Complaint Review: Stinger Radar USA - Internet

What finally motivated me to write this review is what recently happened. That said, I was one of the first customers in the USA to receive the Stinger VIP and have an extensive history with the product start in the US market. After describing the current more relevant issues I will go into the two previous years of experience dealing with Stinger Radar USA.

Several months ago I started receiving errors that my rear patch antenna was disconnecting and reconnecting. Since then the problem has gotten worse forcing me to disconnect the antenna in order to keep use of the front hardware. Talking to Cliff, the owner and operator of Stinger Radar USA, he suspect it’s either a faulty junction box or the radar antenna itself. Since it could be either of the two throwing the error fixing the issue would involve replacing both the patch antenna and junction box. The issue I have is that replacing my patch antenna involves the lengthy process of removing my bumper and other parts which racks up several hours of costly shoptime with my installer. Since I have already sunk an absurd amount of time and money into troubleshooting other issues (see below) with this product I can’t justify getting this fixed with me paying for it. Especially since there is no guarantee that the radar antenna or junction box is the issue. Since this product is new and undocumented it could easily just be another bug in the internal software as the previous errors I received were (see below).

Talking to several people online it sounds like their $1,500 radar patch antennas have either failed as well or something else is wrong since they are experiencing the same error I have. I highly question the durability and quality of this product. I say this because I have already had to have the main computer, the entire laser defense system, junction box, LCD screen, and front radar patch replaced within the last two years. That is nearly the entire system!

Regarding the LCD screen, mine was replaced because it wouldn’t start up after a cold night outside (Wisconsin weather). Now I bring my screen inside during the winter. My new screen also has to be reseated often as the magnetic connection to its docking station is horribly designed. Lastly, in direct sunlight the graphics on the screen are not visible forcing me to strictly use audio alerts during my evening commute home. The absence of an anti-glare coating on the screen is a well known and widespread issue among other Stinger VIP owners that I’ve talked to. I would assume/hope that Stinger will be coming out with a new version of this screen to fix this.

To finalize my current view of this product I would NOT recommend this product to anyone due to the large amount of uncertainty regarding long-term durability and the lack of support from the current USA representative, Cliff. While it’s true he will respond to questions very quickly he does not stand behind his product when it comes to fixing his product flaws. I often joke that I was an unwilling beta tester for this but when considering the cost I stop laughing pretty quickly. This product should definitely still be considered in it’s beta stage of development. The US version still doesn’t have a legitimate user's manual, updates are sent out by e-mail instead of through the Stingers included software (which has a firmware page) and nearly all improvements are community driven from early adopters. There are several other built-in radar detection systems on the market that have been around for ages, are well developed/polished, and detect current threats with nearly the same performance. Also, they cost substantially less.

I would have given Stinger Radar USA 2 of 5 stars due to Cliff’s impressive response rate to questions about the product. Unfortunately after his antic’s described below regarding his “complimentary upgrade” of hardware which by definition was a product recall of the original flawed hardware I can’t recommend him or his product at all. 

Now that I’ve completed telling my current experience I will give a “brief” outline of the previous two years of dealing with Stinger Radar USA. My first experience with Stinger USA started in October 2014 with Cliff, the owner and operator of Stinger Radar USA. He was very nice and knowledgeable about the upcoming rollout of the Stinger VIP system to the US market.

After reading the success in Europe and the new technology involved I was excited to jump on as an early adopter. I was warned that the laser defense portion of the system still had about a month before it would be put into operation via a firmware update -- which I was fine with.

In late October my installer received the hardware and began work on the installation which was a tedious 3 day process. Since it was a new system they did take their time getting right and Cliff was on call the entire time to help with any needed troubleshooting. Once it was installed Cliff also gave me a phone call to run through the configuration and settings.

My first issue happened as I was driving around later that night. I started receiving a constant false radar alert. After restarting the car several times and the alert continuing to appear I called Cliff, with surprise, he answered his phone at about 8 pm. He immediately sent me a firmware update and said it should clear up any issues I had. I started the update process excited to get this bug behind me but that was only the start to a long tedious troubleshooting process. Once the update was loaded onto the system it restarted itself as it was suppose to but then failed to start. The highly technical term for what happened was the computer just bricked itself trying to apply the update. The only solution was to get a new main computer unit sent out to me and trek back to my installer who installed in. Cliff promptly sent out a new main computer and we set up an appointment later that week to swap units.

Once the units were swapped I started driving back home only to find the exact same constant radar alert. Getting angry at this point I called Cliff who tried running me through troubleshooting. To keep this short, none of the nearly TWO MONTHS of "troubleshooting" helped and it was later determined to be a software bug in the system. These months of troubleshooting were also during my Christmas vacation in another state where Cliff sent out a new patch radar antenna to temporary fix to the front of my hood. He also asked me to find my vehicles circuit breaker and kill several key systems in my car including automatic cruise control and blind spot monitoring. After having one really angry fiancee (from being ignored) and doing all this troubleshooting nothing worked.

After we returned from our vacation a new software update was developed for my issue that turned off the specific frequency range that I was getting the false alert on. While this helped make me feel like I had a working system it effectively handicapped my detection ability. At the beginning of February I received a software update that finally claimed to fix my radar alert issue and un-handicap my system. Later that month I attended a testing event to see how well Stinger performed against some of it’s competitors. Of course, it didn’t do very well especially when taking into consideration the price. During this event a more concerning discovery was made. While we were testing individual radar bands for detection ability one of the most commonly used bands (35.5) wasn’t detected at all -- even when the transmitter was less than 10 feet away. So, turns out I still had a handicapped system and didn’t know it. Even today I cannot fully trust that my detection is adequate.

While I was happy about the false alert error being fixed the laser defense software update still had not been released when I was originally informed it would be about a month it was now going on 4. Then, I received a notice of a "Special Upgrade Offer" for “Valued customers” from Cliff who offered to upgrade my laser hardware to something that he claimed would work “better”. Keep in mind, my current laser hardware wasn't working at all which had been confirmed by third-party independent testing. In my mind this was a silly attempt to sugar coat a product recall. While the swap was free he still mandated that I pay my installer to remove the non-functioning equipment and install the new ones which would have cost several hundred dollars. He also mandated that I submit a $1000+ deposit to ensure the old equipment got returned. After several weeks of protest Cliff finally comp’d my install costs which should have been immediately offered for a faulty product.

I joined a testing group for hobbyists that have the same type of interests. We have tested the Stinger VIP several times. At first, if it wasn’t so expensive I would laugh at how bad the results were. It didn’t even beat out devices 1/5th the price. The last testing did show improvement and the radar detection is now slightly better than its lower priced competitors. The laser defense is still hit or miss. I have received two warnings for speeding when I should have been protected. One of the times the police officer even show’d me that he successfully captured my speed from a distance of over 300 feet.

I really hope this review will help potential buyers think twice before going through the nightmare that I did. If you are still considering this then at least purchase it through a different distributor.