Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

Post by vitaflo » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 12:08 AM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #111

as a professional diesel mechanic for a small chain of midwest shops, this "telematics" feature is on long-haul trucks as well as tractors (john deer is notorious for using it to send mail marketing about services.) generally its not hard to disable. - identify the telematics module in your car - pull the fuse (not always an option, sometimes this disables bluetooth) - alternatively: identify the 1-2 SMC connectors o…

Post by AlexCoventry » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 12:19 AM UTC

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 12:32 AM UTC

mk_stjames wrote: post #228

hbarka wrote: post #101

I have an electric car and if I want to remotely turn on charging, it won’t allow me unless the full data sharing option is enabled. Full data as in your driving data like a black box logger. I then have to go in the car, enable it, then I can remotely turn on charging. I have to remember to opt-out again later. Ironic I know because I can turn on charging from within the cabin without having to enable any of the dat…

So you're telling me that simply walking out to the car and hitting a button inside the car is just too much of an "inconvenient experience"? You know we used to have to drive the car... sometimes many miles... to a station, get out, and fill it up with a liquid fuel that costs many times more, and then drive home... Seriously now- The perceived 'inconvenience' you have is the reason that so many of these connected f…

Post by ericmay » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 12:45 AM UTC

drnick1 wrote: post #213

ericmay wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a good alternative though because it puts you into a losing competition with the manufacturers. Take out the cellular modem? Next one requires connectivity to drive the car and so forth. You could “ban” it, but the amount of effort required to raise public awareness for that and actually have our dickhead representatives due things like that is basically the same amount of effort, perhaps more, as building b…

In many parts of the US, individual vehicles are the only viable mode of transportation. In fact, even in the NYC metro area, a car is pretty much indispensable, unless maybe you live in Manhattan and only rely on home delivery for groceries and the like. If you ever want to do anything outside of the city, you need a car.

Post by maest » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 12:49 AM UTC

rkomorn wrote: post #155

jeroenhd wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it often either, but my government has been very active trying to get people to do bi-monthly tire pressure checks at the very least. I don't think most people know how to do it, to be honest. Partially because people seem to think reading two pages in a manual is some kind of sisyphean task that no mortal should ever be cursed with. It's pretty crazy how little people care. Even if you don't care about t…

Tire pressure management was one of the striking differences between my experiences in France and in the US. In France, we'd check tire pressure at gas stations on nice machines that had built in dial gauges and were free. In the US, I had to use one of those hand gauges and the air pumps needed quarters (in most cases, especially if you weren't also buying gas). In Portugal now, the gas stations also have free air a…