Thread

1. hattar · 1790888358 · focus · HN ↗

   I currently drive a mid 2000s Ford truck, which runs great and meets my needs, but lately I got interested in minivans/people carriers. I pretty quickly realized that newer vehicles seem to not just record, but export a lot of driving data.

   The minivan market is small. There are really only 4-5 available and every single one sends telemetry data from the car and makes it hard/impossible to opt out of selling your data. Additionally, without pretty extensive work there is no means of physically disabling the telemetry, which forces you to trust they'll honor your opt out request (vs re-enabling it with some update).

   I'm clearly in the vast minority on this, but it's so frustrating that there are no options beyond buying and installing a third-party bypass to disable this type of tracking. Worse, I'm aware that the absence of data is data itself. Is my insurance going raise my rates because my vehicle won't provide telemetry for them to buy?

   1. detourdog · 1790890007 · focus · HN ↗

      Buy a slightly used one that has a 3g modem. My 2018 car no longer can phone home.

      1. asdff · 1790890949 · focus · HN ↗

         That is interesting that they fail safe and don't just brick the car though. Maybe you can still go with a newer car but just wrap the antennae in foil or maybe just unplug it.

         1. Rebelgecko · 1790892174 · focus · HN ↗

            IIRC, some brand (maybe Subaru?) had a problem where the car would drain its 12v after a few hours retrying its search for 3g towers

            1. [deleted] · 1790892473 · focus · HN ↗

               [deleted]

            2. slices · 1790946691 · focus · HN ↗

               yep. my mom's subaru ate several batteries due to this problem. She traded it in.

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