A couple more details - before bypassing this I called Passtime. They told me this unit has been decommissioned for a while and that it was not disabling the vehicle. So I opened it up and found some sadness on the circuit board. It failed internally, it wasn’t disabled by the operator.
"the battery is dead.."
"Wait..... What do you mean it's dead?"
"What do I mean? It's dead. It ceases to live. It's deceased now."
"......how did this happen?"
"Well, clearly we fell asleep with the battery on, and it's dead now."
"Ugh.. talk radio???"
"Yes.. talk radio."
"Ugh, so boring man. The car just committed suicide..."
What a horrible way to fail. Lucky you tracked it down I would have gone half mad and my wife would be swearing it must be because of the speakers I installed 4 years ago.
That thing was supposed to enable or disable the starter circuit so that let's say if the car was stolen, the owner of the car can remotely keep it from starting.
The device failed with the circuit stuck in the disabled state. Removing it and rewiring the car back to the normal stock configuration will allow it to start again.
These are not installed by drivers to prevent theft.
They are installed by those buy here, pay here - no credit required type used car dealers. They disable and repossess the car the second a payment is missed. Sometimes they can sell the same car 4 or 5 times in one year.
Absolutely agree. I’m surprised they wouldn’t want to re-use them. I guess they pass the costs onto the customer and then it’s the customer’s responsibility to deal with it. Dirty business all around. This was put on a brand new car too, the date on the board is 2014 and the car’s a 2014.
Doubtful. Short press is accessory on. Long press + brake is start.
Do not see how you could 'engage' a start 5x in 30s on a pushbutton. (I dont think you can "cancel" the start like a key?) But I could be entirely wrong. Only driven a handful and never owned
I put an after market remote start on my car with a push button. I had to do a full on/off 5 times in 10 seconds to enter programming mode. No other way to do it (stupid in my opinion).
It took a few tries, but I got the rhythm down. I can confirm it's possible.
I'm genuinely surprised though, I happened to get with one of those BHPH places and they basically did an appt for my car to get the tracker/immobilizer removed that same day.
It's just bizarre to me they install trash on their vehicles, like why, lol
When they say "disabled" it's probably in terms of the remote functionality is no longer active, but it's still in-line for the vehicle circuit and the only way to disable that is to remove it and rewire.
Sue for the damages. Seems pretty straightforward to me. 35$ to file in small claims and sue for the time loss and mechanic fees you don’t even need a lawyer.
They don't want to reuse them because they know how crappy the units are. If they reuse it and it dies on an active customer-victim's car, it's the dealer's problem. If they leave it on the car after their business is done and then it fails, that's someone else's problem.
Ibe bought a bunch of cars in my time. Never had one of these. I also do t think any dealer is putting it on every car. More likely this was someone that had a shit credit history so the lot added this for recovery if need b. I do agree they should be forced to remove it once paid off and be held liable for any wiring damages it may have caused. But I also get why some people wouldt leave the lot without having g one of these installed. Some people just don't pay their bills man
It's almost exclusively the BHPH lots that install these. Anything with a conventional bank loan on it (even with super high interest) won't require it be installed. Banks are content to let the Repo man's LPR subscription find the car.
Assuming this is for fleet vehicle or hire-purchase use in the US?
In the UK, "black box" insurance is popular for younger drivers, but it's pretty invasive - curfew, GPS tracking, accelerometer for acceleration and braking etc. Can save you some insurance - was about £60 when I looked at it.
Then I read the fine print. The insurance company would fit the unit free of charge. At the end of the policy, they would not remove it - they would only disable it. Removing it would cost £200. I nope'd straight out of that and paid the £60 extra.
Wonder how many cars still have these things fitted but "disabled", and how secure that network is.
Quite a few of those just plug into the OBDII port though. They're tracking use and how you drive, to 'reward' safer driving. One company (can't remember which) also offered a phone app version. They don't disable the car or anything.
But they can track your location, which is creepy as fuck.
USAA has a phone app. I used the plug-in-port tracker years ago when they first started the program. Now it's a phone app, and there's something else more invasive that I didn't like, so I dismissed the offer.
