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Ahh. Looks familiar. A dealer in the PNW installed one of these (without our knowledge) in a Honda CRV we purchased. Something about anti theft and vehicle reco

Ahh. Looks familiar. A dealer in the PNW installed one of these (without our knowledge) in a Honda CRV we purchased. Something about anti theft and vehicle recovery by finance, for all the cars on their lot. The car had all sorts of crazy power problems. Smart display would randomly crash, interior lights wouldn’t work, just… flakey. Called the dealer and demanded they remove this. Electrical problems went away instantly. Super frustrating.

fargle 4y ago
Previous discussion of another device from the same crappy vendor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566#30838294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566#30838294 I discovered it when my new car started having the same issues you saw. NOTE: it's somewhere between a scam and a crappy business practice. Here in southern california it's by no means only used cars or shady financing. The dealers install them on all the cars to keep track of their own inventory. Then they try to sell it to you as a kind of lojack for $$$$. If you are smart and decline, they just deactivate the unit (stop paying for the service), but do you think that they remove it? or repair the wiring?
sgtnoodle 4y ago
They put them in so that they can use a single key fob to open up all the cars in the lot. There's a socket that accepts a module. When they sell the car, they pop out their key fob module and pop in the "security system" blinking LED module and try to upsell you $1K for the privilege of having your wire harness butchered.
- fortran77 4y ago
  This is the most accurate answer in this thread. Toyota dealers in Northern California did this to me twice on new cars. (A third party autosound guy removed it and fixed the harness for me) Even though we always pay in full for cars, the dealer has you talk to the finance guy who will try to sell you useless addons like undercoating and an “alarm system” which has already been butchered into the car by the dealer. (If you buy it they would stick a key module with a blinking red light under the dash somewhere, but most of the circuit is already there.)
  - toast0 4y ago
    They also like to install brake light flashers, and pull them out if you object. So annoying.
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      "Brake light flashers"?
      - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
        https://www.customled.com/collections/brake-light-flashers-and-brake-light-modulators-for-motorcycles https://www.customled.com/collections/brake-light-flashers-a...
        CraigJPerry 4y ago
        That's pretty wild that this is sold as aftermarket. This is baked into VAG & BMW car products for at least the last 12 years, and it was on my 2015 S1000XR, but it'll only activate under hard braking scenarios. I don't know if i'd want this to activate for every brake press, at least here in the UK i've gotten used to the idea flashing brake lights = car ahead is braking very hard.
        closewith 4y ago
        Flashing brake lights in certain circumstances are required in the EU (Uniform provisions concerning the approval of vehicles with regard to the installation of lighting and light-signalling devices 2016/1723), although the linked brake light flashers seem to be unlawful as they flash on onset of braking rather than extreme braking force.
        Gordonjcp 4y ago
        I've never seen flashing brake lights, but indicators flash on very hard braking. It first showed up on the first-gen Citroën C5, and was copied by everyone else after that. On the C5, it was part of the "emergency brake assist", which would basically work out that if you were doing an emergency stop, you really wanted to throw out the anchors and dump all the hydraulic pressure into the brakes.
torginus 4y ago
Anti theft and Vehicle recovery look strange next to each other.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> A dealer in the PNW installed one of these (without our knowledge) in a Honda CRV we purchased Why do I get the feeling that If i did that to the car I sold privately, I would be in jail really fast?
chaz6 4y ago
That sounds like something that would invalidate an insurance policy and exposes the dealer to all sorts of liability.

fargle 4y ago

Previous discussion of another device from the same crappy vendor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566#30838294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566#30838294 I discovered it when my new car started having the same issues you saw. NOTE: it's somewhere between a scam and a crappy business practice. Here in southern california it's by no means only used cars or shady financing. The dealers install them on all the cars to keep track of their own inventory. Then they try to sell it to you as a kind of lojack for $$$$. If you are smart and decline, they just deactivate the unit (stop paying for the service), but do you think that they remove it? or repair the wiring?

sgtnoodle 4y ago

They put them in so that they can use a single key fob to open up all the cars in the lot. There's a socket that accepts a module. When they sell the car, they pop out their key fob module and pop in the "security system" blinking LED module and try to upsell you $1K for the privilege of having your wire harness butchered.

fortran77 4y ago
This is the most accurate answer in this thread. Toyota dealers in Northern California did this to me twice on new cars. (A third party autosound guy removed it and fixed the harness for me) Even though we always pay in full for cars, the dealer has you talk to the finance guy who will try to sell you useless addons like undercoating and an “alarm system” which has already been butchered into the car by the dealer. (If you buy it they would stick a key module with a blinking red light under the dash somewhere, but most of the circuit is already there.)
- toast0 4y ago
  They also like to install brake light flashers, and pull them out if you object. So annoying.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    "Brake light flashers"?
    - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
      https://www.customled.com/collections/brake-light-flashers-and-brake-light-modulators-for-motorcycles https://www.customled.com/collections/brake-light-flashers-a...
      - CraigJPerry 4y ago
        That's pretty wild that this is sold as aftermarket. This is baked into VAG & BMW car products for at least the last 12 years, and it was on my 2015 S1000XR, but it'll only activate under hard braking scenarios. I don't know if i'd want this to activate for every brake press, at least here in the UK i've gotten used to the idea flashing brake lights = car ahead is braking very hard.
        closewith 4y ago
        Flashing brake lights in certain circumstances are required in the EU (Uniform provisions concerning the approval of vehicles with regard to the installation of lighting and light-signalling devices 2016/1723), although the linked brake light flashers seem to be unlawful as they flash on onset of braking rather than extreme braking force.
        Gordonjcp 4y ago
        I've never seen flashing brake lights, but indicators flash on very hard braking. It first showed up on the first-gen Citroën C5, and was copied by everyone else after that. On the C5, it was part of the "emergency brake assist", which would basically work out that if you were doing an emergency stop, you really wanted to throw out the anchors and dump all the hydraulic pressure into the brakes.

torginus 4y ago

Anti theft and Vehicle recovery look strange next to each other.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> A dealer in the PNW installed one of these (without our knowledge) in a Honda CRV we purchased Why do I get the feeling that If i did that to the car I sold privately, I would be in jail really fast?

chaz6 4y ago

That sounds like something that would invalidate an insurance policy and exposes the dealer to all sorts of liability.