I bought a used 2005 A6 with Sirius. I just bought the subscription for a year and have not been able to activate the radio. I have been on the phone with Sirius tech support and still unable to get the radio activated. Any ideas?

 

I have an S5 and had a similar issue when I went online and added a plan. The car was stuck on the Contact Sirius message, and calls to Sirius were a frustrating hold.

Then I did the following, based on my experience with XM Satellite portable player. Logged into my Sirius account, found the ESN that I registered a plan for, and under there was a button to:

Re-Send Activation Signal – This option allows you to re-send an activation request to your receiver in case you missed it and your receiver is not active.

I drove the car around for about an hour listening to the radio, and sometime during that hour period, the radio in the car found the satellite, because when I happened to get switch back to the satellite, it was reactivated.

There's two things to keep in mind for satellite that no one can explain properly to me yet:

- activation signals sometimes need to be resent; doing it online is painless. Doing it via Sirius customer service is a disservice.
- radios pick up the activation signal better when they are moving around, rather than stationary, and definitely not indoors (in a garage) or facing away from the satellites. I'm in Canada so radios facing north will not get an activation signal very well.

Anyways, this is what worked for me. Don't try to get help from Sirius! And try to set up an online account, and do it online.