I am a former owner of a 2009 Prius and had to replace its antenna AND attached circuit board. Any rough handling of the detachable antenna breaks the board requiring an expensive repair. I just purchased a 2014 Prius v (lowercase v for the Prius v wagon). Does it's antenna also screw into a circuit board? If so, I want to purchase the shark antenna ASAP. Thanks for the help!
Yes, there is a circuit board. That's why I purchased and installed the "shark fin" antenna. I've been very happy with it. No issues in nearly three years.
I did NOT immediately purchase the shark antenna-- and I backed into the garage before the door was quite high enough... breaking the base. Which, BTW is a ghastly expensive repair at the dealer (over $400 they quoted me, also noting that they do a LOT of them because others have the same unfortunate experiences as I have evidently.) I did buy a base assembly from a dealer online for a lot less than my parts department, but it was not a fun repair since I don't know much about the upholstery or have the right tools for popping the roof down, getting the cable clips out and the new ones secured to the frame. But with a couple of scratched arms and an hour of labor, I did the repair and saved myself $200+. Now to install the shark antenna!
About a month ago, I started having up to one-minute XM dropouts on my 7 month old 2017 Prius v Wagon in known good reception areas. (I've had XM on 5 cars since 2002 where I live so I know where the local problem spots are. Also, after 15 years of using satellite radio, I am pretty familiar with what conditions can cause bad reception, and there aren't many with a system that's functioning properly.) I brought the car in for its 10K checkup today and the dealer completely blew me off, as expected. It's a shame there's no signal strength diagnostic in the radio, like there is for GPS signals. I guess it's time to start calling the factory until I get some help.
