I can't drive 55!
Written: Apr 05 '05
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Effectiveness: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
|
|
|
Pros: Voice alert is nice, safety alerts, nice appearance
Cons: Minor problems with volume control and intelli-mute.
The Bottom Line: I recommend this. It picks up radar fantastically.
|
|
|
| marylanddancer's Full Review: Cobra Electronics ESD 9160 CS Radar Detector |
I'm a chronic speeder with a solid lead foot. I purchased the Cobra 9160 at Target for about $75 on sale.
Picking Up Radar
The product fares much better than my old radar detector, a Whistler did at picking up radar. It seems to catch pretty much all speed traps around the area. However, you do need to make sure that the proper setting (Highway/City) is selected. In city mode, this will filter out some strengths and frequencies of radar, some of which should be picked up while you are on the highway.
Safety Alert
The Cobra 9160 is equipped with a safety alert that is supposed to alert you when there is a train approaching, ambulance approaching, or when there is a road hazard ahead. Most areas are not equipped with the transmitters to set off the safety alert yet. This will also only pick up signals set up by officials... I used to live in a somewhat rural area and you have to keep in mind that if there is a tree down in the road, this will obviously not consider that a road hazard. Sometimes the safety alert will go off at random times. For instance, in the grocery store parking lot sometimes it will alert me that a train is approaching. There are no train tracks for miles. However, it has picked up construction work on major highways around my house, and occasionally when there are major delays in traffic it will also sound a safety alert. These have come in useful.
Intelli-Mute
The device comes with an intelli-mute option that basically has the unit set to a certain vibration tuned to your car's engine to know when you are going at a higher speed and that only at that vibration (RPM) will it alert you to radar. I had a few problems setting this up. Even following the directions in the manual, if your car has low RPMs as it shifts into higher gears at high speeds (as my car does) it will not alert you to radar sometimes when you are going about 50 mph.
Minor Problems
There is a slight problem involved with the volume control on the device. I notice that if I turn the volume down to about 2 or 3, and not completely off, the unit will turn itself off. The volume actually doesn't get quite that low. The lowest I can set my device to and have it still display is about 4.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
marylanddancer
|
|
Member: Michelle Weiner
Location: Columbia, Maryland, United States
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.