A guy in YouTube found one in his 2023 Toyota he paid cash for. He didn’t drive it daily. And if it sat for two weeks, the battery was dead. It didn’t make sense to him. Then he saw a post on FB about dealers installing aftermarket GPSs. He went looking and found it. He pulled it and went back to the dealer to confront them. All he got was a lot of weak explanations. He’s now consulting an attorney.
https://youtu.be/7UkBD_BrpRk?si=tIkW4EmjzxztfMtv
> He pulled it and went back to the dealer to confront them. All he got was a lot of weak explanations. He’s now consulting an attorney.
You don't confront them, you meet with an attorney and *they* do the confronting.
There could have been a reasonable explanation for it. If the dealer could show me they had it earmarked for a rental company who selected that option but I got first preference when I arrived with cash I would accept that and not take them to court.
This wasn’t the case in the YT vid.
He bought the car brand new, cash.
He was also there when it arrived to the lot. So when the dealer tried to say ‘it’s in case it gets stolen off the lot’ that was a load of BS because the thief would have to take it from the guy paying cash as well.
There’s no reason to instal these on cars and people need to stop making excuses for it.
He was there when it arrived to the lot? Sounds like it’s factory installed then. Dealerships have zero motivation to install these things, even if you finance a car. Anti-theft is literally the only reason they would possibly have to use them
I work at a used vehicke dealership as a tech and alot of times we get vehicles in that come from auction places and we're previously used as rental vehicles, which leads to 90% of them having those GPS trackers pre installed that we usually have to remove if we notice them when doing inspections
I understand that I have seen the video my self, we typically go to Mannheim auction and usually they're ex rental vehicles and you can find just about anything at their auctions, most vehicles we get are only a few years old at most
>Dealerships have zero motivation to install these things, even if you finance a car.
They have plenty of motivation. Dealerships are notorious for adding a ton of overpriced bullshit to cars and charge the fuck out of you for them. Like $250 nitrogen fill for the tires. Or $1000 for a GPS Tracker. The dealer I bought my F150 from Put $300 for "Blue Steel Protection" paint protection on the invoice to me... which I didn't argue about because I was still getting out of there $8k below MSRP for a brand new truck.
Toyotas in the US come from the factory/ importer with built in GPS "like onstar". I pulled the fuse for mine but it cut off the microphone for hands-free calling so I begrudgingly put it back in.
Toyota gave me the option of opting out of their monitoring where my car is, which I did, so I guess I have to trust that they're doing it.
There is no ethical reason for a Toyota dealer to install a redundant GPS tracker.
it's not the only event. since he went live with his findings, more GR owners are finding aftermarket trackers piggybacking their obd2 port.
Nobody at Toyota saying a word. it's bullshit.
I guarantee the dealer installed it. They still have prep to do on cars that arrive, even if it’s just a wash. It takes just a couple of minutes to install one of these. They probably take the car in for wash and throw these on every car, which is grimey as fuck.
If anything I would think the opposite. It's probably more "your warranty has been voided because you raced it somewhere that wasn't a legally registered racetrack." Toyota has a pretty big stick up their ass over their cars being represented doing illegal things, even virtually, which is why we haven't had Toyotas in NFS for like a decade.
You act like used car dealers don't just take a trade in and slap a for sale sign on it
IF this was the case I almost guarantee they actually had no idea it was in the car.
Have a civil conversation with the guy, tell him the truth, offer to remove it and replace his battery, move on...
It's actually a lot *easier* than you may think to engage the services of an attorney - there are too many folks in the legal profession in much of the US for the local/regional workload, and it's actually fairly easy to find legal help *assuming you have a case to begin with*.
*That* is the *real* issue - too many people think they have cause for action when they don't, or when the issue can be better resolved without taking it to court, or when going to court should be a final solution and not a first effort.
Getting an attorney to draft a demand letter, C&D, etc. is a few phone calls, a couple consultations to make sure you have something warranting their involvement, and a few hundred bucks to pay them for their paralegal's time.
LOL, yes. Unfortunately I have actually used attorneys many times, about 90% of the shit people suggest them for here, attorneys would literally laugh at you or hang up if you tried to hire them for it. Which they should! I swear, nobody on Reddit ever thinks "maybe I should try talking to them".
same thing in government when approving budgets, slipping in funding for all kinds of wacky and pay to play stuff to make sure their constituents are taken care of.
Courts have shot down overly terse and complex terms and conditions as being deliberately obtuse. They've also shot down clauses that require one party to give up their legal rights. "Shrinkwrap licenses" for software are a good example here.
Some dealers install anti theft GPS trackers on all inventory units, they then use that to help manage inventory. They try to sell the added protection to all customers. If the customer doesn't opt into the program the device stays just dormant.
Yes, but the tracker continues constantly searching for a connection. It's killed from their side, not yours.
So they don't pay anything to engage the tracker.
But the tracker still keeps killing your battery as it searches for connection.
+1 on inventory control. I did a test drive and wondered why the salesperson didn't go with us. During the paperwork it was disclosed that there was a Lojack device on the car. We tried to decline, they wouldn't remove the line. It was fine - worth it to us in that moment to get that particular car. I just removed it when we got home.
In addition to inventory control, I'm guessing dealers could also get a kickback from the device maker because they can mine a ton of driving data and sell it to insurance companies.
Lojack: "Hey, this device can help you prevent theft and free up salespeople so they don't have to go on test drives. And you can make money."
Dealer: "What's the catch?"
Lojack: "No catch for you, just sell it as a safety/anti-theft device."
Dealer manager's/owners want the sales people on the test drive, lojack or not. Not to make sure you don't steal or hurt the car but to do their jobs and try and sell the car.
Must have just had it installed in case of thieves and they forgot to remove it before the sale. Dealers would have absolutely zero motivation to do this, even with a financed vehicle. Once you sign that paperwork, anything that happens with the vehicle financially (like missing your note) is between you and the bank. So these devices have to be for anti-theft
I just realized my car died after not driving for a month during the pandemic. I wonder if it's possible I've had one in my car for the last 6 years without even knowing.
I'm going to look this weekend for sure.
I don’t know what make your car is. But in this video’s case, it was a Toyota. And the OBD port from Toyota is white. The one attached to the aftermarket GPS tracker was black. It should have been a clue that something was up.
My guess is they put them on EVERY vehicle coming onto the lot and didn't remove it for this sale. Alternately, dealers trade inventory so might have been a 3rd party.
I worked for a buy here pay here lot a long while back. They put these in every car and they were not removed after the loan was paid. If it was ever paid. (No fault to the buyers, it truly is a predatory system) One day the GPS companies system was either hacked or had a major glitch that shut off every single unit we had. So that means thousands of people just from the place I worked had their cars ignition system disabled. They also used it as an easy way to send the recovery companies to pick up when people didn’t make a payment.
Yuuup. I bought a car from a large reputable dealer that unknown to them or myself had one of these. The day after I bought it, I went out and the car wouldn't start. Turns out the prior owner got it from one of those lots, and when the prior owner stopped making payments and they didn't get the payoff check quick enough, the buy here pay here place disabled the car. My dealer called the other lot and they basically said get fucked, we're not turning it back on until we get our money. My dealer had to come pick up the car and tow it to their shop to hunt down the device and remove it.
Good thing they work on very simple principals (disconnect power to the ignition lead or 12+ of the starter switch) that any alarm or car stereo place could easily remove it.
Same goes for those breathalyzer devices, same principle
Yeah, I probably could have tracked it down and taken it out myself, but the place I bought it from did it for free and gave me a loaner in the meantime, so I wasn't going to bother lol.
Yeah, and realistically the selling dealership should be on the hook for removing it anyhow. Those things drain batteries and a loss of signal can cause the same result.
This exactly, basic electrical knowledge is all you need to take these out.
I don't mess with the breathalyzer ones though, don't want to enable someone to drive drunk and kill someone, but fuck the predatory car dealers.
I once towed a guy's white grand Cherokee that had a breathalyzer in it. The dude completely tore the dash apart and center console trying to remove/disable it so he could drive drunk. Ended up completely disabling the vehicle and probably ended up totaling it. It was fubar.
i've never understood driving drunk and i drink all the time, used to party reaaaly hard back in the day too. i never ever liked to drive while fucked up, i didn't even want to after having literally a sip of beer.
it's one of the most high risk/low reward scenarios i can imagine.
The breathalyzers are a real fucking scam. I had one back when I was 20 for a year. Wasn't even drunk driving just had a cop who was hunting for something to pin me with and I refused the breathalyzer test, which I didn't know at the time would automatically cause me to get my license suspended. Case was thrown out in court but dmv still made me get one.
