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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

#511

Post by brailsafe »

jfim wrote: post #176
brailsafe wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A car realistically just sits around doing nothing 80% of the time A bit besides the point, but isn't it wild how inherently wasteful personal cars are? Every time the thought crosses my mind to get another one, if I don't stop at the cost, I stop at the fact that I'll have this giant chunk of metal sitting idle on the street or somewhere else nearly all the time. It'd be useful in an extreme minority of cases (for…

Depends where you live, and how much of a hassle it is to get a rental car. If you live somewhere with decent public transportation and good car sharing infrastructure (eg. walk to a nearby car share and unlock the doors with an app or a card vs Uber to Hertz and wait for an hour to sign paperwork), then yes that's a viable option. For many places in the US and Canada, that's not viable unfortunately.

True, and that really does constrain where I'm willing to live these days. There's some threshold probably where I could deal with owning one in exchange for some hypothetical benefit of living in the boonies or something, but for the foreseeable future I get too much personal value out of living on the west coast.

It's not always suitable mind you. Extremely short random day trips are the trickiest, which might tip me at some point if I'm making decent money again, but it's so hard to get to a point where I could rationalize that as an occasional leisure luxury instead of a burden.

I wouldn't move to another city though for any reason that would require me to own a car just for getting around. If they ain't investing in viable transit, they won't get my income tax.

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

#512

Post by [deleted] »

77pt77 wrote: post #450
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…

> GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled. I believe the name of that module is DCM You can disable some models, but I have my doubts. In rentals you can forget about it.

[deleted]

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

#513

Post by ddingus »

Spooky23 wrote: post #501
ddingus wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently did a Toyota to Honda and back to Toyota cycle. I liked the overall performance of the Honda. Little things like slightly more aggressive gear ratios, steering and such were superior on the Honda. Economy was almost a push, but the edge goes to Toyota. The Honda got my attention for service and repair more than the Toyota cars have. And Honda had the advantage overall. My Toyota was older than the Honda, b…

The dealer thing varies by region. I’ve run into stuff with relatives like: - Difficult basic activities. Like you can’t talk to anyone without an appointment. When you need to talk about something they aren’t interested in talking about, they get busy. - Aggressive & deceptive upsell on service, as in service advisor demanding an unnecessary $750 repair as a condition to honor a battery warranty. - Trying to steal d…

Ah, I see. It is the dealers attitude you were writing about.

Oh yeah. Some of those ring true for me too. Now, I basically quit buying new, and the shitty dealer experience is a significant part of why. The other part is a lot of cars are being made that I just don't want to buy!

The dealer here presented some of those items. So did a Ford dealer, for what that is worth.

Thanks for sharing. Appreciated

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

#515

Post by Forgeties79 »

RobRivera wrote: post #514
Forgeties79 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry you feel that way.

Are you?

Are you surprised I responded flippantly to a personal dig?

We’re well beyond the point of productivity. Have a good one.

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

#516

Post by RobRivera »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #515
RobRivera wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you?

Are you surprised I responded flippantly to a personal dig? We’re well beyond the point of productivity. Have a good one.

So you admit you were flippant, and assert my observation was a personal dig.

Reveals much about your ability to handle discourse

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

#517

Post by [deleted] »

RobRivera wrote: post #516
Forgeties79 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you surprised I responded flippantly to a personal dig? We’re well beyond the point of productivity. Have a good one.

So you admit you were flippant, and assert my observation was a personal dig. Reveals much about your ability to handle discourse

[deleted]

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

#518

Post by anticensor »

DennisP wrote: post #403
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also create problems in terms of extra journeys as a private car will go from A to B, whereas a taxi goes from C to A to B to C. It's quite amusing as people try to come up with more efficient use of cars and typically end up reinventing public transport (e.g. buses, trains etc).

Those extra journeys can be minimized with decent routing software. Even if it's as simple as ending up at B, then going directly to the nearest customer waiting for a ride. And fwiw, if Tesla gets their robotaxi stuff working, their 22-passenger "robovan" is basically a bus anyway, just without a driver.

Their demo event showed a 14-passenger vehicle, but anyway.

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

#519

Post by averageRoyalty »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #221
gr33nq wrote: post #15

At first glance this reminded me of some Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor models which had similar unlabeled buttons. One would disable all exterior lights, including brake lights, for going into stealth/surveillance mode. An adjacent button was used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine running, while preventing the car from being shifted out of park until the key was inserted again. I haven't seen…

I was astonished to learn that Ford no longer sells sedans (Fusions) of any kind. Neither does GM. I dislike SUVs, and it seems the only choices for American sedans are a Cadillac or a Tesla. Hondas and Toyotas are selling like hot-cakes, but when they had to compete on quality American automakers just decided to walk away from the market. So no need to worry about that feature on Fusions... they don't sell them anym…

That must be an American thing. Ford, Holden (GMSV, Chevvy), Toyota and Honda all still sell sedans in Australia.

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

#520

Post by yencabulator »

foobarian wrote: post #446
_huayra_ wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI for anyone who owns a Subaru: you can opt out of 3rd-party data sharing here https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html If you don't live in one of the states mentioned in the first paragraph, expect this to take a very long time. For me it took 6 months.

The only opting out I would trust would be to take a screwdriver to the cellular modem and disable it. Of course this would probably bubble up various exceptions so best way to do it may be to isolate the antenna, though that may not be 100% reliable.

My bought-as-used Subaru has a 3G modem, and there's no 3G service anymore. Good enough.
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