14 ms·

Jeep owners fed up with in-car pop-up ads

206 points by spudlyo 2y ago

elzbardico 2y ago
Find out the addresses of Jeep Executives. Get a car with giant loudspeakers and outdoor projectors and display ads at their houses 24/7.
- spanktheuser 2y ago
  Michael Moore did something very close to this in the mid-90s for his briefly-lived TV Nation. Parked a series of cars in front of the home of a car alarm company CEO and set them off.
- 0hijinks 2y ago
  No, no, you see: that would be a violation of local noise ordinance and is inhumane. Of course, a constant drip-feed of their banners and jingles in your private life is their right as a corporation.
ypeterholmes 2y ago
Advertising has gotten out of control. What's bizarre to me is that the people violating us are literally the ones who want something from us. Is there no way to boycott anyone advertising in our car? AND the car itself of course.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  I didn't buy a Jeep because of stuff like this. The problem is that when I looked at the competitors, for instance the Bronco, they had their own little UI annoyances too. There wasn't anything on the market that didn't annoy or insult me in one way or another, so I ended up just buying a 25 year old Ranger. The irony is that 25 years ago, I had a Ranger like the one I own now, and it took me a series of seven modern vehicles, each increasingly bad, to teach me the value of a simple, unopinionated truck that just gets me to point B.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    If you can keep it on the road. I have a 25 year old car too. I spend more on maintenance than fuel (I only drove it 2000 miles last year) Parts are getting hard to find. There is rust that would be expensive to fix.
    - karaterobot 2y ago
      Runs like a champ, but yeah it has cost some money to keep it that way. Nevertheless, FFR!
    - userbinator 2y ago
      I have one that's a little over twice that age. Parts availability, especially in the aftermarket, is still very high for domestic classics, especially those based on the stereotypical design, and I doubt that will change much in the near future.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        At twice the age you are pre-computer. In the worst case a metal lathe can make any part (though some of them are very tricky to make). If a computer dies on mine I have no ability to make a new one and odds are the chips haven't been made in 10+ years so good luck finding a replacement (getting software to program will also be hard) Though none of the parts I've had to replace are computer related. Mechanical parts are much more likely to wear out or rust.
  - Ancapistani 2y ago
    This is why I drive a 2000 Jeep Wrangler, while my wife is in a 2019 F-150 and my oldest daughter is in a 2024 Subaru Crosstrek - I wanted simple, easy to repair, and no frills. They wanted comfortable and capable. I admit I steal their vehicles sometimes in the dead of winter. Mine has no working heater. Unless it's under 20ºF or so, I don't even bother to put the hard top on it. I've had my Jeep for 15 years now, and am starting to feel the itch for a new vehicle. I have my eye on a 1992 GMC pickup. It belonged to my grandfather who passed away in ~2005 and has been stored in a garage since then. I've put about $4k into it getting it roadworthy again after sitting for that long, but it's only got 15k miles on it and the interior is mint. If I bother with it, it needs the paint buffed a re-coated on one side that was partially in the sun where it was stored - at which point it will effectively be a brand new vehicle. I'm looking forward to that big carburated V8 after a decade and a half driving a 2.5L i4 :)
- iAMkenough 2y ago
  > Is there no way to boycott anyone advertising in our car? AND the car itself of course. The obvious boycott would be to sell the car and never buy a Jeep again. Until the next car you buy is also updated to include ads and quietly sell tracking data they've collected about your family, so then you sell that car and never buy from that manufacturer again either. Then before you know it, you end up buying an American-made luxury sedan to take the kids to soccer because you've convinced yourself that buying a premium ad-free car with the optional monthly subscription for the seat warmers is worth the investment and all the "affordable" options are either ad-supported American-built cars or artificially overpriced due to trade wars. They'll backtrack if they lose enough money.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    The important part is getting others to do so as well. You alone don't matter. The big players here are KBB, edmunds, consumer reports, and all the car magazines. If they scream manufactures will listen.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    > The obvious boycott would be to sell the car The overwhelming majority of people finance their vehicles. It's not even their car to sell.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
autoexec 2y ago
Can they take the car back? I'd want to return it. No one should reasonably be expected to ask if their car is going to shove ads in their face before buying. Was this something they saw during test drives? Increasingly, it looks like my next new car is going to have to be an old car.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  for sure they signed their life away on some form they did not read when buying the car :)
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Just because it is on a form doesn't mean it is legal. Contracts are only legal if the words themselves are legal in the country.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      I’d love to see a statute (any state or federal) that prevents ads :)
      - bluGill 2y ago
        There are a few anti billboard ads in some states. There are also safety standards that should be applied here (probably won't - they won't even kill the touch screen). Tobacco ads are illegal. in general though there won't be.
- mikestew 2y ago
  Was this something they saw during test drives? No product manager with a lick of sense would allow that. No, if online reports are to be trusted, it waits a while before the ads start showing up.
recursivedoubts 2y ago
you will live to see man made enshitification beyond your comprehension
- pacificmint 2y ago
  You know how there is the cliche that old people are always ranting how everything was better in their day? Personally, I'm not quite there yet, but the older I get, the more I see their point...
  - recursivedoubts 2y ago
    the cliche is that it's a cliche
  - tanseydavid 2y ago
    Shifting Baseline Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline
- stragies 2y ago
  Or worse, some hacker/government locks your car doors, and turns your car into a remote-controlled 2-ton 140mph ground-to-ground projectile, while you're driving your kids to school.
  - recursivedoubts 2y ago
