[ilikenwf]

I ended up calling and having OnStar cancel my "trial" in my 2018 era truck in 2019, to the point I instructed them to disable the OnStar lights on the mirror and everything. This was a task as they're very annoying and persistent...

Once that was done I originally pulled the daughterboard housing the entire modem but this bricked my compass and GPS. To keep those working I ended up altering the modem itself with a soldering iron per the pdf posted here:

https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-wi...

The guy there on that forum did so in an effort to use your own sim with the HMI, but using 0 ohm resistors or just solder bridging the relevant connections is enough to prevent my vehicle from getting online, but leaves the GPS intact. You can test by trying to make phone/onstar/data related actions - it just won't work.

Another good measure is to remove one of the antenna leads, I forget which one is cellular primary, but the other is more GPS/aux. Doing it all this way allows you to still connect your vehicle to wifi should you so desire to, for updates and such.

There are other secrets and tricks to these things, including a git repo I cloned that is now gone from the public internet, where a guy figured out how to solder an EMMC reader to a few points on the mainboard to get and modify the filesystem.

Edit: here's a mirror https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git

They really go out of their way to keep you from owning your vehicle.

Also bought a device that lets me plug HDMI inputs into the truck, unfortunately some kind of refresh rate or resolution issue prevents it from working properly.

As an aside, if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port, and used sticky tape to hide it somewhere - make sure to remove that once you're not financed through them as well (it is illegal to do so I believe before using alternative financing or paying it off).

[ricardonunez]

That seems like a lot of work to own something. At that point I will go with an alternative brand that doesn't have those kind of system or subscription. The problem will be when all the brands have something similar.

[ilikenwf]

Even if it doesn't have all that, if you finance most vehicles they will install a poorly hidden cell tracker that usually draws power from the OBD2 port.

It is legally problematic to remove until you switch financing...

In addition, if tracking bothers you, your tire pressure sensors all have trackable (if there are enough sensors around a city) IDs, and if bluetooth is on, and it probably is, that as well...aside from your cell phone...

My next (secondary) vehicle will 100% be a dumb vehicle from the 90s or earlier.

[ensignavenger]

What laws prevent you from removing a gps tracker from your vehicle? It may be a civil agreement between you and the lender?

[bscphil]

> if you finance most vehicles they will install a poorly hidden cell tracker that usually draws power from the OBD2 port.

I have never heard of this. Do you have any reference to learn more?

Who exactly does this installing - someone hired by the bank? The dealer? If I pay cash for a vehicle, does that guarantee that the dealer won't install a tracker? How can I find this out?

[judge2020]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/dealbook/gps-dev...

If you pay cash, you probably can't be 100% sure there isn't one, but it would still be illegal for them to do this. Otherwise, when you loan/lease the car, it's legal for the dealer to put a tracker on 'their own car'/do it as required by the bank ('their own car' or a car they have a 100% value lien on, for those of you in lien states).

Via the article, the FTC was supposedly probing these to determine 'if the availability of car loans outweighed the privacy issues', but nothing came of it (which is why i'm not hopeful for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32426633 ).

[metric10]

We leased a new Jeep Cherokee from a Miami dealership some time ago. It was a company car and was financed. Some months later we noticed the odometer was blinking constantly so we took it in for service to a different dealer. The tech pulled it out and told us about it. He said they didn't do it at that dealership, but some do it.

It was just hanging off the OBD2 port, so if you're concerned about it when leasing or buying a new car then just make sure to check that port.

I still have it in a box somewhere. I'm not sure if there's anything interesting that can be done with it...

[edit: minor grammar]

[neuralRiot]

Usually it is installed by some “tech” at the dealer, installing on the OBD port is unusual as it is where people will look first, it can be installed anywhre there’s constant 12v power, newer trackers are very small (the size of a gum pack) and have their own battery. Tracking after the payment is done is not usual as the dealer has to pay a fee for the network but the tracker stays there and i guess it can be re-activated.

[kkielhofner]

There’s also in-vehicle Wi-Fi.