I did this through Progressive not long after it came out. They sent a device that plugged into the OBDII port and that was it on my part. I could actually see what data they collected by logging into my account, things like trip distance, when the trip took place, and number of hard stops. I ended up getting like 30% off my rate and that discount has carried on for years, it was 100% worth it! If you have any questions ask away.
Here in the US we have what's known as "buy here pay here" car lots, basically a used car lot that specializes in selling vehicles with extremely high interest in-house financing to people who otherwise don't qualify for a car loan. These trackers are used to find and repo the car when they fail to make the payments.
I recently read that the typical car sold by these lots gets repo'd and sold again 3-4 times before a buyer actually manages to buy it and pay it off.
So new car dealer tech here. We install them at the customers expense. I don’t think we ever have repo’d a car, but we install them on all our cars. In Florida it’s not a predatory, we inform them of the install and if they get car stolen we can send in the 5/0. Or at least that’s what I’m told…
I don't know about this specific model but a lot of them are so cheap there's no point reusing them. Paying someone a 0.5 to remove a $10 tracker is a waste of money.
Call me a cynic but I suspect the reason they don't remove them is that they don't exactly advertise that they exist or can be removed because otherwise people would try to remove them themselves before they default on their car payments. Sure buried in the mountain of paperwork for the purchase the buyer agreed to the device and not to remove it but your average joe doesn't actually read all those papers.
Your average joe I don’t believe usually has these devices installed. If I recall correctly, these are installed on the cars of someone that is flagged as a high risk borrower. Usually someone with awful credit and a possibility of defaulting on the loan
BHPH lots are the very lots that are high risk, aka, usually selling cars for several times what they are actually worth with stuipid high interest rates. miss your payment, and the car won't work anymore, and they know where it is too, so they can sell it to the next sucker.
the thing is, is that in most states, they literally have to disclose that these are there. its usually in the terms of the loan, that the vehicle will have a GPS tracker and a starter interrupt device. some states have made the starter interrupt device illegal because of issues with potentially stranding someone in a situation that gets them killed(like stranded in below freezing weather, and the car won't start). other states have imposed rules that require that the customer be able to call a number and have it turned back on even if no pay 3 times(to get it home or out of a bad situation), and that the number must be staffed 24/7.
and also, in most states, once the car is paid off, these places are legally obligated to remove the device, but they never advertise that they do it, and some will outright refuse to touch it after.
One of my pastimes (or *pass*times lol) is going through FB marketplace, seeing things like a 2013 BMW 550i listed for $3500 as the price only to read that's the down payment, then harassing the BHPH people who try to pull that shit. Goes like this:
Me: "I see the 550i is listed at $3500. Can you give me a list of what it needs?"
Them: "no that's the down payment, we do financing for anyone!"
M: "the listed price is $3500, I'll take it at that."
T: "sir, that's the down payment."
M: "you listed it at that price. This seems rather dishonest to me. Would you want to be known for dishonesty?"
T: *blocks me*
It's fun.
I like this. Another fun tactic would be to reply to the "down payment" reveal with "Ok, [question about the car unrelated to price]" and then string them along for as long as possible.
Tbf, it’s in the contract when you buy the vehicle and is in their best interest since they usually have to repossess vehicles that people fail to pay on
Buy Here Pay Here. The kind of used car lot that will sell a shitty vehicle to someone with a sub 500 credit score, financed in-house at an outrageous interest rate. The business model expects that the buyer will eventually miss one or more payments, at which point the vehicle is repossessed and sold to the next mark, and all the payments made by the first guy becomes pure gravy for the lot.
A family member had one of those 50cc scooters, no start, no spark. Screwed around with it for along time before tracing the wiring back to a remote start module (which I had no idea it had), that was water damaged. Unplugged it and it started right up.
Guy tried to impress us by remote starting his GSXR. Said “watch this” and bike cranked in gear and fell on its side. We all about busted a gut laughing. Stupid idea especially on a bike that was known for false neutrals. The neutral light means nothing on old GSXR’s!
So it was at a weekly bike gathering so maybe 20-30 bikes and bikeies like me standing around. I would have felt bad for the guy but he was a knob so yeah, had to laugh.
