Onstar Upgrade to Digital
 

I am getting my onstar upgraded to digital soon and I was just wondering what to expect. Has anyone on here had there car upgraded? Do they still put the metal antenna on the back glass or do I get a new plastic one on the roof? Are there any new features after the digital upgrade? I was really worried that my car couldn't be upgraded (it's an 02) but the guy at the dealership said I got lucky and that was the oldest model year they make the digital kits for. I am really looking forward to getting it upgraded because I have already locked my keys in my car twice :rolleyes: Resulting in me having to wait for my dad to bring the extra key. So anyone have any info? I would greatly appreciate it :D

I'm not sure. I looked into upgrading my 04 to digital and subscribing. But when I saw the annual subscription rates, I reconsidered. You could a lot of the same services with a cell phone and a membership to AAA. I can understand your reasons though. Just a question of whether you feel it's worth the extra convenience. In the end, I decided against it. And peeled the metal antenna off my back window.

The plastic shark fin on the roof (or flat black thing on 00-04 Montes) is the XM antenna. They don't add an antenna to the back glass (I don't think) - that is only for analog Onstar. I'm not sure how the digital system receives data. I don't have Onstar on my 03 and my 05 was digital from the factory.

Thanks for the info. If I understood the dealer correctly I have to pay $218. It is just $18 for the upgrade but $200 for a year of onstar. That is a little on the expensive side but I would still like to have it. I guess I have what you would call OCD because the fact that I have these buttons on my rear view mirror that do nothing bothers me. Well thats not totally true.....this nice fake lady starts talking to me when I push it lol. But it never connects to the onstar service. I am hoping that they either take my antenna off or put a new one on because the one I have on there now is in really bad shape. It is rusting and about ready to snap in half. But I am famous for locking my keys in so I guess it is worth it for me.

I have also thought about converting my Dale Jr over to digital Onstar. I'm kind of like you, I like to have all of the features that my car has, working.

I was also wondering What they do with the onstar antenna. I'm pretty sure you get a new onstar antenna but I don't know if it looks kind of like your old one or if its different and even if its in the same location. I don't know if the roof antennas on the 05 and up Monte's are for both the Onstar and XM radio or not. I like them much better than my current setup.

Let us know the details once you get yours done.

Wayne

If the dealer does the update the antenna gets replaced with a different one, at least that was the deal with mine.

So is it still a stick on antenna on the back glass or is it somewhere else on the car?

Same ol' stick-on.

Gotcha

Too bad. Not crazy about the look of the old-school cell phone style antennas. That's why I took mine off in the first place. I was really hoping it would've been one of the newer shark-fin style. :(