[noduerme]

I understand this. To be clear, I'm willing to use GPS. I'm willing to carry a cellphone. I'm even willing to use those things in conjunction when I choose to put a battery in and turn mobile data on and location on. If there were a car with a built-in GPS that didn't have cellular reception, I would get it. (I used to use a TomTom).

But I won't buy a car where those things are integrated and can't be turned off. Several people here seem to assume that I don't understand that almost all cars from the past decade have this capability.

It's one reason I drive a car from 1980, with basically no electronics whatsoever. (Other reasons being: it's more fun, it's simple to repair, and it will still run after an EMP).

[OnlineGladiator]

I'm saying it's really easy to just kill the cellular modem in pretty much any car. Just short it with solder if you want to. Now you can enjoy almost any car with none of the privacy concerns.

If you prefer older cars that's fine, but there's an easy workaround if the issue really is whether or not there's a cellular modem. I've done this before on multiple vehicles and it won't void the warranty for anything other than parts you want to disable already.

[noduerme]

Hm. Interesting. The newer navigation systems are based on Android I think - right?

My GF has a 2008 Lexus with a GPS/nav that is definitely not Android. All the maps are onboard on a drive. She actually can't update her maps anymore because the physical ROMs or whatever stopped being produced a few years ago. I'm assuming that newer cars just download their maps from (somewhere? Is this connectivity part of what's sold as a "navigation package"?)

There are other reasons I'm not a fan of newer cars (auto-braking, too much fly-by-wire stability/antilock/nonsense pushing your pedals when you don't want them pushed, and "hill hold"). But disabling the tracking stuff would make it more palatable.

Ironically, my radar detector knows exactly where I am and communicates with a network all the time when it's plugged in. But that's for my own joy =D