    i unironically believe this has been used to assassinate people in the united states
    - LinuxBender 2y ago
      I believe that was the case with Anne Heche. She was producing a documentary on child trafficking and was going to name names. Her car drove her into a building. The ring videos and audio can not be unseen or unheard. She was trying hard to overpower the car with the brakes which were not yet drive-by-wire. The media immediately said drugs and alcohol were involved yet the toxicology report showed her 100% clean.
mikestew 2y ago
Speaking of ads, my Pi-hole about caught on fire when that page loaded, and there's still ads that it missed. The irony, given the article topic, is not lost on me.
- spudlyo 2y ago
  Right!? There is also a popup ad on that very site. Here is a tip that I just recently learned that has improved my browsing experience with uBlock Origin. In the settings menu under "Filter Lists" there sections under the heading of "Cookie notices" and "Annoyances" that are not enabled by default. Blocking cookie popups has been wonderful, and I can only imagine what kind of annoyances are now being blocked for me.
  - thesuitonym 2y ago
    Does blocking the cookie popup allow all cookies? Seems like that would be worse in my opinion.
    - spudlyo 2y ago
      Not entirely sure. I now flush all non-allowlisted cookies on browser exit after moving to LibreWolf, so I'm less concerned than I was about that sort of thing.
    - worble 2y ago
      Under GDPR, you must opt-in. So blocking the popup is the same as no consent, if you're in the EU. I don't trust random sites on the internet to follow the law anyway, so nuking your cookies and localstorage when you close the browser or navigate away is what you should be doing if you're concerned about this sort of thing. Obviously sites I need to stay logged into get on the allowlist.
      - somat 2y ago
        same, I feel those cookie consent dialogs are solving the problem at the wrong level, remembering that in the end the cookies were always under your control. I think the gpdr opt in tracking requirements should have been interpreted as "the browser should not persist any tracking data past the end of the session unless the user gives explicit consent to do so" luckily some kind soul her pointed me to the cookie autodelete extension. Which does just this. I am able to add the three sites I want to keep persistence as exceptions and just let everything else burn after a day. The fun part is how it trips the firefox "looks like you have not used firefox in a while" dialog every single time. I don't fix it because that is how I know it is working
spudlyo 2y ago
You wouldn't run an ad blocker on your car... > But the problem could presage a more significant issue for future drivers. Last year, Ford filed a patent for an in-car advertising system that would use the car’s speakers and display screen to serve ads to drivers and passengers. That system would also use the car’s GPS tracker to serve ads relevant to the driver’s route. This is some Black Mirror type dystopian vision of the future for me. Just like nowadays you can't buy a "dumb TV" I imagine in the future it might be impossible to buy a dumb car that doesn't have these kinds of features built into the head unit.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
  > Just like nowadays you can't buy a "dumb TV" You can, if you buy used. I know it's weird to buy a used TV, but they cost pennies on the dollar and you can get some really nice models without today's ubiquitous annoyances. Same goes for cars. If enough people refrain from buying new cars, and put in the effort to keep their older cars on the road, maybe manufacturers will take the hint.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Or just modify them. People used to replace their stereo, I suspect there would be a real market for add free infotainment systems.
    - smackeyacky 2y ago
      This is already difficult on 20 year old vehicles, in the future it might be impossible. The combination of weird speaker ohm specs, CAN Bus controlled factory amplifiers, integrated vehicle information systems (where the display is across several screens) in modern cars and the abandonment of the DIN stereo size make doing aftermarket installs harder and harder. The Chinese are producing some astounding things - you can buy a drop-in centre console replacement for an older Chrysler 300C that looks factory but has a big touch screen, Carplay/Android Auto and a dongle that interfaces with the CAN bus based amplifier and steering wheel buttons. I suspect for really popular cars this will be an option, but it can't be done for every car released.
EGreg 2y ago
As I was reading this story, a pop-up advert appeared. They’re everywhere, man! Isn’t it time to have an alternative to capitalism? UBI and cooperative gift economies (science, open source etc.)
- the_third_wave 2y ago
  No, it is not time to try to revive the desiccated corpse of socialism once again for the I-do-not-know-how-manyeth-time. Pick up some history books, real ones that is, not Howard Zinn and read where that path takes you. Redistribution does not work when there isn't anyone left to pluck which tends to be the outcome of that pipe dream. Capitalism, warts and all is still the best way to lift people out of poverty. You may not like the fact that some people have way more than others (and objectively speaking way more than they need) but the people who saw and see their income lift above the poverty line would not like to see it go down again once the next "people's party" gets to power.
mfro 2y ago
Year of The Adult Depend Undergarment
LeoPanthera 2y ago
Previouslies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43163333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43163333
- spudlyo 2y ago
  Huh, I thought for sure the article must have made the rounds here at some point, but I presumed the de-duper would catch it.
doublerabbit 2y ago
lol, you think Jeep care? Backlash sure, but five years later they're probably put advertising in your steering wheel.
- drpossum 2y ago
  I've found Jeep owners are their own brand of crazy. It's probably one of the few car cults that would endlessly put up with this kind of abuse because they just can't imagine NOT making their Jeep the core part of their identity.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    It's a Heep thing. You wouldn't understand.
NickC25 2y ago
Absurd that cars are now seen as an advertising platform by car makers. A car's stereo or display system randomly blasting ads at you (the driver) should be treated for what it really is - intentionally distracting the driver when the vehicle is in operation. That shit should be illegal. It's dumb at best, and incredibly dangerous at worst.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- smackeyacky 2y ago
