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What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

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Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#111

Post by Gee101 »

afh1 wrote: post #25

The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled. Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new…

I'm sure there will be kits to swap the ice engine to eletricfor most popular cars eventually. Then you will have more control about what features is added.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#112

Post by wrycoder »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #49
afh1 wrote: post #25

The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled. Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new…

What does any of that have to do with a car being electric?

The average electric car is a nightmare kludge.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970406

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#113

Post by gmueckl »

Ccecil wrote: post #63

Back around 2004 a friend of mine worked at a car dealership in the Bronx that sold high end used cars. They were putting GPS trackers in all of the cars they financed so they could repossess them when the customer didn't make their payment. This was/is (from my understanding, IANAL) very illegal. They never told the customers either. The financing was ridiculous and they preyed on the people who had just enough down…

Dealerships in the US have become more brazen about that practice. They won't hide that they installed the device. Instead, they will upsell you on an anti-theft device.

One dealer tried to sell one to me to the tune of 600$/year. That told me that they were butchering the wiring on every brand new car that hit their lot. I walked out without a deal.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#114

Post by madaxe_again »

IanCal wrote: post #98
madaxe_again wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so. My mother bought a house in France in 1988. The previous owners had a mountain of stuff in the barn that they would come collect “soon”. 25 years passed. My mother started variously selling and disposing of their slowly rotting crap that they evidently were never going to collect, as she wanted to fix the structural issues with the barn, and their stuff was in the way, as it literally filled the entire ground…

> In Europe You can't just lump 27 countries with wildly differing laws together like this.

Ok sure - Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, this happens. Can’t speak for elsewhere.

You have to ensure the contract of sale specifically includes things like wiring, the boiler, the radiators, flooring, light fittings and switches, because if they aren’t explicitly included, they aren’t included. There are some very odd definitions of chattels vs fixtures out there - in France, it has to be nailed to the structure to count as a fixture. If it’s screwed, glued, or otherwise not nailed down, it’s a chattel.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#115

Post by KumaBear »

afh1 wrote: post #25

The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled. Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new…

That whole system looks like what we install on police patrol cars. Left switch allows you to keep car running even when keys are removed (but you can’t drive it will kill the ignition).

GPS is for obvious reasons tracking. But these don’t look like patrol cars so it’s out of my wheel house.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#116

Post by rubynerd »

londons_explore wrote: post #72

Most of those GPS trackers for corporate use require a data connection, which is probably costing someone $€£ 10/month for the line at least. Usually when you stop paying for that subscription, the line gets deactivated. So probably nobody is getting that GPS trace.

Going by Hologram's public pricing, a GNSS "heartbeat" per-minute would cost $4/month on a PAYG model. With tiered contract pricing, I'd expect that to drop to $1/month for a mid/large-sized telematics organisation.

https://hologram.io/pricing/

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#117

Post by Simran-B »

afh1 wrote: post #25

The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled. Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new…

> Most people would have probably driven around for years with a foreign GPS tracker.

So basically everyone with a smartphone? I'm not sure if it's really worse if the car has its own GPS and cell connectivity. How many people turn off their phone or leave it at home? And you can buy other people's location data, so...

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#118

Post by m3galinux »

bentcorner wrote: post #106
m3galinux wrote: post #102

Whoever bought my old Honda Fit is asking the same question right now; I installed a button in about the same place. They'll have fun figuring that one out. Honda Fit's AC is designed a lot more for fuel efficiency than effectiveness. So I added a resistor parallel to AC temperature sensor (and the switch inline) which makes the system think it's warmer than it really is, so it cools more. But with the risk of allowi…

I'm not doubting your solution but at the same time would turning down the desired temperature in the car achieve the same goal?

Didn't help. With AC on maximum it'd still "turn off" early. Honda claimed working as designed.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#119

Post by vkazanov »

madaxe_again wrote: post #92
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given them a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple months) to collect their property Why waste your own time with this? If it's your house, you own everything inside. I would put all the cameras in the trash and forget about it.

Not so. My mother bought a house in France in 1988. The previous owners had a mountain of stuff in the barn that they would come collect “soon”. 25 years passed. My mother started variously selling and disposing of their slowly rotting crap that they evidently were never going to collect, as she wanted to fix the structural issues with the barn, and their stuff was in the way, as it literally filled the entire ground…

Both times my, ehm, good friend bought a house in uk the docs included a very thorough list of things that had to stay, as well as things that HAD to go.

Does England count as Europe?

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#120

Post by tomrod »

madaxe_again wrote: post #92
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given them a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple months) to collect their property Why waste your own time with this? If it's your house, you own everything inside. I would put all the cameras in the trash and forget about it.

Not so. My mother bought a house in France in 1988. The previous owners had a mountain of stuff in the barn that they would come collect “soon”. 25 years passed. My mother started variously selling and disposing of their slowly rotting crap that they evidently were never going to collect, as she wanted to fix the structural issues with the barn, and their stuff was in the way, as it literally filled the entire ground…

That's a super dumb outcome for your poor mother.

Abandoned property is just that.

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