Explaining in good detail why people should care about how modern cars have become a privacy nightmare. From Regular Car Reviews.
No, my 2006 Toyota is not fucking snitching on me. One of the many reasons i love her.
Nor is my 2010 Jeep, or my 2020 Ram, though I had to search for a long time to find a truck that didn’t have any form of internet connectivity, and I’ve got Bluetooth firewalled for good measure.
I’ve got a 2001 Honda Civic, and I’ve fixed everything on it. It should be good for a while.
amen. close to same, and it just passed it’s latest 2 year emissions inspection. my baby is older but keeps my secrets.
Today’s cars are rolling smartphones with constant Internet connections. You can’t access the OS and you can’t see what data is being transmitted. It’s a privacy nightmare.
Last summer I bought a 2021 Toyota RAV4 hybrid, I spent ages doing research before choosing to buy that vehicle. Does this one have that same tracking technology? Of course, however, in my research I found a way to disable it.
What can be done with this particular car, and possibly many other Toyotas, if you remove the fuse providing power for the Data Communication Module (DCM) it will kill the transmission of this data. Keep in mind this isn’t an immediate solution, there is an 18650 battery in the module that will stay alive for a few days. Once that’s drained you’ve successfully stopped having Toyota spy on you remotely. Obviously they can still access this data if you go to the dealer and they plug into your car, but factory resetting your car should negate this (not confirmed, just a theory). Alternatively, just find a local shop you trust to do your basic maintenance if you can’t do it yourself.
Other makes and models might be able to have the same trick pulled on them, but in my reading doing this in some cars might actually trip the car into limp mode because of some bullshit failsafe built into the car. I believe some Mazdas have this issue.
Downsides to doing this do include losing any remote start function you might have available with the remote app, as well as remote tracking of the vehicle (obviously).
Feel free to look into this type of remedy for any modern rolling cellphones you might be considering buying or already owning, check owner forums or even ask within them if any owners have tried this type of solution for a car you might want to buy.
Also, the DCM in my particular car can be removed without causing issues, I just haven’t had the time to tear the dash apart to remove it, as it sits in the dash below the infotainment screen.
Yeah I’m sort of in the market for a new car (tossing up between some relatively exxy repairs vs putting that money toward something new) and am struggling to find one I’m happy with.
Between the anti privacy bs, having to go into menus for basic functionality (which in turn makes the screen a single point of failure for like 90% of functions), subscriptions for things that shouldn’t be, simple maintenance requiring a trained engineer to plug in a bespoke tool so no home or independent repairs, etc etc I just feel like I’d be signing up to be milked dry. Not to mention prices have gone silly.
I hate where things have gone, nobody seems interested in simply making a good product and selling it for a fair price any more.
I recommend a horse
Are you serious? The cost of changing the oil on a horse these days is absurd!
Anyone know any make/model that doesn’t call home or is easy to disable?
I don’t want to replace my 2012 Honda due partially to this bullshit.
None. Every single modern vehicle built by every major manufacturer has copius tracking and phone-home features, even the most basic of basic stripped down fleet vehicles with no infotainment still do it.
If you’re electronically inclined, one could probably find a modern vehicle that is sufficiently modular and remove/disable the phone-home systems. (GM’s OnStar I believe is still fairly defeatable these days, as it is or was a separate computer module). But unless you have deep, innate knowledge of RF and can go so far as to band scan your vehicle after you remove or destroy the relevant wireless tech, there is no guarantee you will get 100% secure. And many of those systems are now (intentionally) deeply integrated with the rest of the body control devices and alarm systems, defeating them may throw errors that will cripple your car into engine limp mode or endless nuisance alerts.
This also doesn’t account for the fact that modern vehicles do a lot of saved-trip logging that would still be available locally, if someone were so inclined to gain physical access to and/or confiscate your vehicle to download said logs.
Buy used and keep fixing them, or stop driving, those are your options. Welcome to late stage capitalism, sucks to suck, will that be cash or card?
Sounds like I’m going to stick with a beater and get an eBike haha
Those will work great until the government mandated tracking chips are forcibly implanted into all of us. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean, you can still leave your cell phone at home but you know you never do.
Subarus are pretty easy to kill, the telematics unit sits under the head unit and comes out in about 15 minutes, 30min and a $60 harness total for the job
Fuck yeah. I like Subarus too. Toss up between Toyota or Subaru initially.
Just bought a 2001 car for this very reason, and it’s the best driving car I’ve had in a decade
I drive a VPN