  Well, AM and FM radio are plagued with ads, always were and always will be. As far as I can see this is just a replacement for the fact that nobody listens to radio in their car any more. There is an entire older generation that is used to ads being blasted in their cars. The visual assault is new though.
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    Is that the same? In my vehicles if an ad starts playing I can push a button and be listening to another station or I can listen to a CD or MP3. Does it work that way when ads pop up in these distracted-driver-tainment systems?
  - npongratz 2y ago
    The AM and FM radio ads cannot surveil you like the GPS- and cell-enabled (and forced) in-vehicle advertising systems do.
    - tantalor 2y ago
      Some people might prefer an ad which is relevant to their location over something extremely generic and less useful. Sharing location does not necessarily need to impact privacy.
      - user3939382 2y ago
micromacrofoot 2y ago
Someone should try to press this as a lemon law issue > A vehicle is considered a lemon if it has at least one defect that substantially that impairs the use, safety, or market value and the car has not been repaired after a reasonable number of attempts.
- 6SixTy 2y ago
  More like road safety. Ads are meant to be payed attention to, which is an anti feature when you are supposed to be focused on driving. Same thing really with infotainment and requiring them for basic car functionality. Most of them suck anyways and you cannot operate a touch screen without looking at it. Stop putting climate control behind that screen.
throw94040 2y ago
There are legal sanctions for refusing to update software in a car, and for blocking it from internet. There is no way out!
- wetpaws 2y ago
  [dead]
reverendsteveii 2y ago
It used to be a compromise: a product was free and ad-supported, a one-time cost up-front or a subscription. Now these capitalists think they can have it coming, going and staying right here with a car that you buy, that has subscription services in it and still shows you ads. I won't ever buy a car that shows ads and if all the cars on the market show ads I will break mine so that it stops doing that.
ImJasonH 2y ago
> Get More From KBB.com / Simply choose the content you'd like to receive below and we'll send it straight to your inbox. The irony.
jmward01 2y ago
> “They attributed the persistent nature of the ad to a temporary software glitch that affected the opt-out functionality in certain cases..." I attribute the glitch to the fact that ads are being presented at all. Seriously. Why would anyone buy from these people? How can someone look at the electronics in a modern vehicle and not think that they are a huge negative and not a positive? I Would love it if those electronics were there for me but it has been clear for a long time now that they are there to take advantage of me. Every touch screen/gps screen/etc makes me think 'this vehicle tracks everything I do, sells it to my worst enemy and will advertise/nag me to make more money and not to help me out'
vondur 2y ago
Ha, maybe they will reduce the price of the vehicles if the owner agrees to ads? Much like the Amazon Kindle with the ad supported versions.
- drpossum 2y ago
  DO NOT GIVE THEM IDEAS
  - gruez 2y ago
    Honestly this would be an improvement over the status quo. You get a choice in the matter, and unlike it being sprung on you after you bought it, you presumably would know upfront.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  Stellantis does not have the financials to make this happen.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gregw134 2y ago
> Last year, Ford filed a patent for an in-car advertising system that would use the car’s speakers and display screen to serve ads to drivers and passengers I've owned Ford stock for 10 years, I think I'll finally sell it today
polski-g 2y ago
If you are unhappy with these, you should contact your state legislators to have this practice banned. Particularly if you are in California.
notatoad 2y ago
will stuffing them full of ads finally be the thing that convinces people to give up the emotional attachment they have to their cars?
jklinger410 2y ago
Somewhat tangential: JEEP products that are not the traditional Wrangler and all of it's myriad variations are most likely the worst American vehicles ever made. I'm talking the Grand Cherokee, Wagoneer, Compass, etc. This crap is being tried on that vehicle because JEEP drivers are some of the least discerning car buyers on the market. A perfect test bed for the most toxic features American manufacturers can imagine. So it's a great sign that they are noticing and complaining. If this group can't handle it, hopefully they will consider it a failed experiment. For now.
- rpcope1 2y ago
  Jeep hasn't built anything worth a damn since Chrysler picked it up off of AMC in its dying breaths, and MOPAR has not ever built anything that wasn't a flaming pile of shit for many, many decades. It's a shame, you'll never see another useful great vehicle like an XJ, YJ or CJ-8, and if you try (like Mahindra did with the Roxor) and it looks too much like a "Jeep" you'd better bet Chrysler is going to shut that shit down quick. You should have said that people who buy Fiat Chrysler are basically blind and undiscerning because the whole company basically operates on generating total garbage with few exceptions (some Cummins powered trucks be among those).
- 6SixTy 2y ago
  I'd probably never buy a Ram/Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep brand car if I can avoid it. There's a reason why Chrysler joined with Fiat, then Fiat-Chrysler turned into Stellantis. And none of them are a ringing endorsement.
hu3 2y ago
Reason #999 for preferring home office. Soon long commutes will mean even more exposure to ads. It was already the case with billboards anyway. Now billboards are being forced inside your car.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  If there's one thing that might save us here, it's that ads within the vehicle, delivered via the entertainment system unexpectedly, are a potential safety hazard.
  - npongratz 2y ago
    I can just hear the pitch to auto CEOs and "business development" execs: "... now with full self-driving! Where your captive audience can't use the safety excuse for avoiding your very important and lucrative propaganda!"
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  Activists sometimes hack the digital billboards. Just a matter of time till they find a way to play something loud and raunchy in all the cars whilst taking away the UI controls using javascript.
pavel_lishin 2y ago
Is there anything new since this story 22 days ago that seems to cover the exact same events? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009682
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
i1856511 2y ago
I cannot read this article because of a pop-up ad on the website.
gotoeleven 2y ago
Its this kind of stuff that made me a little disappointed when they figured out that that meteor was going to miss earth.