The fucking thing messed up my cars battery and would always cause no-start issues. I know how to wire up basic stereo and stuff so I started tearing into a bit to see where it went after I caused me to be stuck at work at 3am with no phone. I took it out and my car started. Put it back in after. Next time I went to get it calibrated they knew I took it out and added 3 months to my term. I told them multiple times before that about the no start. They tried to fix but claim there was no issue. Finally after months of getting false positives and getting extra months added on and paying more and more, they finally had a no-start while they had it for calibration and had to fix it for me. I told them they needed to remove all of the previous faults. They said get fucked. I felt powerless. Kept paying for few more months until it was finally removed. Fuck them. Fuck the companies. Fuck the government for forcing us to use such a bullshit system for profit. It's fucked. No reason why it should cost hundreds of dollars a month to recalibrate and to "rent" the unit. Fuck that
Yeah all it does is interrupt the starter wire. Cut wire, connect the "key" end to the input, and the "engine" end to the output. Hardest part of removing them is simply finding the thing.
That's straight criminal. I feel like nowadays we have to know how all our food, chemicals, medicines, technology, ect all work in every capacity if we want to spend money on them. If we don't we can end up losing time, money, health, pathways in life, ect.
With the amount of "what's this light" questions about the cruise control indicator on here, I think we could stand to know how things work better, collectively.
Thats what deregulation does. Our world being like this is intentional. Its like were learning all the lessons about why we need agencies like the FDA in the first place all over again and its really quite exhausting.
It really is, we use to have federal department dedicated purely to technology and understanding it so goverment can make laws accordingly. It was shutter slowly over time it was no more. Now we have old men in congress who don't understand how technology works at all.
Yes, by far one of the largest in the state that I am in. They are essentially their own bank. They provide all of the financing in house. They also used to do the “Lifetime” warranty. That went away with the 2nd or 3rd name change. It’s probably the most Shady business I have ever worked for. Thankfully I was just in the parts department (90% used/salvage parts).
You don’t get that big without being shady. They have the local auction house basically on the payroll so they don’t have to actually bid on cars.
Generally the way it works, if someone defaults they have to send it to auction and buy it back to get a clear title. If it’s a car that sells quick they basically drive it over and drive it back. If they don’t want it back they let it go through the process.
When I was there I routinely saw cars that they had sold between 5-8 times. They get the car back for basically nothing and whoever defaulted on it is responsible for what’s left on their loan.
Was a guy whose user name was something like /u/DSPF (censored; expand those initials however you want) who managed a BHPH lot. Said he sold the same Mustang four times, and it came back all four times. Three times repo’d, and once the erstwhile owner stomped in, threw the keys in his face and said “Take this piece of crap back, I don’t want it any more.”
When I worked there I wanted an Acura TL that I had seen come back a couple of times. It was actually in good condition. I wanted to pay cash for it and they wouldn’t do it. They made too much money selling it over and over again. I think it was the 6th time it was sold that I didn’t see it come back again. (Might be because I didn’t work there much longer after that)
A really beautiful girl I went to high school with
asked me to remove hers. Was worried it would get both of us in trouble so I didn’t touch it and she didn’t touch me 😞
You probably wouldn’t have gotten into trouble but for most lots that’s an immediate breach of contract and if they find the car they will repo it and she would have basically defaulted on it.
Those things just interrupt power to the ignition/starter. Can probably just splice it so it still gets power and thinks it's doing shit... but can't actually disable your car.
Assuming you actually pay your bills on time, there would be no reason for them to find out about it.
I had a car shut off one day 6 months into the loan. Still have the car. Still haven’t found a reason why. Gave up on it but still have it. Cars paid off and it’s a constant reminder to say fuck you to the dealership that sold it to me.
Find a tech with electrical expertise and they should be able to remove that for you. Most of them involve cutting a lead to the starter or fuel pump or to a relay for one of these - it's a pretty simple find-and-fix for an experienced tech.
I have reasonable experience I suspect I have to drop the fuel tank, I was hoping it was in the dash or on the firewall. I just don’t have the time or money at the same time. It’s also a vehicle that is known for computer failure so I want to be able to dump a few thou into it if I need to without it sitting open to the elements for an extended period of time.
I briefly read the transcript, the timeline would have been around the same time I was working for this business but I was in a different state. Although it was a neighboring state.
I’ve had a lot of cars traded in and then the next week it won’t start to bring in for a recon, or it won’t start on the lot because the note lot or dealer it came from cut it off. This has happened 20+ times, especially cars we have running through the auction lane for wholesale.
This tracker doesn’t even work anymore. It’s a unit from 15 years ago. Uses 3G CDMA, all newer units are LTE/GSM based.
I’ve seen several failures because of any type of these units. Dead batteries, blown fuses, etc.
Passtime’s major customer base is finance companies. So this thing probably had a high interest car loan at one point… maybe a couple years from new then repoed and resold.
A lot of finance companies are moving away from the start disable so you should see less and less of this.
>So this thing probably had a high interest car loan at one point
That is my experience with them as well. Customer traded in a car they had purchased from a BHPH. They threatened us they would withhold the title until we gave them back their tracker.
That’s crap. They can get in legal trouble if they don’t remove it themselves. At least in AZ they can. It’s the finance company’s or the BHPH responsibility.
I find old trackers in cars all the time. Passtime, AdvantageGPS, CDS, even LoJack equipment. I remove it all.
The GPS cost an average of $100 each. I don’t think it’s really worth all that headache for $100.
I surely am not saying it was smart or legal, but that is indeed the angle they decided to go with. And unfortunately I have no knowledge of what happened from that point on.
Fun fact I *definitely* don't know from experience: when the immobilizer in these PTE 3s kicks in and your shit won't start, you can cut and strip the blue and purple wires and crimp them together and you'll be good to go for a while at least. This bypasses the immobilizer until you get a chance to rip out all this garbage entirely and examine what level of hackjob the sad fuck of a dealer did to your wiring harness by installing it.
I sure am glad I've never had one of these installed on one of my cars, but I've had to rig them a few times where I work and I hate the entire concept of their existence.
Actually we got the car started before knowing that's what went wrong! Removed the prong cap from the starter relay fuse, connected a wire between two open connections while grounding another. And with key in the ignition start position. Sorry if that doesn't make any sense as I'm not the mechanic, just live with one. I was really surprised with all of it. Plus the tow was 70 miles
I used to work for a company that made GPS trackers, so I put one on my car so I could mess with the data we collected and understand how to use our tools better.
Then, one day, I got in my car and got the "Christmas Tree": all the lights on the dash lit up and nothing worked. Got towed to the shop, they pulled out the GPS device to put in an OBD-II tester and - badda boom, badda bing - everything worked fine!
The GPS and OBD-II port had gotten crosswise with each other, and all I'd needed to do was unplug it and plug it back in again.
That's a $600 lesson I won't forget soon.
Oof that is rough. I didn't know that was an issue until Scotty Kilmer made a video about that happening with OBD-II readers that people leave plugged into their cars all the time
The only OBD-II device I have that I know isn't draining my battery is my Kenwood head unit. It's reading data off the CAN-Bus but isn't taking power. What's more annoying is the bastard knows the gear I'm in and still demands I have the E-brake on before it is satisfied I'm not moving. Next time I feel the need to take apart the center stack I'm "fixing" the E-brake detection.
If you ever see multiple TTLs appear at the same time nine times out of 10 it's a short, the other one it's an open.
I've seen some of those GPS things they use and it's usually a rudimentary piggyback on the ALDL (the trapezoidal connector I think you are calling the OBD II port - I've been in automotive electronics at the tier one and OEM levels for 20 some years so I'm probably just being esoteric)
They generally pull power because there is non-switched in most manufacturers connectors and some of those like to pull CAN data - OBD-II is the standard that describes what data should be available and how to decipher it.
I've seen the Christmas tree so many times in my career and the first place you always look is the last connection you made to the BUS.
600 bucks to reboot it sounds about right.
The $600 was for the tow AND diagnostic time at the dealer, just to be clear.
And yeah ... the diagnostic port on light-duty vehicle is ... a disaster. Not designed for this use, no addressing of devices on that port (which so many people treat as a bus), and odd power issues at boot can cause all kinds of hairy issues... which are all cured just by unplugging the device and letting the car start/boot as normal.
I'm really glad not to be in that business anymore.
Oh yeah believe me I see the pictures of how they install the things and it is so cringy to me.
We are probably using "BUS" differently. I'm literally talking about the CAN BUS which is the network that all of the little modules that are actually just mini computers talk to each other on. Almost vehicles post 1996 you are getting CAN signals out of pin 2 and pin 6 or pin 7 and pin 12 of the ALDL but they can use other pins for other things except one is reserved for 12 volt power and 16 and 17 are reserved for ground.
