A good car aerial to buy?

Ive always installed the cheap rubber flexible ones from the local auto store, never had a problem.

I have a stainless steel whip aerial.

Same as the uhf/27meg radio ones, but a bit longer for the AM/FM band.

Can bend it back 180 degrees.

Have the same problem with the pajero, the aerial is mounted on the passenger side, and it got wiped out twice on low hanging branches, even when down half way. Last time it was not recoverable, and a new one was over $100.00.

So bought the laser whip aerial, about the same price as the a uhf aerial. We prefer listening to local radio when travelling and we can pick up AM for about 300 to 400k. Had it for over 10 years now.

I installed a aftermarket electric aerial from supercheap. It means I can easily retract the aerial when in the bush, and when I forget to do that it is easy to replace the mast.
I have a 100 series and it was easy to install. However, if you have a 80 series it is a lot more difficult to get access to the aerial as you need to remove the inner guard.

the good ole wire coat hanger always works....

If you are after FM, then to have really good reception outside metro area you need as long as possible antenna mounted on the roof. In metro area anything will do. AM less sensitive to antenna setup – to have real advantage from antenna for AM reception you have to hung long (50m or more) piece of wire on tree :-)))). But if you were happy with standard antenna, then anything will do. As some suggest even wire coat hunger, thou ugly. Unless you after good reception for FM I suggest as other says – go with rubber, unbreakable and cheaper then cheeps.

Serg

good luck getting the old one out. i ended up tearing mine out and the replacement needed a big enough base to cover the incident