I currently have an XM Commander set up and am swapping in an AVIC-D3. If I go ahead and by the Pioneer XM box, am I just tossing money away?

Do you guys recommend upgrading or will the Commander work just fine?

 

I just did the same thing, but swapped in an Alpine IVA-W205 and spent over 2hrs on the phone with XM tech support and got no answer to my question which was exactly yours. The people at Terx who make the XM Commander can probably answer your question. I my case (I'll bet your's is the same) I had to buy an Alpine-specific converter box that goes in-line between the XM Commander and the Head Unit. Furthermore, I had to get rid of the old XM Commander receiver (the one that attaches to the 'candy bar' shaped control that I had in my ashtray) and substitute it with the XM 1000 Commander receiver. This receiver is different from the older one in that it does not have a power plug and apparently gets is juice via the Head Unit. So to sum up, for the Alpine you need to go with a new receiver (XM1000) and you need the Head Unit specific converter...$45 for both on E-bay. Of course since the receiver is different you'll need to call up XM and have them turn off your old Commander, and activate the new XM1000. I hope this helps, as I was going nuts trying to figure this out...tech support at XM tried, but they really don't know much about the Commander units that are in the field.

 

That's what the fine folks at Crutchfield told me as well. I went ahead and bought the pioneer package w/ant and will remove the XM Commander and sell it for some change.

 

how much do you want for it?