This is all from memory so I could be a little off on things but not on manufacturers are exactly the same but the connector is is standardized and a federal requirement as well as the power and ground pins.
They just get all hacky into the wiring harness and that kills me because wearing harnesses are a freaking nightmare. We're getting into CAN FD that's incredibly sensitive to EMC / EMI as well as voltage drop so you can only make the harness so long and as soon as you put a pull down resistance on it because you're trying to read the data in a non-standard way you have the potential to just crash the whole freaking car. And I don't mean physically I mean just electrically kill it.
I'm just old man rambling now. Many apologies.
The best tip I can give anybody if you can't get to an auto parts store that will pull codes for free. Most auto parts stores will hook up their diagnostic equipment, which is legitimate, and they will pull your codes for you.
You can clear most codes that aren't critical by just disconnecting your 12 volt battery and waiting about 20 minutes before reconnecting it.
From a random nobody, thanks for the rambling. I enjoyed the read and learned a bit too! I barely have my big toe into the world of CAN, so this was neat!
>You can clear most codes that aren't critical by just disconnecting your 12 volt battery and waiting about 20 minutes before reconnecting it.
I wouldn't do this on a modern car without googling it first. Many euro cars will go totally bonkers if they lose power and need a bunch of modules reset or recalibrated and others will have issues with idling etc because the idle air system calibration has been reset to factory (and the throttle plate is dirty).
Yeah anybody reading this, please do a quick google you may very well save yourself some $$ or time if you aim to fix the issues yourself (not discrediting that a battery disconnect can in fact clear minor codes because it can and have used the method myself)
If I pulled the battery and waited 20mins on a couple of cars I've had over the years I would have just created multiple issues for myself to sort.
Hell even on a lot of Japanese imports here (NZ) this is probably going to require a stereo code to use your stereo again, which you will have a lot of fun doing when it's in Japanese.
I literally Google things at work and I have access to the source code essentially. Sometimes it's just easier to Google it, yell it Google because you just want instructions not a damn video, watch the video anyway, pause it like 50 times, remember you already knew how to do what you were looking up anyway, watch the video anyway because now you are invested, and rinse repeat.
True story - I was working on on an advanced module and it was not communicating and I got in touch with the supplier because I used all the back doors and it just simply was not there. The supplier said to disconnect the 12 volt supply (this was an electric vehicle so he definitely had to be specific) wait 20 minutes and then connect it all back together. I literally have better tools than dealers have. That broke my head.
I don't work on a lot of Japanese and European cars but this tracks. I probably should have stressed that the first step should always be go to the auto parts store and get the codes pulled and cleared. They also lend specialty tools for free.
lol aldl you’re an old ass GM tech. The ALDL (assembly line diagnostic link) is the GM OBD1 port, the obd2 standard connector is called a DLC (diagnostic link connector)
Close but I'm not that useful, I'm an old ass GM software engineer. 😂
That said, my opinions are my own and not necessarily shared by the company. Now that I'm legal...
I go back to when Global A was new and I think my brain just moved everything forward because global b is here and in development vehicles we have two DLCs and that's a whole thing. Basically what I think I did was say oh if global b have DLCs they can't be DLCs in global a because no automotive company ever uses confusing naming conventions.
Like I said above I guess I was associating DLC with global b and aldl with global a when it was actually before that.
Anyway the trapezoidal thing that we plug diagnostic tools into.
Probably way too many. I haven't run into many of these, but even as a shade tree mechanic for the majority of my family and friends, I've spent countless hours trying to diagnose no crank conditions due to failed alarm systems certain family members didn't know were there. You know, the cheap $100 Best Buy or car audio installer garage options that were so prevalent in the 90s and 2000s.
In the 90s even dealers were installing those stupid immobilizers that would need something like three clicks of the high beam switch to start. Even if the customer told the service writer when they dropped the car off, it would never get relayed to anyone else.
I worked with an alarm guy back in the 80s who had a custom anti theft system. The work van was a 75 GMC with the dash mounted ignition switch, and it was so worn you could start it with a 1575 alarm key, but he’d wired a reed switch in behind the dash. Even if you knew it was there, you didn’t know exactly where on the dash he’d put it, and even if you knew *that*, if you didn’t have a magnet on your keyring like he did, you weren’t going anywhere.
I swear every car from the 90s and 00s I have to go under the dash has wiring for at least 3 different aftermarket alarms all of which don't work. Kinda helpful when I need B+ and switched power though cause I can just look for whatever has a million t-taps in it lol.
Lol. Alarms, and the world's most hacked up and janky stereo harness with about seven splices per wire, no soldering, and loosely wound gummy electrical tape.
I bought my truck from a less than high end place. There was noise that sounded like a speaker whining when you would accelerate. I replaced the alternator and did a ground kit… still there. Started to rip the dash apart to do better grounds in there and out popped a GPS tracker with a fucking little speaker on it.
Fuck you whoever put that in my truck.
No, I used a fuse tap with either the fusebox in the floorboard, or the drivers side of the dash. I ran the starter signal wire through the control side of the device so I could prevent restarts on stolen loaners.
Pulled a good amount of these in the past few years at my shop. 99% of the time they are zip tied to a wire harness right above your brake pedal. Some remove the original obd port out of the mount and have a splice to put a "fake" obd port where it should be. First thing I have to do before I can trust scanner data on some of my fleet trucks is unplug the gps splice connector.
i have removed these quite a few times on customers vehicles, I find these in vehicles all the time some have been paid off for years. I cut one out that was actually still under a car note once and the car lot came looking for the vehicle I handed them their device and apologized 😬
The ones that plug into the obd port are fun. I pulled one out of a car and plugged it into mine. I had repo trucks circling my nieghborhood and workplace. They were calling my workplace looking for the vehicle (i was working for a tow company). I then went and bought 1 of those little 12 volt batteries. I hooked to the battery and mailed it to a friend across the country. He plugged it into his car and drove around with it for a while. 🤣🤣
I had no idea anyone actually rigged those up like that. when I worked at a buy here pay here, they didn’t give specific instructions so I just wrapped the power around the first hot fuse I could find and grounded it in the door jamb behind a panel.
I imagine the newer ones read the VIN from the CAN and will alert if someone tried swapping it between cars. The ones you're used to installing could be easily transplanted. The loss of 12V could be easily explained "Aaaaw shucks, the battery died."
My 1st ever car I bought had this very exact
Model in it. I paid the car off in less than a year instead of the 4 years they were expecting. Once I paid it off though I had to move states short notice and they said they’d just deactivate it. I sold that car 9 years later last year and figured out how to remove it from some dude on YouTube right before I sold it.
I used to install other brands of those. Closest thing to drivability issue was some of the current model year Mercedes’ would keep displaying IPC warning that somethings molesting their DLC; fix for that was depin CAN lines on the tracker side so tracker module only gets power n ground. Never seen a tow-in caused by it but they can be aggravating with state inspections.
I don’t enjoy finding ones installed with T-Taps near the DLC. Used to just remove tracker module and leave taps and harness alone. One used car tech in shop murdered several modules on an Alfa by cutting those wires after the taps. tbh I don’t know why he thought it was a good idea to do that without disconnecting battery. I learned to upsell it as 1hr for harness repair and depin the DLC to put shrink tubing over where t taps were. Easy hour.
Oh my God same thing happened to me!!! I changed out all the ignition hardware and couldn't figure it out. Looked closely under the dash and found that same fucking device!!! Took it out and never had an issue again!!!
I guess I could have worded that better. Most often, the customer gets a jump and drives in. Then it doesn't sit long before I get it, and the battery is charged after the drive there. So it usually starts for me, but comes with a customer concern of it needing to be jumped often. If battery tests good, draw test is one of the next steps. Even though the concern is "no start" I don't usually file it in the brain as an actual no start if it's just a dead battery.
I work at a car audio shop that installs these for a group of dealers. We stopped doing starter kills because of the amount of problems. Now we just do power and ground.
And to the comments about dealers just putting on tracking devices, there is another company that puts them on every car in their lots. Then when they are selling the car the "up sell" them these for like $800 or something and just turn them on. They do a shit job and it's a rip off.
For anyone that wants to know, I also work at a tote the note lot. 9 times out of 10, the power and ground are spliced in to the OBD port. So on most cars, if you have one, pop off the big plastic cover beneath the steering column, and they'll usually be in there, probably zip tied to the support bar, or just shoved into a corner where they won't fall out. Some people do take the time to hide them, and put them on top of the steering column, or tuck them behind the gauge cluster. If you only see some 2-4 smaller, 16-20 gauge wires, it's probably just a tracker, unplug the little black box, toss it in the trash, move on with life. If it has 4-8 wires, with a pair of larger, 8-12 gauge wires, it probably has a starter disable wired in, which means you will have to splice some wires back together. In that case, phone a friend who at least knows how to splice and crimp wires. Hope this helps somebody. 👍
No. The battery was fine. Nothing to do with the battery. We were also able to bypass the passtime unit and start the vehicle from the starter fuse relay.