lenerdenator 2y ago
This seems like something a car company would do if it were hurtling towards bankruptcy for the third time in a human lifetime. And lo, that's exactly what Jeep's parent company, Stellantis, is doing.
motohagiography 2y ago
we are in a cultural nadir of car design. vindicating that I bought a jeep with stick, rolldown windows, no bluetooth, no infotainment, no electric locks. guess I'm about to become a vintage car collector.
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  guess I'm about to become a vintage car collector. Same. My truck is already a classic. People ask if I really love that truck and then I explain the de-evolution that is taking place in modern vehicles. When that truck fails and if I can't find anything I will happily ride into town on my 1947 tractor or a horse or my old side-by-side.
ge96 2y ago
I had a similar experience with a used Ford car I bought from CarMax trying to shove SiriusXM down my throat like please man.
aCodeCrafter 2y ago
This makes me so glad I own 2003 Toyota Corolla
osmsucks 2y ago
The distracting nature of ads is a problem here: on a computer or smartphone, it's merely an annoyance; behind the wheel of a massive and fast moving vehicle, it could lead to deaths. IMHO ads in a car infotainment system should be outlawed. Let me focus on the road, and if I need to stare at the infotainment screen, let it be just for the GPS navigation.
rurp 2y ago
This is disgusting. It's already getting hard to find new cars that don't include a bunch of "features" that make the experience worse. Something as greedy and adversarial as turning a personal vehicle into an ad platform is a hard no from me; I will never purchase a car with this included. My one hope is that there are enough car manufacturers on the market for competition to stifle this. That doesn't work in many areas of tech because they are controlled by a monopoly or duopoly. Chrome is free to dump all over users because Google leveraged their other monopolies to drive out competition and gain a browser monopoly. This kind of anti-consumer behavior that tech pioneered has really lowered my opinion of the whole industry.
GuestFAUniverse 2y ago
Bill Hicks "seeds" didn't seem to have bloomed yet. So here we go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0
- pimlottc 2y ago
  Alternate link that’s not blocked in the US: https://youtu.be/9h9wStdPkQY?si=atHZI0pewp9ThV_Y https://youtu.be/9h9wStdPkQY?si=atHZI0pewp9ThV_Y
SJC_Hacker 2y ago
Many industries have run out of ideas for new products/features. The only card they have left is more and more control of the lives. At least until AGI is reached when we're not needed and can be disposed of.
- quickslowdown 2y ago
  I'm just curious who they think will buy their shit when the whole market has no income. I guess nobody has ever accused a CEO of having foresight beyond the next 3 months.
rpcope1 2y ago
This among many other problems with "Jeeps" feel so profane given the marque's heritage. I guess there's good reasons you'll probably see a significant number of XJs, TJs, YJs, CJs and ZJs probably still rolling down the road (with basically all of the sheet metal replaced) long, long after the current crop of garbage has been crushed. That all said, I would gladly fork over whatever money someone wanted just for a new XJ, just the way they were in 04 or 98, or a similar time machine GMT400 or GMT800 truck from GM.
_ea1k 2y ago
My ad blocker was detected by their site that refused entry. I find that kind of stuff more annoying than an occasional notice that they'll let me extend a warranty.
Workaccount2 2y ago
The likely outcome of this is going to be cars that will shove ads in your face, play repeatedly over the ad-fotainment system, and will track every movement you make, every place you visit, and require you to sign in with an account in order to drive it. This will allow the car to be sold for thousands less, effectively allowing you to trade your soul for a $1000 down $150/mo lease of an otherwise bare bones car.
akomtu 2y ago
Corporations is a clever way of organising people in such a way that all humanity in them is suppressed and whatever little evil in them is empowered. Corporations do so by putting a mask on employees that lets them act anonymously, on behalf of the corporation, and creating the only objective metric - profit. Anything that goes against this metric is ignored, and the few ideas that grow this metric are empowered. No normal person would dare to approach a Jeep customer face to face and try to poison his car with ads: such a confrontation would be unbearable to anyone with a somewhat functioning moral compass. However the same person can do this easily when covered by the corporate mask: not needing to confront the customer openly makes it much more bearable. Corporations wouldn't be able to do this with a bunch of saints - those would just sit idle and refuse to do this evil shit even under the mask of anonymity, but so long as some employees have a seed of evil in them and a bit of creativity, corporations will make that seed grow.
booleandilemma 2y ago
What does the company's CEO drive? Does he get pop-up ads too?
blinded 2y ago
That is so lame of them. Image having to watch an add before being able to turn on heated seats.
globular-toast 2y ago
When I scrolled down on this page a thing popped up asking me to give my details to them. Nice.
inahga 2y ago
I brutally ripped the cellular modem out of my Jeep and have not had this problem since then. See https://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=7&pid=462&year=2019 https://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=7&pid=462&year=20.... It has the drawback of breaking the GPS and compass. Also I imagine any recalls that are fixed via over-the-air updates won't apply. Hopefully that never happens, because I don't want to have to try to explain to the dealer that I need them to apply the update locally.
Molitor5901 2y ago
https://archive.is/WZGea https://archive.is/WZGea
deckplecksetter 2y ago
Is there some kind of database for stuff like this, where people can report abusive products? That would be a great way to avoid such things while also naming and shaming companies who do it.
ryandvm 2y ago
Advertising is absolutely the root of so many of our problems. It's turned news into ragebait political bubble machines. It's why we have an epidemic of screen addiction and social isolation. They spy on us and sell our weaknesses to the highest bidder. Drug companies literally spend more on advertising than actually developing drugs. Billboards clutter up the landscapes and digital ads litter all our screens. It is a blight on humanity and future generations are going to look back on us with the deepest pity on how we voluntarily did this to ourselves just to not pay for anything (directly).
mgdev 2y ago
Yikes. Great way to ruin your brand. I've owned multiple Jeeps in the past. Never again.

