Recommendations on radar detectors? (1 Viewer)

[Masood Ali]

I've seen these models consistently make the top three in reviewers' lists:

Escort 8500
Bel 985
Valentine One

Most online reviews I found gave the edge to the Escort and Bel units (in that order), except Consumer Reports which gave a lopsided victory to the V1.

Does anyone here have any comments or experiences about any of these units, or others?

Thanks.

 

[Philip_G]

valentine 1, any day. I own an escort (2nd one) and would order a V1 today if I had the means.
they really are worth the price, besides you can upgrade them as newer technologies come out for something like 175 bucks, and they send you a brand new one.
look who publishes the online reviews, a lot of them are funded by escort

 

[Dave Smith]

If you read any online car forums, search on there. EVERYONE recommends the V1. Corvette forum, BMW board, Audiworld, doesn't matter, it's universal!

I'll probably get it one of these days. $400 is a lot for a detector though, but it's meant to be worth it.

 

[Masood Ali]

look who publishes the online reviews, a lot of them are funded by escort

Sneaky...very sneaky. I guess I'll start hunting for a V1 then. My 140 mile round-trips to my weekend job are taking a toll on my driving record. 80MPH in the left lane of Interstate 5 is far from reckless, but in Oregon it's dangerously close to a Class A misdemeanor :frowning: Don't ever want one of those.

 

[Shawn Sefranek]

Valentine One is the best for sure.
Car & Driver has been ranking them #1 since the first V1 model came out in 1992.
Shawn S
PS....YES, I have one.

 

[Dan D.]

Add another vote for the V1. My family had been using Escort products since Mike Valentine started the company in the late seventies. After Mike got canned from his own company, their products turned to garbage. Thank heavens he started a new company. The V1 is an amazing unit and the only one I trust. We've got at least 5 in the family now, plus several friends have them.

There was a very good and lengthy thread on this topic a year or two back. Definitely worth searching for.

 

[DavidAM]

I was looking at these 3 detectors a few months ago and ended up going with the Bel (940 actually since it has the same sensitivity, just less features). I'm sure Valentine's are as good as they say, but my reasoning was that the Bel detects far enough in advance that it doesn't really matter. Its not like the Valentine is the only one to give enough advance warning that you can't slow down in time. Plus the Valentine is so much more expensive. My Bel always lets me know when there is a cop around way before I can see him....usually its steady chirping for 2 minutes before I see a cop coming towards me. I'd save the extra $$$ and go with the Bel.

 

[Kevin P]

I replaced a Bel with a Valentine One a couple years ago and haven't looked back. The Bel I had was great a detecting radar. And other detectors. And cell phones. And just about anything else that emitted any sort of signal. Most annoyingly, other detectors/cell phones would often register as a full-scale K-band "instant on" alert, talk about having a heart attack while doing 75 on the interstate!

Eventually I ran over the Bel with my car (deliberately) and got the V1. Now if they'd just stop the annoying trend of automatic door openers that use K-band (whatever happened to the old pressure pads that emitted no signal?)

KJP

 

[Shawn Sefranek]

The two best things about the V1 are the directional arrows and the “bogey” counter.
When you upgrade to a V1 after driving for years with another detector you won’t understand how you lived for so long without those features.

Pennsylvania has a nasty habit of placing those fake RADAR emitters on every construction sign, bridge overpass and temporary road sign they can find.
They BLAST a signal for miles “scaring” detector owners into slowing down.
With my V1 I know exactly where they are, in front or in back and with the counter I know when a real cop is hiding around the corner from one.

Shawn S

 

[Jay H]

I had a friend in college who had a transmitter and while car pooling home, we used to play with it and see who has a radar detector on. This was a home electronics gadget looking gismo which I believe probably transmitted on some common X band frequency or something like that. We used to turn it on when we wanted to pass somebody... It was quite funny to watch from a distance.

Don't know about you guys but I don't use any radar detector, I use other people. Simply drive slightly faster than the flow of traffic. If you're going 90+ a radar detector seems like it would be more of a ticket warning indicator anyway.

But I would most likely get a V1 if I ever got one due to like everybody says, it seems that every car board raves about them. You can even integrate it into the car's electronics to have it hidden.

Jay

 

[Jeff Kleist]

You could always stop speeding

Be advised that detectors are illegal in many states, and must be stashed in the trunk (unplugged).

 

[Kevin P]

Be advised that detectors are illegal in many states, and must be stashed in the trunk (unplugged).

AFAIK, they're only illegal in Virginia and Washington DC. I don't know if that's changed recently. So they're actually legal in most states, though I think they're illegal in commercial vehicles, school buses, things like that.

 

[Masood Ali]

Correct, VA and DC are the only places I know that don't allow them. For those states, Valentine offers a concealed display unit so you won't get busted.
Stop speeding? Besides, I live in Oregon, home of some of the most brainless drivers west of the Mississippi. On average, Oregon drivers have no anticipation, have poor defensive driving skills, and commit the cardinal sin of highway travel: they don't realize the leftmost lane is for passing. And no, going 2MPH faster than the guy to your right is not called passing; why even bother passing if you're driving basically the same speed? After you're done passing, please move into one of the right lanes in the event someone wants to pass you. Finally, don't try and be a hero by holding up speeders...you only make them pass you on the right, which is more dangerous than just letting them pass you on the left.

 

[Philip Hamm]

If you read any online car forums, search on there. EVERYONE recommends the V1. Corvette forum, BMW board, Audiworld, doesn't matter, it's universal!

Yup. The faithful on Audiworld swear by the V1. If I were getting a car detector today I'd probably buy one.....

But for the record I own a Bel 945im that I've been very happy with. I have never gotten a ticket with this detector in use. Since I live in VA I only use it for interstate travel.

The Bel unit offers many things that the Valentine does not, most importantly it easily adapts to two-wheeled use. Being battery powered with a remote earpiece, it is easy to slip into my nylon tank bag and I'm good to go. It's saved me (and my friends) from tickets many times on motorcycle road trips. I've been very happy with my Bel.

 

[Ken Wagner]

I had a BEL until my daughter kept it. It did have a lot of false signals but it did save me often. Have heard a lot of good things about the V1. The only problem is they can't save you from the spy in the sky. Yes, I got clocked by a plane. Now that's not playing fair.

 

[Philip_G]

plenty of people use V1's on motorcycles too.
I've not heard good things about any of the battery powered detectors, but never used one myself (escort makes or made that battery powered model too..)

 

[Sujeet Patel]

I've been using a V1 since 1994, and it's saved my butt enough times to pay for itself 10x over. $400 might seem like alot, but 1 ticket with insurance premiums will cost more than that.

 

[Carl Johnson]

Ditto. I'd say that I spend 95% of my time on the road with the cruise control set for 8mph over the limit. The only time in recent memory that I broke that rule was a couple of weeks ago on a one hr roadtrip to visit my girlfriend. Some guy in a late model Caddy was pushing 100 so I drafted him the whole way there.

 

[Philip_G]

at 8mph they won't touch you, but EVERYONE is doing 8 over, so you end up in a big pack of cars all doing about a half a mile faster than each other, and it ends up a huge clusterfuck.

the cops up here can peg 4 cars at once, had you and the caddy passed one up here he'd pull you both over.

 

[Jay H]

But the idea behind following a faster driver is that you can simply watch them and have enough time to react to their brakes. One can kind of presume by the car and driver how alert they are so when they brake for no apparent reason, you can guess he/she saw a cop or something.
I don't think the cops around here are coordinated enough to pull over more than 1 driver
Jay