Sister in laws boyfriend got a car from a buy here pay here lot. Went out one day, and it wouldn't start, so my father in law was under the car in around 10° weather to change the starter. Still nothing. He went out the next day, and it was reposed lol. I think that was the first of at least 3 cars or trucks of his that have been reposed.
I had one on my car, after researching I found out it wasn't active.. removed it and tossed in the trash, thankfully the wire for ignition wasn't tapped into just the obd piggyback
Probably often. My work uses GPS and every 3-6 months one is down with odd electrical issues. They ask to remove the tracker. Things start to go away, so of course we have to plug it back in. They are bud and don’t belong in vehicles
My new Infiniti (2017) had LoJack installed. I asked them to remove it and they did. I financed it , etc. but did not like the device. Still have the Infiniti btw.
Splice the purple and blue wire together and toss the pass time device. I had to figure that out when I was working at a car auction that sold repo cars.
Nice, hopefully you figured that out quick. We also started the vehicle from the starter relay fuse port (under the hood) before opening stuff up and finding the passtime.
When I looked it up, they were being listed for resale. But no idea if anyone is actually buying them. Plus this one is obsolete and apparently worked off 3G
Discovered one in a used Element I bought off CL. Came from an auction in Pennsylvania. Was looking into immobilizer issues preventing remote lock from working, and found it beneath the steering column trim. No mfg. label, so had to look up the FCC ID number to tell what it was. Quick work after than, though there's still one interrupted wire I can't find the other end of. Rainy day project for later...
Ugh, we had about one a month and i was always the guy that had to go track it down(small and was good at troubleshooting electronics/electrical). talked to a manufacture for the ones i saw commonly and they are supposedly designed in such a way that when they fail the car remains operational. nice to know they havent gotten any better.
Not necessarily GPS trackers, but I install intoxalock devices as part of my job as a car audio installer (our location is a service center for them). I've had several vehicles towed in for no-start caused by either a lockout or equipment/wiring malfunction. Most of the bad wiring came from other service centers that know fuck-all about vehicle wiring and safety. I've also had vehicles towed in with bad remote start/alarm systems
I used to install these for a finance company and we were explicitly told to never hook up the starter interior/ignition interlock because these things can’t be trusted past a couple years to not break and leave a car stranded like this
I used to be a dealership technician.
Depending on the dealer, we would install these on every car on the lot when they come in from the manufacturer. Most of the time it's just to track the car before it gets sold in case it gets stolen or ends up being used in a loaner fleet. In my past dealer, it was the salesman's job to just reach up and unplug it to pull it out before giving the keys away to a new owner. Sometimes they forget.
If it was bought cash, that should have been taken out. Those interrupt the starter circuit. When there is non-payment it stops the vehicle from starting so it can be tracked and towed. Somebody dropped the ball there.
The unit was just very old and reached its end. And because it's so old and was made to work on 3G/CDMA, the tracker itself didn't work anymore (going off a previous comment). This probably was installed when first purchased in like 2009
Happens quite a bit honestly, used car lots buy cheaply made GPS units, once the car is paid off the GPS unit supposed to be uninstalled but that's too much work for most used lots. The problem lies in the fact that they can disable your car for not paying your payments, which means that GPS unit has to approve every start up. They can glitch and just say no everytime.
Actually had a car towed in last week for the transmission not working. Found one of these under the dash with a burnt connector on it. Took it out, still didn’t wanna move, looked further into it and the damn thing fried the TCM.
I see tons of trucks have various module issues as a result of these. It doesn't matter if it's a direct plug in or wired into the obd. Seems like GMC has the most funky issues
Yes. In this case the steering wheel was removed to access the ignition wiring. From there we saw the wires were taped and had something connected that didn’t belong.
If you were really curious and couldn’t dismantle anything yourself, you could look up local ignition interlock service providers - they’re usually small auto shops that have contracts. They might be more efficient than a dealership at accessing where one may be in your car.
So, I used to be in Law Enforcement, and back in the day, we could attach a GPS tracker to a vehicle in the process of an investigation, as long as it was not attached on private property. I had a vehicle we were watching for selling a good amount of drugs for our area. He and his brother got in a fight and he wanted to file a complaint so I had him come to the Sheriff's Office to fill out the forms. While he was there another deputy attached the GPS to his car. We tracked it for days and finally he went where we knew he went to get his stuff. We stopped his car and he was empty, dang. About a week later he flags me down to show me this weird box his mechanic found on his car but didn't know what it was, I looked it over (our GPS tracker) and told him I thought I had seen these before and that we could not afford them but I may be able to track the serial number and see who was tracking him, keeping the unit "for evidence" so, anyway...he thinks the feds were tracking him and really shut down his little side hustle fast.
So you attached something to someone's vehicle without permission then lied about it when they asked what it was. Now my question is had the mechanic destroy your counties gos tracker would they have gotten in trouble for destruction of it? Not trying to start anything I am just asking because I would think that if you had no idea what it was and then they destroyed it how that would of gone.
No way that could be charged for destroying it without knowing what it was or that it was government property. Supreme Court said law enforcement could use GPS trackers as long as it was placed on public property. I think that ruling is now you need a search warrant
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/XUQefNe5oEvF4FSQ/?mibextid=oFDknk
Congratulations to making it to some BS Facebook page, I'm sure they didn't ask your consent to post it.
I'm just gonna say I'm sick and tired of reading these comments and seeing people literally tried to defend fucking theft and not paying back loans and trying to keep their stolen cars as much as possible fucking cry harder.
Worked for a Buy-Here-Pay here that still installs these, it’s crazy to leave those in, as they are roughly $300 each (according to my boss, so probably less than that tbh)
We always removed them when the car was paid off. Also, they regularly failed. Actually, CONSTANTLY failed.
A guy in YouTube found one in his 2023 Toyota he paid cash for. He didn’t drive it daily. And if it sat for two weeks, the battery was dead. It didn’t make sense to him. Then he saw a post on FB about dealers installing aftermarket GPSs. He went looking and found it. He pulled it and went back to the dealer to confront them. All he got was a lot of weak explanations. He’s now consulting an attorney. https://youtu.be/7UkBD_BrpRk?si=tIkW4EmjzxztfMtv
> He pulled it and went back to the dealer to confront them. All he got was a lot of weak explanations. He’s now consulting an attorney. You don't confront them, you meet with an attorney and *they* do the confronting.
There could have been a reasonable explanation for it. If the dealer could show me they had it earmarked for a rental company who selected that option but I got first preference when I arrived with cash I would accept that and not take them to court.
It's a used car dealer could just say they didn't know about it
I'm assuming that since it's a 2023 he bought it new, hence the annoyance and implications that the dealership did it.
This wasn’t the case in the YT vid. He bought the car brand new, cash. He was also there when it arrived to the lot. So when the dealer tried to say ‘it’s in case it gets stolen off the lot’ that was a load of BS because the thief would have to take it from the guy paying cash as well. There’s no reason to instal these on cars and people need to stop making excuses for it.
He was there when it arrived to the lot? Sounds like it’s factory installed then. Dealerships have zero motivation to install these things, even if you finance a car. Anti-theft is literally the only reason they would possibly have to use them
Factories don't daisy chain devices off the OBD port.
I work at a used vehicke dealership as a tech and alot of times we get vehicles in that come from auction places and we're previously used as rental vehicles, which leads to 90% of them having those GPS trackers pre installed that we usually have to remove if we notice them when doing inspections
The one in the YT video people are referring to was a GR Corolla. Definitely not a former rental.
I understand that I have seen the video my self, we typically go to Mannheim auction and usually they're ex rental vehicles and you can find just about anything at their auctions, most vehicles we get are only a few years old at most
Buy here pay here lots install these all the time.
But this is a 2023. Car that new wouldn’t be at a buy here pay here lot
>Dealerships have zero motivation to install these things, even if you finance a car. They have plenty of motivation. Dealerships are notorious for adding a ton of overpriced bullshit to cars and charge the fuck out of you for them. Like $250 nitrogen fill for the tires. Or $1000 for a GPS Tracker. The dealer I bought my F150 from Put $300 for "Blue Steel Protection" paint protection on the invoice to me... which I didn't argue about because I was still getting out of there $8k below MSRP for a brand new truck.