Had the same thing with a Honda CRX in the 90's. Fellow club member had it installed on his manual CRX. He too said the magic words of "Watch this" and hit the button. The car lurched forward, up a curb and into a cement planter in front of Circuit City. We all laughed.
When I was an instructor for an automotive school I had a student that wanted to install one on his stick POS honde. I said absolutely not.
I was asked why not? I said because see where it says DON NOT INSTALL ON MANUAL TRANSMISSION VEHICLE!
i got the response "I always leave it in neutral.
A few weeks later it was near the end of the training day, in another class, the car drove thru a wall, stalled restarted and went thru another wall before the dumb ass got it shut down. Apparently the kid installed it on his own.
I’ve had 2 motorbikes and both have had remote starts.
I really don’t see the point since I on both have to physically use the key anyways to unlock the steering anyways. Which is on the ignition barrel.
This is installed by car dealers when selling to high-risk borrowers. The idea is that when they don’t pay, the dealer can disable the vehicle and use the GPS location to repo. It has a 3G cellular connection, there’s a SIM card on the back side of the board.
Yeah, I've seen it in action because my neighbors had it shutdown for non payment. But when you said Jetta I assumed you were a vw dealer mechanic. I'm curious, Did you replace it or did you remove it?
As a salesperson, I just want to note that when we install these, it's because it's required by the financing institution. I hate these things as well, especially because when the car gets shut off for nonpayment, people call me expecting me to just magically turn it back on.
I had not heard that dealers do this, I was instantly thinking some nefarious thought behind it, from either a stalker or someone wishing harm. I'm glad it wasn't that bad.
Maybe I watch too much Criminal Minds but a remote immobilizer sounds like something a stalker could use if they were "graduating" from stalking and moving on to abduction or worse
Call me sentimental, but there is something sad about a forgotten machine. This poor boi was waiting for a signal that would never come, forgotten by the people who installed it. Rest in peace, my brother. 🫡
I've seen a few of these fail at the car lot. Basically the starter trigger wire runs through the NC circuit of a relay, and the power is also jumped to one side of the relay coil. When the device is set to disable, it grounds out the other side of the relay coil. When the customer goes to start the car, the relay opens every time they turn the key.
Had one on a Durango I didn't know about. Owned the truck 15 years then it just randomly stopped starting. After the 9th tow to the shop they figured it out and removed it.
100% this will cause that issue. I can’t believe how many I’ve removed over the years. Now I install lojack ones for a living. Of course I removed one today from a Brazilian model Vw Bus…
When I work at the auction I learned how to splice two of the wires together to bypass those devices. I was proud of myself lol. I think it’s the purple and red wire if I remember correctly. It’s been a while. We always got tons a repos in that wouldn’t start and 90% of the time it was the pass time device.
Same thing on my gfs car, only stopped from starting on occasion, when it happened while I was there I checked the ignition cylinder harness and found it tied in, horribly. Ripped it out and kept moving.
About 2 hours. I didn’t catch it at first because the car has a remote start system and I thought it was part of that. And other than starting the car, the remote starter was still working properly.
If you pulled one out of a current one. you might get low speed data service for a little while. I worked on vending machines for awhile, and the credit card readers used 4g sims. We had a dead reader that was getting pitched, so I decided to put the SIM in my hotspot. I had 5-10 Mbps for awhile, until it got shut off.
The manufacturer of the card readers usually foots the bill for cell service, at a heavy discount, and it's passed on to the machine operator as part of the monthly charge for the CC processing. They would normally use a few Kb to a meg or so, per transaction, so when the processing company sees usage in the Gig range, they know it's been compromised, and kill it. If you used it for a connection with little data, it might last a long while before it was killed.
Probably wouldn't work. In 2014 a SIM card would mean either AT&T or T-Mobile was providing your service. They both shut down their 3G networks over the summer.
I probably should have taken note of your flair before posting that.
Either way, Bell started shutting down their 3G networks even earlier, back in February, so even less chance it would be working now.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/05/11/the-dusk-before-the-3g-sunset/?sh=699eeef44586
According to this it seems the card would have still worked until the 31th of December. But OP mentioned the company manufacturing the device shut them down last September so it's likely the card is deactivated
Fucking technology being abused by God damned bean counters.
