I have been a long, devoted Valentine user. That aside my dealer is making the recommendation to install the new Escort 9500 with GPS. So I have a couple questions. Has anyone done the dealer install? Do you like it? How is the 9500 in comparisons to the Valentine? My car will be in the shop next week for some mods and they need to drop both bumpers for the jammers, etc. It seems 3K is steep for a radar detector
Something tells me its still not as good.
Thanks!

 

Seems crazy. Keep the V1, get the freshest software from them and get it hardwired for about $100.

 

I have and installed the 9500ci and have nothing but great things to say about the ci. Their is no comparision between the valentine and the ci. One is just a detector and the other has the laser shifter, plus photoradar warning, speed trap warnings etc etc. If you want to play with the big boys this is the way to go. I have had mine about 6 months and have been lasered and the unit has worked as advertised. The only thing I miss from the valentine is the arrows. The ci also offers updates to photoradar etc locations which you download to your car unit via laptop and ubs cable. This has worked for me without a hitch. The only problem is that you have to find an installer that you trust to do it correctly (as with any porsche item). As you can tell I am a real fan of this item and am definitely not the only one on this forum who has one.

 

Phone Escort (they are very helpful before and after purchase) and they can tell you the nearest authorized installer to you. An authorized dealer will do a great job and be a LOT less expensive than the Porsche dealer. I paid just over 2K Canadian installed (9500ci) so it must be less than that in the US of A.
K.

 

I had the 9500ci installed a few months back and just had a custom panel put in for the display and button controls. The panel is mounted below the PCM console in the space in front of the shifter. (If you need a picture, I'll have to get Atomic80 to post one for you.) I kept the V-1 just for the arrows even though it can be annoying with its' beeping.

I find the V-1 to be more sensitive than the Escort possibly because it is hard wire mounted higher up to the right of the rearview mirror, but of course it doesn't have laser shifting. I occasionally get false laser shifting alerts from the Escort from spurious signals out in the middle of nowhere. The best feature of the Escort though is its' "learning" ability, which weeds out the false alerts.

All in all I am very pleased with my electronic counter measures.