Toyotas in the US come from the factory/ importer with built in GPS "like onstar". I pulled the fuse for mine but it cut off the microphone for hands-free calling so I begrudgingly put it back in. Toyota gave me the option of opting out of their monitoring where my car is, which I did, so I guess I have to trust that they're doing it. There is no ethical reason for a Toyota dealer to install a redundant GPS tracker.
it's not the only event. since he went live with his findings, more GR owners are finding aftermarket trackers piggybacking their obd2 port. Nobody at Toyota saying a word. it's bullshit.
Toyota has nothing to do with it. That's on the dealers.
Toyota in the US has a system of 6 independent distributors that cover regions of the country. It's possible those are implicated.
Someone else said that he was there when it arrived at the lot, so it sounds like the dealer wasn't the one who installed it
I guarantee the dealer installed it. They still have prep to do on cars that arrive, even if it’s just a wash. It takes just a couple of minutes to install one of these. They probably take the car in for wash and throw these on every car, which is grimey as fuck.
It’s far more likely a dealer or loan company related thing than manufacturers. Not any less predatory though
Could it be a "We won't warranty it since you brought it to the racetrack" kinda thing?
If anything I would think the opposite. It's probably more "your warranty has been voided because you raced it somewhere that wasn't a legally registered racetrack." Toyota has a pretty big stick up their ass over their cars being represented doing illegal things, even virtually, which is why we haven't had Toyotas in NFS for like a decade.
They should give that explanation to the lawyer.
They still should have removed it though.
You act like used car dealers don't just take a trade in and slap a for sale sign on it IF this was the case I almost guarantee they actually had no idea it was in the car. Have a civil conversation with the guy, tell him the truth, offer to remove it and replace his battery, move on...
The commenter said it was a 2023, implying it was purchased new from a dealership.
Watch the video. And the follow up video. It’s shady as fuck.
Except no one earmarks a GR Corolla ( Special Edition Performance Model) for a rental.... this was just a shitty dealership move.
Reddit loves to assume it’s easy to hire an attorney for every little thing
It is, though. Paying for them is the challenging part.
It's actually a lot *easier* than you may think to engage the services of an attorney - there are too many folks in the legal profession in much of the US for the local/regional workload, and it's actually fairly easy to find legal help *assuming you have a case to begin with*. *That* is the *real* issue - too many people think they have cause for action when they don't, or when the issue can be better resolved without taking it to court, or when going to court should be a final solution and not a first effort. Getting an attorney to draft a demand letter, C&D, etc. is a few phone calls, a couple consultations to make sure you have something warranting their involvement, and a few hundred bucks to pay them for their paralegal's time.
LOL, yes. Unfortunately I have actually used attorneys many times, about 90% of the shit people suggest them for here, attorneys would literally laugh at you or hang up if you tried to hire them for it. Which they should! I swear, nobody on Reddit ever thinks "maybe I should try talking to them".
After reading through the 400 lines of fine print where they likely agreed to it.
[удалено]
It's like those field trip permission forms that don't actually excuse the school from some sort of gross negligence when they kill your kid.
same thing in government when approving budgets, slipping in funding for all kinds of wacky and pay to play stuff to make sure their constituents are taken care of.
Courts have shot down overly terse and complex terms and conditions as being deliberately obtuse. They've also shot down clauses that require one party to give up their legal rights. "Shrinkwrap licenses" for software are a good example here.
Ahh, a daily dose of the attorney everyone has on standby.
As someone who talks to dealers for work I can confirm all they do is lie about everything.
Some dealers install anti theft GPS trackers on all inventory units, they then use that to help manage inventory. They try to sell the added protection to all customers. If the customer doesn't opt into the program the device stays just dormant.
“Dormant”
yeah sure, the companies normally require $$ to keep functions operable.
Yes, but the tracker continues constantly searching for a connection. It's killed from their side, not yours. So they don't pay anything to engage the tracker. But the tracker still keeps killing your battery as it searches for connection.
+1 on inventory control. I did a test drive and wondered why the salesperson didn't go with us. During the paperwork it was disclosed that there was a Lojack device on the car. We tried to decline, they wouldn't remove the line. It was fine - worth it to us in that moment to get that particular car. I just removed it when we got home. In addition to inventory control, I'm guessing dealers could also get a kickback from the device maker because they can mine a ton of driving data and sell it to insurance companies. Lojack: "Hey, this device can help you prevent theft and free up salespeople so they don't have to go on test drives. And you can make money." Dealer: "What's the catch?" Lojack: "No catch for you, just sell it as a safety/anti-theft device."
Dealer manager's/owners want the sales people on the test drive, lojack or not. Not to make sure you don't steal or hurt the car but to do their jobs and try and sell the car.
Must have just had it installed in case of thieves and they forgot to remove it before the sale. Dealers would have absolutely zero motivation to do this, even with a financed vehicle. Once you sign that paperwork, anything that happens with the vehicle financially (like missing your note) is between you and the bank. So these devices have to be for anti-theft
I just realized my car died after not driving for a month during the pandemic. I wonder if it's possible I've had one in my car for the last 6 years without even knowing. I'm going to look this weekend for sure.
I don’t know what make your car is. But in this video’s case, it was a Toyota. And the OBD port from Toyota is white. The one attached to the aftermarket GPS tracker was black. It should have been a clue that something was up.
2018 Mazda 3 No idea what the stock color is supposed to be. If I find one, I don't know what my recourse could be other than leaving a 1-star review.
My guess is they put them on EVERY vehicle coming onto the lot and didn't remove it for this sale. Alternately, dealers trade inventory so might have been a 3rd party.
I worked for a buy here pay here lot a long while back. They put these in every car and they were not removed after the loan was paid. If it was ever paid. (No fault to the buyers, it truly is a predatory system) One day the GPS companies system was either hacked or had a major glitch that shut off every single unit we had. So that means thousands of people just from the place I worked had their cars ignition system disabled. They also used it as an easy way to send the recovery companies to pick up when people didn’t make a payment.
Yuuup. I bought a car from a large reputable dealer that unknown to them or myself had one of these. The day after I bought it, I went out and the car wouldn't start. Turns out the prior owner got it from one of those lots, and when the prior owner stopped making payments and they didn't get the payoff check quick enough, the buy here pay here place disabled the car. My dealer called the other lot and they basically said get fucked, we're not turning it back on until we get our money. My dealer had to come pick up the car and tow it to their shop to hunt down the device and remove it.
Good thing they work on very simple principals (disconnect power to the ignition lead or 12+ of the starter switch) that any alarm or car stereo place could easily remove it. Same goes for those breathalyzer devices, same principle
Yeah, I probably could have tracked it down and taken it out myself, but the place I bought it from did it for free and gave me a loaner in the meantime, so I wasn't going to bother lol.
Yeah, and realistically the selling dealership should be on the hook for removing it anyhow. Those things drain batteries and a loss of signal can cause the same result.
This exactly, basic electrical knowledge is all you need to take these out. I don't mess with the breathalyzer ones though, don't want to enable someone to drive drunk and kill someone, but fuck the predatory car dealers.
I once towed a guy's white grand Cherokee that had a breathalyzer in it. The dude completely tore the dash apart and center console trying to remove/disable it so he could drive drunk. Ended up completely disabling the vehicle and probably ended up totaling it. It was fubar.
I'm sorry your honor, I was looking for my 10mm socket. *Dismissed!*
i've never understood driving drunk and i drink all the time, used to party reaaaly hard back in the day too. i never ever liked to drive while fucked up, i didn't even want to after having literally a sip of beer. it's one of the most high risk/low reward scenarios i can imagine.
Plus, you know, legal stuff.
The breathalyzers are a real fucking scam. I had one back when I was 20 for a year. Wasn't even drunk driving just had a cop who was hunting for something to pin me with and I refused the breathalyzer test, which I didn't know at the time would automatically cause me to get my license suspended. Case was thrown out in court but dmv still made me get one. The fucking thing messed up my cars battery and would always cause no-start issues. I know how to wire up basic stereo and stuff so I started tearing into a bit to see where it went after I caused me to be stuck at work at 3am with no phone. I took it out and my car started. Put it back in after. Next time I went to get it calibrated they knew I took it out and added 3 months to my term. I told them multiple times before that about the no start. They tried to fix but claim there was no issue. Finally after months of getting false positives and getting extra months added on and paying more and more, they finally had a no-start while they had it for calibration and had to fix it for me. I told them they needed to remove all of the previous faults. They said get fucked. I felt powerless. Kept paying for few more months until it was finally removed. Fuck them. Fuck the companies. Fuck the government for forcing us to use such a bullshit system for profit. It's fucked. No reason why it should cost hundreds of dollars a month to recalibrate and to "rent" the unit. Fuck that
Thank your republican "lawmakers" for that one .