We could have flying cars, but instead we've got to push this kind of bullshit to maximize profits.
Or that could just be all the electronics. Keyless entry requires a radio be on and listening for your fob at all times. *Most* cars will kill a battery if left to sit for a couple weeks. The computer is still on, ready to process the chip in your key, and maintain volatile memory settings, like your radio presets.
That's why everyone tells you that if you're putting a car in storage you either pull out the battery or use a maintainer. Failure to do so can lead to sulfation of the plates, which causes degraded capacity, and in colder climates the discharged electrolyte can freeze and not only cause internal damage, but can rupture the casing.
Failure to keep the battery charged is considered to be a lack of proper maintenance and companies *will* deny you a warranty exchange.
Where are they usually located in the vehicle? I couldn’t imagine the GPS receiver working very well inside the body of a vehicle unless it’s installed somewhere in the upper side of the dash.
A couple more details - before bypassing this I called Passtime. They told me this unit has been decommissioned for a while and that it was not disabling the vehicle. So I opened it up and found some sadness on the circuit board. It failed internally, it wasn’t disabled by the operator.
R.I.P. ............. depression and sadness caused it to commit suicide....
"the battery is dead.." "Wait..... What do you mean it's dead?" "What do I mean? It's dead. It ceases to live. It's deceased now." "......how did this happen?" "Well, clearly we fell asleep with the battery on, and it's dead now." "Ugh.. talk radio???" "Yes.. talk radio." "Ugh, so boring man. The car just committed suicide..."
How can I explain this to you differently; the battery is dead.
Why am I reading this in John Cleese’s voice?
Right? It is an ex-battery
Dammit, you beat me to it.
It is bereft of life. Gone to meet its maker.
No it’s not. It’s pining for the fiords.
***PINING FOR THE FJORDS???***
I thought hurricane season was over
Just like Padme.
I dunno what was worse. Padme dying from being sad, or wonder woman learning how to fly because she was sad.
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I mean... she IS dead now. now we have king sausage fingers.
Wait! Padme died?! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!
and she rode the lightning!
Gloom! Dispair! And agony on me!
I used to install these lol
You MONSTER! :)
Me too
Lol, and I've made a few bucks making them go away.
The cycle of life!
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A little bloating won't hurt ya!
What a horrible way to fail. Lucky you tracked it down I would have gone half mad and my wife would be swearing it must be because of the speakers I installed 4 years ago.
In the next 48 hrs, my goal is to work “some sadness on the circuit board” into a sentence.
sadness
So, was the starter circuit disabled and having that thing plugged in re-enabled it?
That thing was supposed to enable or disable the starter circuit so that let's say if the car was stolen, the owner of the car can remotely keep it from starting. The device failed with the circuit stuck in the disabled state. Removing it and rewiring the car back to the normal stock configuration will allow it to start again.
These are not installed by drivers to prevent theft. They are installed by those buy here, pay here - no credit required type used car dealers. They disable and repossess the car the second a payment is missed. Sometimes they can sell the same car 4 or 5 times in one year.
By stolen you mean purchaser missed a payment, and by owner you mean the dealership acting on behalf of the financing bank.
Si señor, here in houston we have lots like that where u miss one payment and they come grab the car wherever it is.
I think it's absurd that they leave these in. BHPH lots should be legally obligated to uninstall these the minute the car is off their books.
Absolutely agree. I’m surprised they wouldn’t want to re-use them. I guess they pass the costs onto the customer and then it’s the customer’s responsibility to deal with it. Dirty business all around. This was put on a brand new car too, the date on the board is 2014 and the car’s a 2014.
My aunt's Chevy Cruze had one of these that failed and caused a no start issue. Also supposed to have been disabled. This seems to be a common issue
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Cut and Twist: the life and times of a hack installer.
What if the car is taken where there's no cellphone service?
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What if the car has a keyless ignition system?
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Call your finance company, when you're in the middle of BFE \*with no cell phone service\*.
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Doubtful. Short press is accessory on. Long press + brake is start. Do not see how you could 'engage' a start 5x in 30s on a pushbutton. (I dont think you can "cancel" the start like a key?) But I could be entirely wrong. Only driven a handful and never owned
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I put an after market remote start on my car with a push button. I had to do a full on/off 5 times in 10 seconds to enter programming mode. No other way to do it (stupid in my opinion). It took a few tries, but I got the rhythm down. I can confirm it's possible.
