their ludicrous fees. Like, oh... you want your engine to run after the 60 day trial period?... That will be an extra $150/mo. Arrrrrgh!

IKR?!

One of my buddies in the tech industry said that's how the future will be for our grandkids - everything will be a one-time startup fee then rolling subscription fees. They will build-in obsolesence forcing us to buy upgrades - that won't be free patches anymore.

 

[Kukailimoku]

I mean, to be fair, they tell you BEFORE you purchase the truck what you get and don't get after the one year trial. The OP in this case just didn't know what he purchase. By him asking " what am I losing " shows he never bothered to learn about it either, so what does it matter what's lost, he didn't care. Ram doesn't hide what you lose, 100% something you wanted to deal with when you purchased the truck.

Fair enuff analysis.
I knew somethings were gonna drop off,

I didn't bother to get familiar with it,

I am not surprised some things did drop off,

I fully expected the XM satellite radio to be dropped,

I did NOT expect to no longer be able to look up navigation destinations anymore (THAT one pissed me off to no end; but like we've covered, I only used it twice since subscription ending, and members say i should not have lost that, so maybe its a one-off problem not associated to the subscription ending, more use will prove that either way),

I was surprised to lose the remote start app - I mean really now, remote starting a vehicle is a function more related to the manufacturer than to a third party company that leased some satellite time to broadcast some entertainment media over the airwaves, so i think my presumption that starting a vehicle built by FCA would be a feature of an FCA uconnect and NOT a feature of some media company that collects talk shows and music channels was not a preposterous assumption. Building a remote starting feature of your FCA truck that has everything to do with Sirius and nothing to do with FCA is akin to saying that the monitoring of your home solar panels is not a function of the solar panels' company but instead has to do with your home alarm company's features, or your boy scout cookie subscription. Stop buying cookies, lose the ability to monitor your solar panels. Stop paying for some sirius stuff, no longer able to start your FCA truck.
wth????

 

[Kukailimoku]

My point is, it's not so much the disclosure thing, it's that they load these vehicles up with expensive tech that you and I pay for when we purchase the vehicle, but in order to use it, we have to subscribe and pay monthly fees. If we never intend to use the service, we just pissed away who knows how much for things we don't want. And if you buy a premium trim, you can't cherry pick what you want and what you don't.

I factory-ordered my wife's JK several years ago, and got almost 100% exactly what we wanted in it and more importantly did NOT get in it what we did NOT want. Even that had its limits though as to how much we could dictate.

I factory-ordered this Ram in question more recently, it was a Laramie trim, and while i was able to get more combinations of stuff i wanted (and leave off stuff I didn't want) than could be found on-lots within several hundred miles, the choices were much more constrained in the higher end truck than was for the lower end jeep several years previous.

So yeah, i think you have a point there about forcing us to take kr@p we don't want/need.
I guess the people who market vehicles are the cousins of the cable tv companies...

 

[Kukailimoku]

Pretty sure You can order what you like, and what you do not like,by playing with the different trims. I have a rental Bighorn that has a lower trim than my Tradesman does. Custom order for rental fleet? Maybe? But enterprise also wants to sell them later.

Depending on what happens with this CP4.4 debacle, I am considering investigating the custom ordering of a 2021/22 truck. Avoiding the things with the upper trims I dislike, and obtaining what I do like.

1) what's a "CP4.4" debacle?
2) there will be limits with what you can and cannot order with your truck. True, you can up-order a lower trim to exceed the lowest outfitted higher trim, and down-order a higher trim to be less than the most pumped up lower trim, but there are still more limits than you think there will be come time to order.




Lessons Learned from my experiences doing two factory orders in the past 5 years:

a) order everything you do want when you first order the vehicle. Do not plan to order less than you want then add this-or-that via third party later on. (This is a human nature/household finances thing, not a manufacturer thing). Specifically I'm talking about things like sound system, bed liner, side steps, etc stuff you CAN get afterward, from not-FCA, but life gets in the way and you end up not following thru with it.

b) expect to be super frustrated with both the dealers' people and the manufacturer website, relating to features.
The freaking website "remembers" who you are so as you repeatedly hit it to try different combinations, you'll be steered into certain combos. An esoteric feature will be available one time, and another time it won't, or it won't be available without certain package when before it was fine as a stand-alone item. I can't prove that in a court of law, and I'm sure some IT or FCA people in here will refute me, but i know what I saw...
The dealers' agents won't know diddly-squat compared to you, vis-a-vis what features are available, which combos are acceptable, what you can get without trim X or Y, what you can leave off from trim X or Y. Be prepared to fight them on that. Don't expect them will have a special webpage for them that isn't available to the public that allows them to order the features differently than you, either.

Bone up in forums such as these, esp the factory-order forums, and go in prepared to poltiely explain how wrong they are and yes you can actually get the truck the way you describe it to them.

Which brings me off-topic:
why the heck are we still dealing (pun!) with the dealership model of buying cars codified into state laws in these modern times?

 

[N8sBrewing]

Mine is older and things may have changed.
Sirius-XM (radio) was 1 yr trial and the others 5 yrs.

The Sirius-XM doesn't control features, so you might just need a software update.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Timsdually]

Never understood the Guardian start your truck from your phone thing. Who cares?
I can and do remote start my truck from my key fob.