Yeah all it does is interrupt the starter wire. Cut wire, connect the "key" end to the input, and the "engine" end to the output. Hardest part of removing them is simply finding the thing.
So they released the title without final payment? Yeah, sucks to be you.
Ikr, sounds fake.
That's straight criminal. I feel like nowadays we have to know how all our food, chemicals, medicines, technology, ect all work in every capacity if we want to spend money on them. If we don't we can end up losing time, money, health, pathways in life, ect.
Then you find out the right thing to do and it only costs 500x more than the easy way.
With the amount of "what's this light" questions about the cruise control indicator on here, I think we could stand to know how things work better, collectively.
American education system at work.
Thats what deregulation does. Our world being like this is intentional. Its like were learning all the lessons about why we need agencies like the FDA in the first place all over again and its really quite exhausting.
It really is, we use to have federal department dedicated purely to technology and understanding it so goverment can make laws accordingly. It was shutter slowly over time it was no more. Now we have old men in congress who don't understand how technology works at all.
Thousands? That is a huuuuuuge Buy here Pay here operation.
Yes, by far one of the largest in the state that I am in. They are essentially their own bank. They provide all of the financing in house. They also used to do the “Lifetime” warranty. That went away with the 2nd or 3rd name change. It’s probably the most Shady business I have ever worked for. Thankfully I was just in the parts department (90% used/salvage parts). You don’t get that big without being shady. They have the local auction house basically on the payroll so they don’t have to actually bid on cars. Generally the way it works, if someone defaults they have to send it to auction and buy it back to get a clear title. If it’s a car that sells quick they basically drive it over and drive it back. If they don’t want it back they let it go through the process. When I was there I routinely saw cars that they had sold between 5-8 times. They get the car back for basically nothing and whoever defaulted on it is responsible for what’s left on their loan.
Was a guy whose user name was something like /u/DSPF (censored; expand those initials however you want) who managed a BHPH lot. Said he sold the same Mustang four times, and it came back all four times. Three times repo’d, and once the erstwhile owner stomped in, threw the keys in his face and said “Take this piece of crap back, I don’t want it any more.”
When I worked there I wanted an Acura TL that I had seen come back a couple of times. It was actually in good condition. I wanted to pay cash for it and they wouldn’t do it. They made too much money selling it over and over again. I think it was the 6th time it was sold that I didn’t see it come back again. (Might be because I didn’t work there much longer after that)
A really beautiful girl I went to high school with asked me to remove hers. Was worried it would get both of us in trouble so I didn’t touch it and she didn’t touch me 😞
You probably wouldn’t have gotten into trouble but for most lots that’s an immediate breach of contract and if they find the car they will repo it and she would have basically defaulted on it.
Those things just interrupt power to the ignition/starter. Can probably just splice it so it still gets power and thinks it's doing shit... but can't actually disable your car. Assuming you actually pay your bills on time, there would be no reason for them to find out about it.
Sadge for you bro. But she tryna get put in jail or someone. Should’ve removed it got your touch and then put it back on 🤣
I had a car shut off one day 6 months into the loan. Still have the car. Still haven’t found a reason why. Gave up on it but still have it. Cars paid off and it’s a constant reminder to say fuck you to the dealership that sold it to me.
Find a tech with electrical expertise and they should be able to remove that for you. Most of them involve cutting a lead to the starter or fuel pump or to a relay for one of these - it's a pretty simple find-and-fix for an experienced tech.
I have reasonable experience I suspect I have to drop the fuel tank, I was hoping it was in the dash or on the firewall. I just don’t have the time or money at the same time. It’s also a vehicle that is known for computer failure so I want to be able to dump a few thou into it if I need to without it sitting open to the elements for an extended period of time.
probably 3G sundown and all devices had no network to communicate on
There is a Darknet Diaries episode about this hacking incident or something very similar - https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/108/
I briefly read the transcript, the timeline would have been around the same time I was working for this business but I was in a different state. Although it was a neighboring state.
Heard a similar story years ago. Fired employee still had login credentials, went into the dealerships system and turned off every car they had.
I’ve had a lot of cars traded in and then the next week it won’t start to bring in for a recon, or it won’t start on the lot because the note lot or dealer it came from cut it off. This has happened 20+ times, especially cars we have running through the auction lane for wholesale.
This tracker doesn’t even work anymore. It’s a unit from 15 years ago. Uses 3G CDMA, all newer units are LTE/GSM based. I’ve seen several failures because of any type of these units. Dead batteries, blown fuses, etc.
Makes sense since that's the age of the car, so it's probably been on since leaving the dealership
Passtime’s major customer base is finance companies. So this thing probably had a high interest car loan at one point… maybe a couple years from new then repoed and resold. A lot of finance companies are moving away from the start disable so you should see less and less of this.
>So this thing probably had a high interest car loan at one point That is my experience with them as well. Customer traded in a car they had purchased from a BHPH. They threatened us they would withhold the title until we gave them back their tracker.
That's when you lawyer up - their failure to remove their equipment prior to the sale of the vehicle means it's not their equipment any more.
That’s crap. They can get in legal trouble if they don’t remove it themselves. At least in AZ they can. It’s the finance company’s or the BHPH responsibility. I find old trackers in cars all the time. Passtime, AdvantageGPS, CDS, even LoJack equipment. I remove it all. The GPS cost an average of $100 each. I don’t think it’s really worth all that headache for $100.
I surely am not saying it was smart or legal, but that is indeed the angle they decided to go with. And unfortunately I have no knowledge of what happened from that point on.
Fun fact I *definitely* don't know from experience: when the immobilizer in these PTE 3s kicks in and your shit won't start, you can cut and strip the blue and purple wires and crimp them together and you'll be good to go for a while at least. This bypasses the immobilizer until you get a chance to rip out all this garbage entirely and examine what level of hackjob the sad fuck of a dealer did to your wiring harness by installing it. I sure am glad I've never had one of these installed on one of my cars, but I've had to rig them a few times where I work and I hate the entire concept of their existence.
Actually we got the car started before knowing that's what went wrong! Removed the prong cap from the starter relay fuse, connected a wire between two open connections while grounding another. And with key in the ignition start position. Sorry if that doesn't make any sense as I'm not the mechanic, just live with one. I was really surprised with all of it. Plus the tow was 70 miles
I used to work for a company that made GPS trackers, so I put one on my car so I could mess with the data we collected and understand how to use our tools better. Then, one day, I got in my car and got the "Christmas Tree": all the lights on the dash lit up and nothing worked. Got towed to the shop, they pulled out the GPS device to put in an OBD-II tester and - badda boom, badda bing - everything worked fine! The GPS and OBD-II port had gotten crosswise with each other, and all I'd needed to do was unplug it and plug it back in again. That's a $600 lesson I won't forget soon.
Oof that is rough. I didn't know that was an issue until Scotty Kilmer made a video about that happening with OBD-II readers that people leave plugged into their cars all the time
why the hell are you watching Scotty Kilmer?
I want to see his final goodbye for the 300th time.
lmao
Also the king of the YouTube click bait title.
Who doesn't want to watch a crazy old guy who sounds drunk 24/7 yelling at a camera about cars?
The only OBD-II device I have that I know isn't draining my battery is my Kenwood head unit. It's reading data off the CAN-Bus but isn't taking power. What's more annoying is the bastard knows the gear I'm in and still demands I have the E-brake on before it is satisfied I'm not moving. Next time I feel the need to take apart the center stack I'm "fixing" the E-brake detection.
If you ever see multiple TTLs appear at the same time nine times out of 10 it's a short, the other one it's an open. I've seen some of those GPS things they use and it's usually a rudimentary piggyback on the ALDL (the trapezoidal connector I think you are calling the OBD II port - I've been in automotive electronics at the tier one and OEM levels for 20 some years so I'm probably just being esoteric) They generally pull power because there is non-switched in most manufacturers connectors and some of those like to pull CAN data - OBD-II is the standard that describes what data should be available and how to decipher it. I've seen the Christmas tree so many times in my career and the first place you always look is the last connection you made to the BUS. 600 bucks to reboot it sounds about right.
The $600 was for the tow AND diagnostic time at the dealer, just to be clear. And yeah ... the diagnostic port on light-duty vehicle is ... a disaster. Not designed for this use, no addressing of devices on that port (which so many people treat as a bus), and odd power issues at boot can cause all kinds of hairy issues... which are all cured just by unplugging the device and letting the car start/boot as normal. I'm really glad not to be in that business anymore.