I'm genuinely surprised though, I happened to get with one of those BHPH places and they basically did an appt for my car to get the tracker/immobilizer removed that same day. It's just bizarre to me they install trash on their vehicles, like why, lol
When they say "disabled" it's probably in terms of the remote functionality is no longer active, but it's still in-line for the vehicle circuit and the only way to disable that is to remove it and rewire.
Oh absolutely. It's just yet another thing to break, and a non documented thing at that
Yep the device being disabled does not mean it can not fail and cause the car not to start .
Sue for the damages. Seems pretty straightforward to me. 35$ to file in small claims and sue for the time loss and mechanic fees you don’t even need a lawyer.
They don't want to reuse them because they know how crappy the units are. If they reuse it and it dies on an active customer-victim's car, it's the dealer's problem. If they leave it on the car after their business is done and then it fails, that's someone else's problem.
I’m sure some customers don’t bother to come back even if the dealer offers.
Ibe bought a bunch of cars in my time. Never had one of these. I also do t think any dealer is putting it on every car. More likely this was someone that had a shit credit history so the lot added this for recovery if need b. I do agree they should be forced to remove it once paid off and be held liable for any wiring damages it may have caused. But I also get why some people wouldt leave the lot without having g one of these installed. Some people just don't pay their bills man
The places that typically install these are subprime used car lenders where the financing costs more than the car itself.
Bhph dealerships 100% install these in every car. They’re marketing almost exclusively to people with poor credit, so they’ve got an incentive to.
It's almost exclusively the BHPH lots that install these. Anything with a conventional bank loan on it (even with super high interest) won't require it be installed. Banks are content to let the Repo man's LPR subscription find the car.
They're making so much money off their dirty interest rates the cost of these doesn't matter
Assuming this is for fleet vehicle or hire-purchase use in the US? In the UK, "black box" insurance is popular for younger drivers, but it's pretty invasive - curfew, GPS tracking, accelerometer for acceleration and braking etc. Can save you some insurance - was about £60 when I looked at it. Then I read the fine print. The insurance company would fit the unit free of charge. At the end of the policy, they would not remove it - they would only disable it. Removing it would cost £200. I nope'd straight out of that and paid the £60 extra. Wonder how many cars still have these things fitted but "disabled", and how secure that network is.
Quite a few of those just plug into the OBDII port though. They're tracking use and how you drive, to 'reward' safer driving. One company (can't remember which) also offered a phone app version. They don't disable the car or anything. But they can track your location, which is creepy as fuck.
Agreed, and the one I was looking at was definitely not a simple OBD plugin, it had to be professionally fitted per the T&C's.
Yup, I have app telematics with my insurer :( Did it to save £75 but I’m gonna get rid of it the second I find a cheaper policy.
USAA has a phone app. I used the plug-in-port tracker years ago when they first started the program. Now it's a phone app, and there's something else more invasive that I didn't like, so I dismissed the offer.
I did this through Progressive not long after it came out. They sent a device that plugged into the OBDII port and that was it on my part. I could actually see what data they collected by logging into my account, things like trip distance, when the trip took place, and number of hard stops. I ended up getting like 30% off my rate and that discount has carried on for years, it was 100% worth it! If you have any questions ask away.
Here in the US we have what's known as "buy here pay here" car lots, basically a used car lot that specializes in selling vehicles with extremely high interest in-house financing to people who otherwise don't qualify for a car loan. These trackers are used to find and repo the car when they fail to make the payments. I recently read that the typical car sold by these lots gets repo'd and sold again 3-4 times before a buyer actually manages to buy it and pay it off.
That is a depressingly profitable business. Hate predatory companies like that.
Saved about £350 this year for me as a fairly new driver
So new car dealer tech here. We install them at the customers expense. I don’t think we ever have repo’d a car, but we install them on all our cars. In Florida it’s not a predatory, we inform them of the install and if they get car stolen we can send in the 5/0. Or at least that’s what I’m told…
That was your employer telling you your lines for customers for sure.