206 points by spudlyo 2y ago

Find out the addresses of Jeep Executives. Get a car with giant loudspeakers and outdoor projectors and display ads at their houses 24/7.

spanktheuser 2y ago
Michael Moore did something very close to this in the mid-90s for his briefly-lived TV Nation. Parked a series of cars in front of the home of a car alarm company CEO and set them off.
0hijinks 2y ago
No, no, you see: that would be a violation of local noise ordinance and is inhumane. Of course, a constant drip-feed of their banners and jingles in your private life is their right as a corporation.

ypeterholmes 2y ago

Advertising has gotten out of control. What's bizarre to me is that the people violating us are literally the ones who want something from us. Is there no way to boycott anyone advertising in our car? AND the car itself of course.

karaterobot 2y ago
I didn't buy a Jeep because of stuff like this. The problem is that when I looked at the competitors, for instance the Bronco, they had their own little UI annoyances too. There wasn't anything on the market that didn't annoy or insult me in one way or another, so I ended up just buying a 25 year old Ranger. The irony is that 25 years ago, I had a Ranger like the one I own now, and it took me a series of seven modern vehicles, each increasingly bad, to teach me the value of a simple, unopinionated truck that just gets me to point B.
- bluGill 2y ago
  If you can keep it on the road. I have a 25 year old car too. I spend more on maintenance than fuel (I only drove it 2000 miles last year) Parts are getting hard to find. There is rust that would be expensive to fix.
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    Runs like a champ, but yeah it has cost some money to keep it that way. Nevertheless, FFR!
  - userbinator 2y ago
    I have one that's a little over twice that age. Parts availability, especially in the aftermarket, is still very high for domestic classics, especially those based on the stereotypical design, and I doubt that will change much in the near future.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      At twice the age you are pre-computer. In the worst case a metal lathe can make any part (though some of them are very tricky to make). If a computer dies on mine I have no ability to make a new one and odds are the chips haven't been made in 10+ years so good luck finding a replacement (getting software to program will also be hard) Though none of the parts I've had to replace are computer related. Mechanical parts are much more likely to wear out or rust.
- Ancapistani 2y ago
  This is why I drive a 2000 Jeep Wrangler, while my wife is in a 2019 F-150 and my oldest daughter is in a 2024 Subaru Crosstrek - I wanted simple, easy to repair, and no frills. They wanted comfortable and capable. I admit I steal their vehicles sometimes in the dead of winter. Mine has no working heater. Unless it's under 20ºF or so, I don't even bother to put the hard top on it. I've had my Jeep for 15 years now, and am starting to feel the itch for a new vehicle. I have my eye on a 1992 GMC pickup. It belonged to my grandfather who passed away in ~2005 and has been stored in a garage since then. I've put about $4k into it getting it roadworthy again after sitting for that long, but it's only got 15k miles on it and the interior is mint. If I bother with it, it needs the paint buffed a re-coated on one side that was partially in the sun where it was stored - at which point it will effectively be a brand new vehicle. I'm looking forward to that big carburated V8 after a decade and a half driving a 2.5L i4 :)
iAMkenough 2y ago
> Is there no way to boycott anyone advertising in our car? AND the car itself of course. The obvious boycott would be to sell the car and never buy a Jeep again. Until the next car you buy is also updated to include ads and quietly sell tracking data they've collected about your family, so then you sell that car and never buy from that manufacturer again either. Then before you know it, you end up buying an American-made luxury sedan to take the kids to soccer because you've convinced yourself that buying a premium ad-free car with the optional monthly subscription for the seat warmers is worth the investment and all the "affordable" options are either ad-supported American-built cars or artificially overpriced due to trade wars. They'll backtrack if they lose enough money.
- bluGill 2y ago
  The important part is getting others to do so as well. You alone don't matter. The big players here are KBB, edmunds, consumer reports, and all the car magazines. If they scream manufactures will listen.
- timewizard 2y ago
  > The obvious boycott would be to sell the car The overwhelming majority of people finance their vehicles. It's not even their car to sell.
deleted 2y ago
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autoexec 2y ago