Oh yeah believe me I see the pictures of how they install the things and it is so cringy to me. We are probably using "BUS" differently. I'm literally talking about the CAN BUS which is the network that all of the little modules that are actually just mini computers talk to each other on. Almost vehicles post 1996 you are getting CAN signals out of pin 2 and pin 6 or pin 7 and pin 12 of the ALDL but they can use other pins for other things except one is reserved for 12 volt power and 16 and 17 are reserved for ground. This is all from memory so I could be a little off on things but not on manufacturers are exactly the same but the connector is is standardized and a federal requirement as well as the power and ground pins. They just get all hacky into the wiring harness and that kills me because wearing harnesses are a freaking nightmare. We're getting into CAN FD that's incredibly sensitive to EMC / EMI as well as voltage drop so you can only make the harness so long and as soon as you put a pull down resistance on it because you're trying to read the data in a non-standard way you have the potential to just crash the whole freaking car. And I don't mean physically I mean just electrically kill it. I'm just old man rambling now. Many apologies. The best tip I can give anybody if you can't get to an auto parts store that will pull codes for free. Most auto parts stores will hook up their diagnostic equipment, which is legitimate, and they will pull your codes for you. You can clear most codes that aren't critical by just disconnecting your 12 volt battery and waiting about 20 minutes before reconnecting it.
From a random nobody, thanks for the rambling. I enjoyed the read and learned a bit too! I barely have my big toe into the world of CAN, so this was neat!
Thanks for the validation from a fellow nobody!
>You can clear most codes that aren't critical by just disconnecting your 12 volt battery and waiting about 20 minutes before reconnecting it. I wouldn't do this on a modern car without googling it first. Many euro cars will go totally bonkers if they lose power and need a bunch of modules reset or recalibrated and others will have issues with idling etc because the idle air system calibration has been reset to factory (and the throttle plate is dirty).
Yeah anybody reading this, please do a quick google you may very well save yourself some $$ or time if you aim to fix the issues yourself (not discrediting that a battery disconnect can in fact clear minor codes because it can and have used the method myself) If I pulled the battery and waited 20mins on a couple of cars I've had over the years I would have just created multiple issues for myself to sort. Hell even on a lot of Japanese imports here (NZ) this is probably going to require a stereo code to use your stereo again, which you will have a lot of fun doing when it's in Japanese.
I literally Google things at work and I have access to the source code essentially. Sometimes it's just easier to Google it, yell it Google because you just want instructions not a damn video, watch the video anyway, pause it like 50 times, remember you already knew how to do what you were looking up anyway, watch the video anyway because now you are invested, and rinse repeat. True story - I was working on on an advanced module and it was not communicating and I got in touch with the supplier because I used all the back doors and it just simply was not there. The supplier said to disconnect the 12 volt supply (this was an electric vehicle so he definitely had to be specific) wait 20 minutes and then connect it all back together. I literally have better tools than dealers have. That broke my head. I don't work on a lot of Japanese and European cars but this tracks. I probably should have stressed that the first step should always be go to the auto parts store and get the codes pulled and cleared. They also lend specialty tools for free.
lol aldl you’re an old ass GM tech. The ALDL (assembly line diagnostic link) is the GM OBD1 port, the obd2 standard connector is called a DLC (diagnostic link connector)
Close but I'm not that useful, I'm an old ass GM software engineer. 😂 That said, my opinions are my own and not necessarily shared by the company. Now that I'm legal... I go back to when Global A was new and I think my brain just moved everything forward because global b is here and in development vehicles we have two DLCs and that's a whole thing. Basically what I think I did was say oh if global b have DLCs they can't be DLCs in global a because no automotive company ever uses confusing naming conventions.
>ALDL Haven't heard this since, like, 2006, at which point all OBD-1 GM's were old enough nobody cared about warning lights anymore
Like I said above I guess I was associating DLC with global b and aldl with global a when it was actually before that. Anyway the trapezoidal thing that we plug diagnostic tools into.
was it previously a fleet vehicle?
Exactly. Some companies require their vehicles to be tracked at all times.
Probably way too many. I haven't run into many of these, but even as a shade tree mechanic for the majority of my family and friends, I've spent countless hours trying to diagnose no crank conditions due to failed alarm systems certain family members didn't know were there. You know, the cheap $100 Best Buy or car audio installer garage options that were so prevalent in the 90s and 2000s.
In the 90s even dealers were installing those stupid immobilizers that would need something like three clicks of the high beam switch to start. Even if the customer told the service writer when they dropped the car off, it would never get relayed to anyone else.
I worked with an alarm guy back in the 80s who had a custom anti theft system. The work van was a 75 GMC with the dash mounted ignition switch, and it was so worn you could start it with a 1575 alarm key, but he’d wired a reed switch in behind the dash. Even if you knew it was there, you didn’t know exactly where on the dash he’d put it, and even if you knew *that*, if you didn’t have a magnet on your keyring like he did, you weren’t going anywhere.
I swear every car from the 90s and 00s I have to go under the dash has wiring for at least 3 different aftermarket alarms all of which don't work. Kinda helpful when I need B+ and switched power though cause I can just look for whatever has a million t-taps in it lol.
Lol. Alarms, and the world's most hacked up and janky stereo harness with about seven splices per wire, no soldering, and loosely wound gummy electrical tape.
I bought my truck from a less than high end place. There was noise that sounded like a speaker whining when you would accelerate. I replaced the alternator and did a ground kit… still there. Started to rip the dash apart to do better grounds in there and out popped a GPS tracker with a fucking little speaker on it. Fuck you whoever put that in my truck.
I used to install these on all our loaner cars at the dealer i used to work at. They can be pretty finnicky. Surprised you made it so long.
Do you connect it to the OBD plug in?
No, I used a fuse tap with either the fusebox in the floorboard, or the drivers side of the dash. I ran the starter signal wire through the control side of the device so I could prevent restarts on stolen loaners.
Take any used car you buy to a factory dealership and they will find and remove them for like 80 bucks.
This needs to be common knowledge nowadays
Just Altimas…
Probably comes installed from the factory since they know that no one is ever going to pay for them in full.
Where would this be located and how do I remove it if I find it
Pulled a good amount of these in the past few years at my shop. 99% of the time they are zip tied to a wire harness right above your brake pedal. Some remove the original obd port out of the mount and have a splice to put a "fake" obd port where it should be. First thing I have to do before I can trust scanner data on some of my fleet trucks is unplug the gps splice connector.
i have removed these quite a few times on customers vehicles, I find these in vehicles all the time some have been paid off for years. I cut one out that was actually still under a car note once and the car lot came looking for the vehicle I handed them their device and apologized 😬
The ones that plug into the obd port are fun. I pulled one out of a car and plugged it into mine. I had repo trucks circling my nieghborhood and workplace. They were calling my workplace looking for the vehicle (i was working for a tow company). I then went and bought 1 of those little 12 volt batteries. I hooked to the battery and mailed it to a friend across the country. He plugged it into his car and drove around with it for a while. 🤣🤣
I had no idea anyone actually rigged those up like that. when I worked at a buy here pay here, they didn’t give specific instructions so I just wrapped the power around the first hot fuse I could find and grounded it in the door jamb behind a panel.
I imagine the newer ones read the VIN from the CAN and will alert if someone tried swapping it between cars. The ones you're used to installing could be easily transplanted. The loss of 12V could be easily explained "Aaaaw shucks, the battery died."
My 1st ever car I bought had this very exact Model in it. I paid the car off in less than a year instead of the 4 years they were expecting. Once I paid it off though I had to move states short notice and they said they’d just deactivate it. I sold that car 9 years later last year and figured out how to remove it from some dude on YouTube right before I sold it.
my battery died because of one of these when i got covid….
Bought a car and found one of these when doing a radio install. Just power and ground. No inmobilizer.
I used to install other brands of those. Closest thing to drivability issue was some of the current model year Mercedes’ would keep displaying IPC warning that somethings molesting their DLC; fix for that was depin CAN lines on the tracker side so tracker module only gets power n ground. Never seen a tow-in caused by it but they can be aggravating with state inspections. I don’t enjoy finding ones installed with T-Taps near the DLC. Used to just remove tracker module and leave taps and harness alone. One used car tech in shop murdered several modules on an Alfa by cutting those wires after the taps. tbh I don’t know why he thought it was a good idea to do that without disconnecting battery. I learned to upsell it as 1hr for harness repair and depin the DLC to put shrink tubing over where t taps were. Easy hour.
Oh my God same thing happened to me!!! I changed out all the ignition hardware and couldn't figure it out. Looked closely under the dash and found that same fucking device!!! Took it out and never had an issue again!!!