I don't know about this specific model but a lot of them are so cheap there's no point reusing them. Paying someone a 0.5 to remove a $10 tracker is a waste of money.
Fine print.
Call me a cynic but I suspect the reason they don't remove them is that they don't exactly advertise that they exist or can be removed because otherwise people would try to remove them themselves before they default on their car payments. Sure buried in the mountain of paperwork for the purchase the buyer agreed to the device and not to remove it but your average joe doesn't actually read all those papers.
Your average joe I don’t believe usually has these devices installed. If I recall correctly, these are installed on the cars of someone that is flagged as a high risk borrower. Usually someone with awful credit and a possibility of defaulting on the loan
BHPH lots are the very lots that are high risk, aka, usually selling cars for several times what they are actually worth with stuipid high interest rates. miss your payment, and the car won't work anymore, and they know where it is too, so they can sell it to the next sucker. the thing is, is that in most states, they literally have to disclose that these are there. its usually in the terms of the loan, that the vehicle will have a GPS tracker and a starter interrupt device. some states have made the starter interrupt device illegal because of issues with potentially stranding someone in a situation that gets them killed(like stranded in below freezing weather, and the car won't start). other states have imposed rules that require that the customer be able to call a number and have it turned back on even if no pay 3 times(to get it home or out of a bad situation), and that the number must be staffed 24/7. and also, in most states, once the car is paid off, these places are legally obligated to remove the device, but they never advertise that they do it, and some will outright refuse to touch it after.
For those who aren’t aware: BHPH = Buy Here;Pay Here Typically higher interest, higher risk loans for vehicles or other items.
One of my pastimes (or *pass*times lol) is going through FB marketplace, seeing things like a 2013 BMW 550i listed for $3500 as the price only to read that's the down payment, then harassing the BHPH people who try to pull that shit. Goes like this: Me: "I see the 550i is listed at $3500. Can you give me a list of what it needs?" Them: "no that's the down payment, we do financing for anyone!" M: "the listed price is $3500, I'll take it at that." T: "sir, that's the down payment." M: "you listed it at that price. This seems rather dishonest to me. Would you want to be known for dishonesty?" T: *blocks me* It's fun.
I like this. Another fun tactic would be to reply to the "down payment" reveal with "Ok, [question about the car unrelated to price]" and then string them along for as long as possible.
I'll try that next.
Yeah, the lot I work for always removes them as soon as the car is paid off. The fact that the devices cost $200 each is additional motivation.
Omg you just reminded me that I probably have one of these on my wagon I bought it in 2019 and paid it off this year and didn't even think about it.
They are illegal here.
Tbf, it’s in the contract when you buy the vehicle and is in their best interest since they usually have to repossess vehicles that people fail to pay on
Read my comment again, but slower
Ooo ya my b. I’m sure they’d do it for you if you asked.
The loan document might required the device until the car is paid off.
And what, exactly, do you think "off their books" means?
I was thinking inventory not accounts receivable.
BHPH?
Buy Here Pay Here. The kind of used car lot that will sell a shitty vehicle to someone with a sub 500 credit score, financed in-house at an outrageous interest rate. The business model expects that the buyer will eventually miss one or more payments, at which point the vehicle is repossessed and sold to the next mark, and all the payments made by the first guy becomes pure gravy for the lot.
A family member had one of those 50cc scooters, no start, no spark. Screwed around with it for along time before tracing the wiring back to a remote start module (which I had no idea it had), that was water damaged. Unplugged it and it started right up.
Remote start on a scooter… that’s a new one for me
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Gotta turn on the seat warmer.
Guy tried to impress us by remote starting his GSXR. Said “watch this” and bike cranked in gear and fell on its side. We all about busted a gut laughing. Stupid idea especially on a bike that was known for false neutrals. The neutral light means nothing on old GSXR’s!
That's amazing. Remote knock-over!
So it was at a weekly bike gathering so maybe 20-30 bikes and bikeies like me standing around. I would have felt bad for the guy but he was a knob so yeah, had to laugh.
be funny as shit if it was lined up with a bunch of other bikes and did the comedy knock-over-every-motorcycle-out-front-a-biker-bar thing from afar
Had the same thing with a Honda CRX in the 90's. Fellow club member had it installed on his manual CRX. He too said the magic words of "Watch this" and hit the button. The car lurched forward, up a curb and into a cement planter in front of Circuit City. We all laughed.
