[Scrutineer]

New owner here, trying to understand the connection between my SiriusXM account and the unit in my car. According to a thread I saw in this forum, and the excerpt from the manual below, the SXM channels that I favorite in my SXM account/app should sync up with the SXM favorites in the car. But they don't. Am I missing or misunderstanding something? I'm trying to take advantage of the feature where a song starts from the beginning when you tune to that channel, so long as it's a favorite. That's also described in the excerpt below.

Putting this differently: Logged into the SXM streaming app with the credentials associated with the car, I've added a bunch of channels to my library, which I believe is the current terminology for what used to be making them my favorites in the app. I expected to see those same channels show up in the car as my favorites. After plenty of time out in the open in the car, with a couple refresh requests, I still show no favorites in the car.

Scratching my head.

[///MoT]

Originally Posted by Scrutineer

New owner here, trying to understand the connection between my SiriusXM account and the unit in my car. According to a thread I saw in this forum, and the excerpt from the manual below, the SXM channels that I favorite in my SXM account/app should sync up with the SXM favorites in the car. But they don't. Am I missing or misunderstanding something? I'm trying to take advantage of the feature where a song starts from the beginning when you tune to that channel, so long as it's a favorite. That's also described in the excerpt below.

Putting this differently: Logged into the SXM streaming app with the credentials associated with the car, I've added a bunch of channels to my library, which I believe is the current terminology for what used to be making them my favorites in the app. I expected to see those same channels show up in the car as my favorites. After plenty of time out in the open in the car, with a couple refresh requests, I still show no favorites in the car.

Scratching my head.

Wasn't aware of the feature, but very intrigued. Thread subscribed.

[wjones14]

Originally Posted by Scrutineer

New owner here, trying to understand the connection between my SiriusXM account and the unit in my car. According to a thread I saw in this forum, and the excerpt from the manual below, the SXM channels that I favorite in my SXM account/app should sync up with the SXM favorites in the car. But they don't. Am I missing or misunderstanding something? I'm trying to take advantage of the feature where a song starts from the beginning when you tune to that channel, so long as it's a favorite. That's also described in the excerpt below.

Putting this differently: Logged into the SXM streaming app with the credentials associated with the car, I've added a bunch of channels to my library, which I believe is the current terminology for what used to be making them my favorites in the app. I expected to see those same channels show up in the car as my favorites. After plenty of time out in the open in the car, with a couple refresh requests, I still show no favorites in the car.

Scratching my head.

You should be using the same account in the car and wherever else you listen to SiriusXM. I already had an account when I got my 2025 M2 delivered. I had written down my account ID, and when the dealership's genius was going over the car with me, we switched it to use my existing account. Before getting the car, I had two months left on a prepaid one-year subscription. After switching the trial account to my existing account, my existing account was then good for the next 14 months.

I set up SiriusXM favorites at home before I got the G87, and now they are synced to the car.

PS - if you're having issues switching the free trial of SiriusXM in the car to your existing account, you should be able to call or chat with a SiriusXM tech to get the accounts synced to one account.

[Scrutineer]

Originally Posted by wjones14

You should be using the same account in the car and wherever else you listen to SiriusXM. I already had an account when I got my 2025 M2 delivered. I had written down my account ID, and when the dealership's genius was going over the car with me, we switched it to use my existing account. Before getting the car, I had two months left on a prepaid one-year subscription. After switching the trial account to my existing account, my existing account was then good for the next 14 months.

I set up SiriusXM favorites at home before I got the G87, and now they are synced to the car.

PS - if you're having issues switching the free trial of SiriusXM in the car to your existing account, you should be able to call or chat with a SiriusXM tech to get the accounts synced to one account.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. What you are describing is encouraging because that’s exactly how it seems it should work. But I’m still hung up and maybe to start with, I don’t see where your Genius would have added your preexisting SXM account ID in the car. Did they do that thru iDrive, thru the MyBMW app, or some other way?

This is complicated because of the way SXM manages their accounts. They have one account that basically manages your financial relationship with them, and then for each radio that has a plan that includes streaming, you get a separate streaming account. So I have three SXM accounts:

1) My “master” account that manages renewals, payments, etc., but not streaming;

2) My wife’s streaming account, that is connected to the SXM receiver in her car;

3) My streaming account; that is connected to the SXM receiver in my M2.

I assume that your version of #3 is the account ID that is connected to you M2, not your version of #1. Is that right?

When I log in to the SXM streaming app with #3, the “favorites” there (which are actually channels I’ve saved to my library - that app doesn’t have “favorites”) have no relationship to the favorites I see in the M2. And the favorites I’ve saved in the M2 seem to have no connection to what I see in the app.

I’ve logged in and out a hundred times.

Also, this doesn’t relate to merging my accounts. SXM automatically terminated the account on my trade in so the M2 account is brand new.

Does that description prompt any suggestions? Thanks, again!

[wjones14]

Originally Posted by Scrutineer

Thank you for taking the time to reply. What you are describing is encouraging because that’s exactly how it seems it should work. But I’m still hung up and maybe to start with, I don’t see where your Genius would have added your preexisting SXM account ID in the car. Did they do that thru iDrive, thru the MyBMW app, or some other way?

This is complicated because of the way SXM manages their accounts. They have one account that basically manages your financial relationship with them, and then for each radio that has a plan that includes streaming, you get a separate streaming account. So I have three SXM accounts:

1) My “master” account that manages renewals, payments, etc., but not streaming;

2) My wife’s streaming account, that is connected to the SXM receiver in her car;

3) My streaming account; that is connected to the SXM receiver in my M2.

I assume that your version of #3 is the account ID that is connected to you M2, not your version of #1. Is that right?

When I log in to the SXM streaming app with #3, the “favorites” there (which are actually channels I’ve saved to my library - that app doesn’t have “favorites”) have no relationship to the favorites I see in the M2. And the favorites I’ve saved in the M2 seem to have no connection to what I see in the app.

I’ve logged in and out a hundred times.

Also, this doesn’t relate to merging my accounts. SXM automatically terminated the account on my trade in so the M2 account is brand new.

Does that description prompt any suggestions? Thanks, again!

Glad to help out with what I know, but first, I have to backtrack somewhat on what I said. I made a couple assumptions and also misremembered exactly what happened at the dealership with the genius. I double-checked stuff yesterday to see exactly what I had.

The thing I had misremembered is that the genius set it all up for me. I don't think he did. Instead, I believe he showed me the radio ID for the free trial. Then later when I got home, I called SiriusXM tech support to see about merging my existing paid account with the 1-year free trial. That was successful, so I got the full year of the trial, plus the month that I still had remaining on my paid account. See screenshot how it looks from my PC.

As far as the favorites, I have 5 favorites setup with the SiriusXM app from either my PC, Samsung phone, or iPod. On the PC, they display as my "Library." See screenshot. When I checked the favorites from iDrive, it shows "No entries" so I was wrong about them being synced - they're not. It looks to me like they're configured separately and can be different.

Bottom line, I don't really know what the connection is between the G87 iDrive SiriusXM and my home account, other than I can use SiriusXM for the full trial period, plus the existing subscription I already had - hopefully in both the car and my portable devices. Sorry for the misleading information.

[Scrutineer]

Ah. That all makes sense and squares with my experience. Appreciate the clarification.

What I’ve been chasing here is just what the manual says, but I give up. It isn’t that big of a deal to sync favorites between the online account and the car. I don’t understand the disconnect, but whatever.

Equally frustrating has been my experience with emailing the Genius address. Their responses have been greatly delayed and, when received, boilerplate and obtuse.