A while back I set up a Ubiquity Wi-Fi system for a friend who lives near a fairly high-traffic street.

The default Ubiquity scan interval for spectrum and Wi-Fi network awareness was enough to map schedules for a shockingly high number of people driving by.

I imagine something custom built for this purpose would be significantly more, umm, “effective” for this purpose.

[jorvi]

> It is legally problematic to remove until you switch financing...

Is it?

Unless their financing T&C specifically tell you you are bound to let them track you, can't you just pop it out and tell them to pound sand?

[metric10]

I've removed one and never heard anything. I doubt they even check if it's functioning unless they are attempting to repossess the car. As I recall, some modules have the ability to unlock and start the car as well (I think; it was years ago when I found one and researched it...)

[quintushoratius]

> If you finance most vehicles they will install a poorly hidden cell tracker that usually draws power from the OBD2 port.

What kind of janky banks are you working with?

My spouse and I financed a couple of cars recently, one new and one slightly used, and did not have anything of the sort. Different manufacturers, different banks, different dealerships.

[sidewndr46]

They don't disclose when they install those devices generally. If they do, it's buried under 100s of pages of documents.

[pdabbadabba]

But how does this actually happen? Who puts the tracker on there and when?

Sure, if you finance through the dealership, then dealership personnel could stick it in there before you drive away, I guess. It plenty of people finance through third parties. Surely Wells Fargo, for example, doesn’t send an agent down to stick a tracker in your car while you’re sleeping or at work…

[sidewndr46]

The dealership has an employee who installs it, usually when the vehicle is undergoing what manufacturers call "pre purchase inspection".

[ilikenwf]

The dealership itself, a mainline GM dealer owned by Berkshire-Hathaway.

[kurtoid]

TIL tire pressure sensors are wireless. I always wondered how they were "wired"

[colejohnson66]

It's even better. To avoid having to enter the serial numbers of them into your car, your car just listens to all the TPM sensors chirping around it. After enough time, your car finds four (or more) that follow you around and decides those are yours.

[tyingq]

>0 ohm resistors

Had me scratching my head for a minute there. I guess it's a thing now, though we used to just call them jumpers.

[midoridensha]

They've been around for decades, both for thru-hole and surface-mount. When you're using automated machinery, you don't want to mess around with wire jumpers; a zero-ohm resistor can be inserted or pick-and-placed using the same automated equipment that normal resistors are placed with.

[tyingq]

It's just a funny name to me. Zero ohm and resistor are mutually exclusive.

To me, it's still a jumper, shunt, etc.

[brians]

Ah, but the trick is to get the low tolerance ones. Two reasons: A) then it’s +/- 20%, right? Which means you bucket them and resell the + ones, using the rest to mine crypto, and B) you save money because 5% of 0 is no more than 20%.

[thayne]

It's also physically impossible for it to actually be 0 ohms. Unless there are consumer grade superconductors that I didn't know about.

[cvccvroomvroom]

That's why 0 Ω resistors have a current rating.

[cvccvroomvroom]

They're rarely just jumpers, they're often fuses as well because they have a current rating. 0 Ω are sometimes uses as sacrificial fail safes when there's not a cost budget for thermal self-resetting fuses such as those used in automotive applications. And it's usually cheaper to bridge two pads with a blob of solder than maintain and source another part in the BOM.

[tyingq]

I suppose, though, if you look up those ratings, they aren't terribly different from the max current ratings of a copper wire with roughly the same cross-section area.

[benj111]

Well a wire also has a current rating, I guess that's a fuse aswell?

[83]

"Fusible link wire" exists - it is sometimes used in automative wiring harnesses (mostly older vehicles I think).

[albrewer]

> if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port

ALL buy-here-[pay|finance]-here car dealerships put a GPS tracker in your car. Where it's located and how it's connected to your car's electrical system will vary, but they ALL do it using[0] companies[1] like[2] these[3].

[0] https://gpsandtrack.com/

[1] https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/

[2] https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships...

[3] https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/

[sytelus]

What is so special about GM that you are willing to go through all these?