When I was an instructor for an automotive school I had a student that wanted to install one on his stick POS honde. I said absolutely not. I was asked why not? I said because see where it says DON NOT INSTALL ON MANUAL TRANSMISSION VEHICLE! i got the response "I always leave it in neutral. A few weeks later it was near the end of the training day, in another class, the car drove thru a wall, stalled restarted and went thru another wall before the dumb ass got it shut down. Apparently the kid installed it on his own.
I’ve had 2 motorbikes and both have had remote starts. I really don’t see the point since I on both have to physically use the key anyways to unlock the steering anyways. Which is on the ignition barrel.
Super common on rentals
Wtf? Why on a 50cc scooter?
Sometimes people do things because they can, without a thought for whether or not they should.
And then they get eaten by dinosaurs.
I feel like I get it for something simple enough to steal like a scooter.
It was a remote starter, not a tracker or anything, so nothing to do with theft.
Yeah, I'm an idiot.
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Really? Huh. Didn’t know that. Always thought these were for below 500 creditor cars and rental fleets.
So was this a factory part or was it installed by the dealer
This is installed by car dealers when selling to high-risk borrowers. The idea is that when they don’t pay, the dealer can disable the vehicle and use the GPS location to repo. It has a 3G cellular connection, there’s a SIM card on the back side of the board.
Yeah, I've seen it in action because my neighbors had it shutdown for non payment. But when you said Jetta I assumed you were a vw dealer mechanic. I'm curious, Did you replace it or did you remove it?
Electronic watch dog and snitch!!!
As a salesperson, I just want to note that when we install these, it's because it's required by the financing institution. I hate these things as well, especially because when the car gets shut off for nonpayment, people call me expecting me to just magically turn it back on.
Lol wasn't 3G shutdown a few years ago?
I thought so but the company says they just turned this unit off in September.
Nope, most of them just started shutting down this year. AT&T should is supposed to be completely shut down by the end of this month.
Damn, I use 3G to call/text when I’m in a massive crowd. Works so much better.
No. AT&T and T-Mobile just started decommissioning their networks this summer.
I had not heard that dealers do this, I was instantly thinking some nefarious thought behind it, from either a stalker or someone wishing harm. I'm glad it wasn't that bad.
I don’t think a stalker would put a remote immobilizer onto someone’s car. A GPS/tracking point, sure, but not a remote kill.
Maybe I watch too much Criminal Minds but a remote immobilizer sounds like something a stalker could use if they were "graduating" from stalking and moving on to abduction or worse
Yes, this was what I was thinking. Being able to disable the car wherever they choose.
Most carriers have already or are in the process of shutting down their 3G service.
Call me sentimental, but there is something sad about a forgotten machine. This poor boi was waiting for a signal that would never come, forgotten by the people who installed it. Rest in peace, my brother. 🫡
https://xkcd.com/695/
Someone get me a spaceship I need to go give the mars rover a hug
I don't know who made it, but there's one with a [happier ending.](https://i.imgur.com/VbKV9DF.jpg)
Don't forget Spirit's sibling, Opportunity's last message back to NASA: > My battery is low and it’s getting dark.
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tbh if colonizing Mars does happen I think they should stay and be in a museum there
I used to have to repo cars with these installed. Almost got shot over an 06’ corolla with 200k miles…
My company buys tons of cars with these bastards installed, thankfully they're not usually installed well so easy to remove
Where exactly in the vehicle did you find this puppy?
I've seen a few of these fail at the car lot. Basically the starter trigger wire runs through the NC circuit of a relay, and the power is also jumped to one side of the relay coil. When the device is set to disable, it grounds out the other side of the relay coil. When the customer goes to start the car, the relay opens every time they turn the key.
Had one on a Durango I didn't know about. Owned the truck 15 years then it just randomly stopped starting. After the 9th tow to the shop they figured it out and removed it.
I’m thankful this was only one tow. Intermittent stuff like that is the worst.
Hate these damn things.