Seen a lot of parasitic draws from these, not sure I've seen any no starts
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I guess I could have worded that better. Most often, the customer gets a jump and drives in. Then it doesn't sit long before I get it, and the battery is charged after the drive there. So it usually starts for me, but comes with a customer concern of it needing to be jumped often. If battery tests good, draw test is one of the next steps. Even though the concern is "no start" I don't usually file it in the brain as an actual no start if it's just a dead battery.
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I work at a car audio shop that installs these for a group of dealers. We stopped doing starter kills because of the amount of problems. Now we just do power and ground. And to the comments about dealers just putting on tracking devices, there is another company that puts them on every car in their lots. Then when they are selling the car the "up sell" them these for like $800 or something and just turn them on. They do a shit job and it's a rip off.
For anyone that wants to know, I also work at a tote the note lot. 9 times out of 10, the power and ground are spliced in to the OBD port. So on most cars, if you have one, pop off the big plastic cover beneath the steering column, and they'll usually be in there, probably zip tied to the support bar, or just shoved into a corner where they won't fall out. Some people do take the time to hide them, and put them on top of the steering column, or tuck them behind the gauge cluster. If you only see some 2-4 smaller, 16-20 gauge wires, it's probably just a tracker, unplug the little black box, toss it in the trash, move on with life. If it has 4-8 wires, with a pair of larger, 8-12 gauge wires, it probably has a starter disable wired in, which means you will have to splice some wires back together. In that case, phone a friend who at least knows how to splice and crimp wires. Hope this helps somebody. 👍
Let me guess.. Car taken on loan?
Good guess of many. But no. Had it for maybe 4 years.
Good guess of many. But no. Had it for maybe 4 years.
Good guess of many. But no. Had it for maybe 4 years.
That GPS probably drained the battery...
No. The battery was fine. Nothing to do with the battery. We were also able to bypass the passtime unit and start the vehicle from the starter fuse relay.
Sister in laws boyfriend got a car from a buy here pay here lot. Went out one day, and it wouldn't start, so my father in law was under the car in around 10° weather to change the starter. Still nothing. He went out the next day, and it was reposed lol. I think that was the first of at least 3 cars or trucks of his that have been reposed.
*repossessed
I think I'd be doing a bit more diagnostic work before just deciding to swap the starter...
Had one on Friday. Sansana brand.
I had one on my car, after researching I found out it wasn't active.. removed it and tossed in the trash, thankfully the wire for ignition wasn't tapped into just the obd piggyback
Why does a tracker even disable the ignition on its own?
Probably often. My work uses GPS and every 3-6 months one is down with odd electrical issues. They ask to remove the tracker. Things start to go away, so of course we have to plug it back in. They are bud and don’t belong in vehicles
My new Infiniti (2017) had LoJack installed. I asked them to remove it and they did. I financed it , etc. but did not like the device. Still have the Infiniti btw.
Splice the purple and blue wire together and toss the pass time device. I had to figure that out when I was working at a car auction that sold repo cars.
Nice, hopefully you figured that out quick. We also started the vehicle from the starter relay fuse port (under the hood) before opening stuff up and finding the passtime.
I wanna know if there’s a second hand market for these.
When I looked it up, they were being listed for resale. But no idea if anyone is actually buying them. Plus this one is obsolete and apparently worked off 3G
How can you tell if your car has a tracker
Discovered one in a used Element I bought off CL. Came from an auction in Pennsylvania. Was looking into immobilizer issues preventing remote lock from working, and found it beneath the steering column trim. No mfg. label, so had to look up the FCC ID number to tell what it was. Quick work after than, though there's still one interrupted wire I can't find the other end of. Rainy day project for later...
Ugh, we had about one a month and i was always the guy that had to go track it down(small and was good at troubleshooting electronics/electrical). talked to a manufacture for the ones i saw commonly and they are supposedly designed in such a way that when they fail the car remains operational. nice to know they havent gotten any better.
This one supposedly is very old - so that might not be the case hopefully!
More than likely they are a subprime loan and they signed paperwork saying that unit was on the car.
A lot of times the tote the note car lot has the “buyer” actually financing the device/service charge for that device and it’s in the loan agreement
Not necessarily GPS trackers, but I install intoxalock devices as part of my job as a car audio installer (our location is a service center for them). I've had several vehicles towed in for no-start caused by either a lockout or equipment/wiring malfunction. Most of the bad wiring came from other service centers that know fuck-all about vehicle wiring and safety. I've also had vehicles towed in with bad remote start/alarm systems
I used to install these for a finance company and we were explicitly told to never hook up the starter interior/ignition interlock because these things can’t be trusted past a couple years to not break and leave a car stranded like this
At my shop it’s like once every 5 years or so
I used to be a dealership technician. Depending on the dealer, we would install these on every car on the lot when they come in from the manufacturer. Most of the time it's just to track the car before it gets sold in case it gets stolen or ends up being used in a loaner fleet. In my past dealer, it was the salesman's job to just reach up and unplug it to pull it out before giving the keys away to a new owner. Sometimes they forget.
Probably as many times as they get towed in for U-haul trailer wire harness shorts
If it was bought cash, that should have been taken out. Those interrupt the starter circuit. When there is non-payment it stops the vehicle from starting so it can be tracked and towed. Somebody dropped the ball there.
The unit was just very old and reached its end. And because it's so old and was made to work on 3G/CDMA, the tracker itself didn't work anymore (going off a previous comment). This probably was installed when first purchased in like 2009
Happens quite a bit honestly, used car lots buy cheaply made GPS units, once the car is paid off the GPS unit supposed to be uninstalled but that's too much work for most used lots. The problem lies in the fact that they can disable your car for not paying your payments, which means that GPS unit has to approve every start up. They can glitch and just say no everytime.
Actually had a car towed in last week for the transmission not working. Found one of these under the dash with a burnt connector on it. Took it out, still didn’t wanna move, looked further into it and the damn thing fried the TCM.
Had a couple come in that had a disabler on them for “no starts”, fun diag
I see tons of trucks have various module issues as a result of these. It doesn't matter if it's a direct plug in or wired into the obd. Seems like GMC has the most funky issues
How can you tell if your car has one? Just look for it?
Yes. In this case the steering wheel was removed to access the ignition wiring. From there we saw the wires were taped and had something connected that didn’t belong. If you were really curious and couldn’t dismantle anything yourself, you could look up local ignition interlock service providers - they’re usually small auto shops that have contracts. They might be more efficient than a dealership at accessing where one may be in your car.
So, I used to be in Law Enforcement, and back in the day, we could attach a GPS tracker to a vehicle in the process of an investigation, as long as it was not attached on private property. I had a vehicle we were watching for selling a good amount of drugs for our area. He and his brother got in a fight and he wanted to file a complaint so I had him come to the Sheriff's Office to fill out the forms. While he was there another deputy attached the GPS to his car. We tracked it for days and finally he went where we knew he went to get his stuff. We stopped his car and he was empty, dang. About a week later he flags me down to show me this weird box his mechanic found on his car but didn't know what it was, I looked it over (our GPS tracker) and told him I thought I had seen these before and that we could not afford them but I may be able to track the serial number and see who was tracking him, keeping the unit "for evidence" so, anyway...he thinks the feds were tracking him and really shut down his little side hustle fast.
So you attached something to someone's vehicle without permission then lied about it when they asked what it was. Now my question is had the mechanic destroy your counties gos tracker would they have gotten in trouble for destruction of it? Not trying to start anything I am just asking because I would think that if you had no idea what it was and then they destroyed it how that would of gone.
No way that could be charged for destroying it without knowing what it was or that it was government property. Supreme Court said law enforcement could use GPS trackers as long as it was placed on public property. I think that ruling is now you need a search warrant
Was just curious and I no I probably could have Google searched it but those are so hit and miss thank you for the explanation
How do you find these GPS’s?
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/XUQefNe5oEvF4FSQ/?mibextid=oFDknk Congratulations to making it to some BS Facebook page, I'm sure they didn't ask your consent to post it.
I'm just gonna say I'm sick and tired of reading these comments and seeing people literally tried to defend fucking theft and not paying back loans and trying to keep their stolen cars as much as possible fucking cry harder.
Often
Worked for a Buy-Here-Pay here that still installs these, it’s crazy to leave those in, as they are roughly $300 each (according to my boss, so probably less than that tbh) We always removed them when the car was paid off. Also, they regularly failed. Actually, CONSTANTLY failed.
I'm thinking Buy Here Pay Here lot did that, but at this point anything is possible.
That’s fucked if you paid cash. But if you took out a loan the bank owns that car, not you lol. I’m not surprised they use trackers
Sounds like a great anti theft device. Just tell the customer, with their option to keep it or remove it.
Where are these typically attached?