 

[canadiankodiak700]

It's all garbage.... There's all the answer you need

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

 

[HDGoose]

1) what's a "CP4.4" debacle?
2) there will be limits with what you can and cannot order with your truck. True, you can up-order a lower trim to exceed the lowest outfitted higher trim, and down-order a higher trim to be less than the most pumped up lower trim, but there are still more limits than you think there will be come time to order.




Lessons Learned from my experiences doing two factory orders in the past 5 years:

a) order everything you do want when you first order the vehicle. Do not plan to order less than you want then add this-or-that via third party later on. (This is a human nature/household finances thing, not a manufacturer thing). Specifically I'm talking about things like sound system, bed liner, side steps, etc stuff you CAN get afterward, from not-FCA, but life gets in the way and you end up not following thru with it.

b) expect to be super frustrated with both the dealers' people and the manufacturer website, relating to features.
The freaking website "remembers" who you are so as you repeatedly hit it to try different combinations, you'll be steered into certain combos. An esoteric feature will be available one time, and another time it won't, or it won't be available without certain package when before it was fine as a stand-alone item. I can't prove that in a court of law, and I'm sure some IT or FCA people in here will refute me, but i know what I saw...
The dealers' agents won't know diddly-squat compared to you, vis-a-vis what features are available, which combos are acceptable, what you can get without trim X or Y, what you can leave off from trim X or Y. Be prepared to fight them on that. Don't expect them will have a special webpage for them that isn't available to the public that allows them to order the features differently than you, either.

Bone up in forums such as these, esp the factory-order forums, and go in prepared to poltiely explain how wrong they are and yes you can actually get the truck the way you describe it to them.

Which brings me off-topic:
why the heck are we still dealing (pun!) with the dealership model of buying cars codified into state laws in these modern times?

The CP4.4 was a typo.

I am surprised the dealership doesn't know their ordering software. Guessing the turnover rate is too high.

 

[OrionR5]

Fair enuff analysis.
I knew somethings were gonna drop off,

I didn't bother to get familiar with it,

I am not surprised some things did drop off,

I fully expected the XM satellite radio to be dropped,

I did NOT expect to no longer be able to look up navigation destinations anymore (THAT one pissed me off to no end; but like we've covered, I only used it twice since subscription ending, and members say i should not have lost that, so maybe its a one-off problem not associated to the subscription ending, more use will prove that either way),

I was surprised to lose the remote start app - I mean really now, remote starting a vehicle is a function more related to the manufacturer than to a third party company that leased some satellite time to broadcast some entertainment media over the airwaves, so i think my presumption that starting a vehicle built by FCA would be a feature of an FCA uconnect and NOT a feature of some media company that collects talk shows and music channels was not a preposterous assumption. Building a remote starting feature of your FCA truck that has everything to do with Sirius and nothing to do with FCA is akin to saying that the monitoring of your home solar panels is not a function of the solar panels' company but instead has to do with your home alarm company's features, or your boy scout cookie subscription. Stop buying cookies, lose the ability to monitor your solar panels. Stop paying for some sirius stuff, no longer able to start your FCA truck.
wth????

Yes I totally agree... WTF!!!

 

[Dennis Younker]

Fair enuff analysis.
I knew somethings were gonna drop off,

I didn't bother to get familiar with it,

I am not surprised some things did drop off,

I fully expected the XM satellite radio to be dropped,

I did NOT expect to no longer be able to look up navigation destinations anymore (THAT one pissed me off to no end; but like we've covered, I only used it twice since subscription ending, and members say i should not have lost that, so maybe its a one-off problem not associated to the subscription ending, more use will prove that either way),

I was surprised to lose the remote start app - I mean really now, remote starting a vehicle is a function more related to the manufacturer than to a third party company that leased some satellite time to broadcast some entertainment media over the airwaves, so i think my presumption that starting a vehicle built by FCA would be a feature of an FCA uconnect and NOT a feature of some media company that collects talk shows and music channels was not a preposterous assumption. Building a remote starting feature of your FCA truck that has everything to do with Sirius and nothing to do with FCA is akin to saying that the monitoring of your home solar panels is not a function of the solar panels' company but instead has to do with your home alarm company's features, or your boy scout cookie subscription. Stop buying cookies, lose the ability to monitor your solar panels. Stop paying for some sirius stuff, no longer able to start your FCA truck.
wth????

I agree on the remote start. Although not a feature I need or made any use of beyond trying it out, I don't get that that is part of a costly subscription to Guardian. There is the issue of remote connectivity though, and I'm not sure how that works. I presume Sirius does that through the AT&T cellular connection but not sure.

I wouldn't think NAV would drop off. I did not renew my Guardian subscription after the trial ended but I did renew SiriusXM satellite radio. I don't think NAV goes through the satellite radio service though or we'd be hearing a load of complaints from those that discontinued satellite radio. Plus, there certainly can't be enough bandwidth on the SXM satellite to handle that.

My NAV still works fine at this point.

 

[WireEd]

This is an old thread but I have to rant. $12/month to unlock doors with my phone? lol. Used it 3 times. Stood there for a half hour waiting. My 21 classic does not have remote start which is fine by me. Sirius and guardian can go **** themselves.

So what’s next for the a la carte? Doors! If you subscribe now for three doors you’ll get the fourth door free!! Don’t let it expire though!! You won’t be able to get out of your truck!!