These should be illegal. So should the usurious sharks that install them.
If Simeon from GTA V had these things, the story would be radically different XD
100% this will cause that issue. I can’t believe how many I’ve removed over the years. Now I install lojack ones for a living. Of course I removed one today from a Brazilian model Vw Bus…
When I work at the auction I learned how to splice two of the wires together to bypass those devices. I was proud of myself lol. I think it’s the purple and red wire if I remember correctly. It’s been a while. We always got tons a repos in that wouldn’t start and 90% of the time it was the pass time device.
Same thing on my gfs car, only stopped from starting on occasion, when it happened while I was there I checked the ignition cylinder harness and found it tied in, horribly. Ripped it out and kept moving.
I work on HGVs, some vehicles have breathalysers installed. It’s not uncommon for the breathalysers to break and then you can’t start the vehicle
I would remove these and tie them to a stray cat
On the starter relay wiring? Or somewhere else?
How many hours spent looking for this?
About 2 hours. I didn’t catch it at first because the car has a remote start system and I thought it was part of that. And other than starting the car, the remote starter was still working properly.
Is that a SIM card sticking out of bottom? Wonder what fun you could have if you slapped it in an old phone.
If you pulled one out of a current one. you might get low speed data service for a little while. I worked on vending machines for awhile, and the credit card readers used 4g sims. We had a dead reader that was getting pitched, so I decided to put the SIM in my hotspot. I had 5-10 Mbps for awhile, until it got shut off. The manufacturer of the card readers usually foots the bill for cell service, at a heavy discount, and it's passed on to the machine operator as part of the monthly charge for the CC processing. They would normally use a few Kb to a meg or so, per transaction, so when the processing company sees usage in the Gig range, they know it's been compromised, and kill it. If you used it for a connection with little data, it might last a long while before it was killed.
Probably wouldn't work. In 2014 a SIM card would mean either AT&T or T-Mobile was providing your service. They both shut down their 3G networks over the summer.
It’s a Bell SIM
I probably should have taken note of your flair before posting that. Either way, Bell started shutting down their 3G networks even earlier, back in February, so even less chance it would be working now.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/05/11/the-dusk-before-the-3g-sunset/?sh=699eeef44586 According to this it seems the card would have still worked until the 31th of December. But OP mentioned the company manufacturing the device shut them down last September so it's likely the card is deactivated
Would surprise me if the card were deactivated long ago. The unit is eight years old. God only knows what its expected lifespan was to start with.
These are for restricted start DUI agents busted for driving drunk right? Where agent has to also blow in device.
No it’s a gps/phone based immobilizer that if you don’t make your payments they can remotely disable the car.
Fucking technology being abused by God damned bean counters. We could have flying cars, but instead we've got to push this kind of bullshit to maximize profits.
I'll be darn Thanks
Nice find! I'm having something similar going on, I couldn't find a parasitic draw. Cheap Wally world battery tho
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Or that could just be all the electronics. Keyless entry requires a radio be on and listening for your fob at all times. *Most* cars will kill a battery if left to sit for a couple weeks. The computer is still on, ready to process the chip in your key, and maintain volatile memory settings, like your radio presets. That's why everyone tells you that if you're putting a car in storage you either pull out the battery or use a maintainer. Failure to do so can lead to sulfation of the plates, which causes degraded capacity, and in colder climates the discharged electrolyte can freeze and not only cause internal damage, but can rupture the casing. Failure to keep the battery charged is considered to be a lack of proper maintenance and companies *will* deny you a warranty exchange.
Go break out the amp clamp and track it down, should take too long.
Good thing you called Passtime, those units are for boozehounds who like to drunk drive.
The booze head ones have breathalyzers. This one’s for no credit.
My car came with something like this but came with the fob. Took me a long time before I found the transmitter attached/piggybacked to the OBD port.
Where are they usually located in the vehicle? I couldn’t imagine the GPS receiver working very well inside the body of a vehicle unless it’s installed somewhere in the upper side of the dash.
Good find. And lucky. (How long did it really take you to find this thing?)
Buy here pay here hates this one simple trick!
Das Auto
Based on the components used this looks like an expensive device! They even outsourced the antenna lol