Can they take the car back? I'd want to return it. No one should reasonably be expected to ask if their car is going to shove ads in their face before buying. Was this something they saw during test drives? Increasingly, it looks like my next new car is going to have to be an old car.

bdangubic 2y ago
for sure they signed their life away on some form they did not read when buying the car :)
- bluGill 2y ago
  Just because it is on a form doesn't mean it is legal. Contracts are only legal if the words themselves are legal in the country.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    I’d love to see a statute (any state or federal) that prevents ads :)
    - bluGill 2y ago
      There are a few anti billboard ads in some states. There are also safety standards that should be applied here (probably won't - they won't even kill the touch screen). Tobacco ads are illegal. in general though there won't be.
mikestew 2y ago
Was this something they saw during test drives? No product manager with a lick of sense would allow that. No, if online reports are to be trusted, it waits a while before the ads start showing up.

recursivedoubts 2y ago

you will live to see man made enshitification beyond your comprehension

pacificmint 2y ago
You know how there is the cliche that old people are always ranting how everything was better in their day? Personally, I'm not quite there yet, but the older I get, the more I see their point...
- recursivedoubts 2y ago
  the cliche is that it's a cliche
- tanseydavid 2y ago
  Shifting Baseline Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline
stragies 2y ago
Or worse, some hacker/government locks your car doors, and turns your car into a remote-controlled 2-ton 140mph ground-to-ground projectile, while you're driving your kids to school.
- recursivedoubts 2y ago
  i unironically believe this has been used to assassinate people in the united states
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    I believe that was the case with Anne Heche. She was producing a documentary on child trafficking and was going to name names. Her car drove her into a building. The ring videos and audio can not be unseen or unheard. She was trying hard to overpower the car with the brakes which were not yet drive-by-wire. The media immediately said drugs and alcohol were involved yet the toxicology report showed her 100% clean.

mikestew 2y ago

Speaking of ads, my Pi-hole about caught on fire when that page loaded, and there's still ads that it missed. The irony, given the article topic, is not lost on me.

spudlyo 2y ago
Right!? There is also a popup ad on that very site. Here is a tip that I just recently learned that has improved my browsing experience with uBlock Origin. In the settings menu under "Filter Lists" there sections under the heading of "Cookie notices" and "Annoyances" that are not enabled by default. Blocking cookie popups has been wonderful, and I can only imagine what kind of annoyances are now being blocked for me.
- thesuitonym 2y ago
  Does blocking the cookie popup allow all cookies? Seems like that would be worse in my opinion.
  - spudlyo 2y ago
    Not entirely sure. I now flush all non-allowlisted cookies on browser exit after moving to LibreWolf, so I'm less concerned than I was about that sort of thing.
  - worble 2y ago
    Under GDPR, you must opt-in. So blocking the popup is the same as no consent, if you're in the EU. I don't trust random sites on the internet to follow the law anyway, so nuking your cookies and localstorage when you close the browser or navigate away is what you should be doing if you're concerned about this sort of thing. Obviously sites I need to stay logged into get on the allowlist.
    - somat 2y ago
      same, I feel those cookie consent dialogs are solving the problem at the wrong level, remembering that in the end the cookies were always under your control. I think the gpdr opt in tracking requirements should have been interpreted as "the browser should not persist any tracking data past the end of the session unless the user gives explicit consent to do so" luckily some kind soul her pointed me to the cookie autodelete extension. Which does just this. I am able to add the three sites I want to keep persistence as exceptions and just let everything else burn after a day. The fun part is how it trips the firefox "looks like you have not used firefox in a while" dialog every single time. I don't fix it because that is how I know it is working

spudlyo 2y ago

You wouldn't run an ad blocker on your car... > But the problem could presage a more significant issue for future drivers. Last year, Ford filed a patent for an in-car advertising system that would use the car’s speakers and display screen to serve ads to drivers and passengers. That system would also use the car’s GPS tracker to serve ads relevant to the driver’s route. This is some Black Mirror type dystopian vision of the future for me. Just like nowadays you can't buy a "dumb TV" I imagine in the future it might be impossible to buy a dumb car that doesn't have these kinds of features built into the head unit.

A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
> Just like nowadays you can't buy a "dumb TV" You can, if you buy used. I know it's weird to buy a used TV, but they cost pennies on the dollar and you can get some really nice models without today's ubiquitous annoyances. Same goes for cars. If enough people refrain from buying new cars, and put in the effort to keep their older cars on the road, maybe manufacturers will take the hint.
- Retric 2y ago
  Or just modify them. People used to replace their stereo, I suspect there would be a real market for add free infotainment systems.
  - smackeyacky 2y ago
    This is already difficult on 20 year old vehicles, in the future it might be impossible. The combination of weird speaker ohm specs, CAN Bus controlled factory amplifiers, integrated vehicle information systems (where the display is across several screens) in modern cars and the abandonment of the DIN stereo size make doing aftermarket installs harder and harder. The Chinese are producing some astounding things - you can buy a drop-in centre console replacement for an older Chrysler 300C that looks factory but has a big touch screen, Carplay/Android Auto and a dongle that interfaces with the CAN bus based amplifier and steering wheel buttons. I suspect for really popular cars this will be an option, but it can't be done for every car released.

EGreg 2y ago

As I was reading this story, a pop-up advert appeared. They’re everywhere, man! Isn’t it time to have an alternative to capitalism? UBI and cooperative gift economies (science, open source etc.)

the_third_wave 2y ago
No, it is not time to try to revive the desiccated corpse of socialism once again for the I-do-not-know-how-manyeth-time. Pick up some history books, real ones that is, not Howard Zinn and read where that path takes you. Redistribution does not work when there isn't anyone left to pluck which tends to be the outcome of that pipe dream. Capitalism, warts and all is still the best way to lift people out of poverty. You may not like the fact that some people have way more than others (and objectively speaking way more than they need) but the people who saw and see their income lift above the poverty line would not like to see it go down again once the next "people's party" gets to power.

mfro 2y ago

Year of The Adult Depend Undergarment

LeoPanthera 2y ago

Previouslies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43163333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43163333

spudlyo 2y ago
Huh, I thought for sure the article must have made the rounds here at some point, but I presumed the de-duper would catch it.

doublerabbit 2y ago

lol, you think Jeep care? Backlash sure, but five years later they're probably put advertising in your steering wheel.

drpossum 2y ago
I've found Jeep owners are their own brand of crazy. It's probably one of the few car cults that would endlessly put up with this kind of abuse because they just can't imagine NOT making their Jeep the core part of their identity.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  It's a Heep thing. You wouldn't understand.

NickC25 2y ago

Absurd that cars are now seen as an advertising platform by car makers. A car's stereo or display system randomly blasting ads at you (the driver) should be treated for what it really is - intentionally distracting the driver when the vehicle is in operation. That shit should be illegal. It's dumb at best, and incredibly dangerous at worst.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
smackeyacky 2y ago
Well, AM and FM radio are plagued with ads, always were and always will be. As far as I can see this is just a replacement for the fact that nobody listens to radio in their car any more. There is an entire older generation that is used to ads being blasted in their cars. The visual assault is new though.
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  Is that the same? In my vehicles if an ad starts playing I can push a button and be listening to another station or I can listen to a CD or MP3. Does it work that way when ads pop up in these distracted-driver-tainment systems?
- npongratz 2y ago
  The AM and FM radio ads cannot surveil you like the GPS- and cell-enabled (and forced) in-vehicle advertising systems do.
  - tantalor 2y ago
    Some people might prefer an ad which is relevant to their location over something extremely generic and less useful. Sharing location does not necessarily need to impact privacy.
    - user3939382 2y ago

micromacrofoot 2y ago

Someone should try to press this as a lemon law issue > A vehicle is considered a lemon if it has at least one defect that substantially that impairs the use, safety, or market value and the car has not been repaired after a reasonable number of attempts.

6SixTy 2y ago
More like road safety. Ads are meant to be payed attention to, which is an anti feature when you are supposed to be focused on driving. Same thing really with infotainment and requiring them for basic car functionality. Most of them suck anyways and you cannot operate a touch screen without looking at it. Stop putting climate control behind that screen.

throw94040 2y ago

There are legal sanctions for refusing to update software in a car, and for blocking it from internet. There is no way out!

wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]

reverendsteveii 2y ago

It used to be a compromise: a product was free and ad-supported, a one-time cost up-front or a subscription. Now these capitalists think they can have it coming, going and staying right here with a car that you buy, that has subscription services in it and still shows you ads. I won't ever buy a car that shows ads and if all the cars on the market show ads I will break mine so that it stops doing that.

ImJasonH 2y ago

> Get More From KBB.com / Simply choose the content you'd like to receive below and we'll send it straight to your inbox. The irony.

jmward01 2y ago

> “They attributed the persistent nature of the ad to a temporary software glitch that affected the opt-out functionality in certain cases..." I attribute the glitch to the fact that ads are being presented at all. Seriously. Why would anyone buy from these people? How can someone look at the electronics in a modern vehicle and not think that they are a huge negative and not a positive? I Would love it if those electronics were there for me but it has been clear for a long time now that they are there to take advantage of me. Every touch screen/gps screen/etc makes me think 'this vehicle tracks everything I do, sells it to my worst enemy and will advertise/nag me to make more money and not to help me out'

vondur 2y ago

Ha, maybe they will reduce the price of the vehicles if the owner agrees to ads? Much like the Amazon Kindle with the ad supported versions.

drpossum 2y ago
DO NOT GIVE THEM IDEAS
- gruez 2y ago
  Honestly this would be an improvement over the status quo. You get a choice in the matter, and unlike it being sprung on you after you bought it, you presumably would know upfront.
lenerdenator 2y ago
Stellantis does not have the financials to make this happen.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

gregw134 2y ago

> Last year, Ford filed a patent for an in-car advertising system that would use the car’s speakers and display screen to serve ads to drivers and passengers I've owned Ford stock for 10 years, I think I'll finally sell it today

polski-g 2y ago

If you are unhappy with these, you should contact your state legislators to have this practice banned. Particularly if you are in California.

notatoad 2y ago

will stuffing them full of ads finally be the thing that convinces people to give up the emotional attachment they have to their cars?

jklinger410 2y ago

Somewhat tangential: JEEP products that are not the traditional Wrangler and all of it's myriad variations are most likely the worst American vehicles ever made. I'm talking the Grand Cherokee, Wagoneer, Compass, etc. This crap is being tried on that vehicle because JEEP drivers are some of the least discerning car buyers on the market. A perfect test bed for the most toxic features American manufacturers can imagine. So it's a great sign that they are noticing and complaining. If this group can't handle it, hopefully they will consider it a failed experiment. For now.

rpcope1 2y ago
Jeep hasn't built anything worth a damn since Chrysler picked it up off of AMC in its dying breaths, and MOPAR has not ever built anything that wasn't a flaming pile of shit for many, many decades. It's a shame, you'll never see another useful great vehicle like an XJ, YJ or CJ-8, and if you try (like Mahindra did with the Roxor) and it looks too much like a "Jeep" you'd better bet Chrysler is going to shut that shit down quick. You should have said that people who buy Fiat Chrysler are basically blind and undiscerning because the whole company basically operates on generating total garbage with few exceptions (some Cummins powered trucks be among those).
6SixTy 2y ago
I'd probably never buy a Ram/Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep brand car if I can avoid it. There's a reason why Chrysler joined with Fiat, then Fiat-Chrysler turned into Stellantis. And none of them are a ringing endorsement.

hu3 2y ago

Reason #999 for preferring home office. Soon long commutes will mean even more exposure to ads. It was already the case with billboards anyway. Now billboards are being forced inside your car.

lenerdenator 2y ago
If there's one thing that might save us here, it's that ads within the vehicle, delivered via the entertainment system unexpectedly, are a potential safety hazard.
- npongratz 2y ago
  I can just hear the pitch to auto CEOs and "business development" execs: "... now with full self-driving! Where your captive audience can't use the safety excuse for avoiding your very important and lucrative propaganda!"
LinuxBender 2y ago
Activists sometimes hack the digital billboards. Just a matter of time till they find a way to play something loud and raunchy in all the cars whilst taking away the UI controls using javascript.

pavel_lishin 2y ago

Is there anything new since this story 22 days ago that seems to cover the exact same events? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009682

deleted 2y ago
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i1856511 2y ago

I cannot read this article because of a pop-up ad on the website.

gotoeleven 2y ago

Its this kind of stuff that made me a little disappointed when they figured out that that meteor was going to miss earth.

lenerdenator 2y ago

This seems like something a car company would do if it were hurtling towards bankruptcy for the third time in a human lifetime. And lo, that's exactly what Jeep's parent company, Stellantis, is doing.

motohagiography 2y ago

we are in a cultural nadir of car design. vindicating that I bought a jeep with stick, rolldown windows, no bluetooth, no infotainment, no electric locks. guess I'm about to become a vintage car collector.

LinuxBender 2y ago
guess I'm about to become a vintage car collector. Same. My truck is already a classic. People ask if I really love that truck and then I explain the de-evolution that is taking place in modern vehicles. When that truck fails and if I can't find anything I will happily ride into town on my 1947 tractor or a horse or my old side-by-side.

ge96 2y ago

I had a similar experience with a used Ford car I bought from CarMax trying to shove SiriusXM down my throat like please man.

aCodeCrafter 2y ago

This makes me so glad I own 2003 Toyota Corolla

osmsucks 2y ago

The distracting nature of ads is a problem here: on a computer or smartphone, it's merely an annoyance; behind the wheel of a massive and fast moving vehicle, it could lead to deaths. IMHO ads in a car infotainment system should be outlawed. Let me focus on the road, and if I need to stare at the infotainment screen, let it be just for the GPS navigation.

rurp 2y ago

This is disgusting. It's already getting hard to find new cars that don't include a bunch of "features" that make the experience worse. Something as greedy and adversarial as turning a personal vehicle into an ad platform is a hard no from me; I will never purchase a car with this included. My one hope is that there are enough car manufacturers on the market for competition to stifle this. That doesn't work in many areas of tech because they are controlled by a monopoly or duopoly. Chrome is free to dump all over users because Google leveraged their other monopolies to drive out competition and gain a browser monopoly. This kind of anti-consumer behavior that tech pioneered has really lowered my opinion of the whole industry.

GuestFAUniverse 2y ago

Bill Hicks "seeds" didn't seem to have bloomed yet. So here we go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0

pimlottc 2y ago
Alternate link that’s not blocked in the US: https://youtu.be/9h9wStdPkQY?si=atHZI0pewp9ThV_Y https://youtu.be/9h9wStdPkQY?si=atHZI0pewp9ThV_Y

SJC_Hacker 2y ago

Many industries have run out of ideas for new products/features. The only card they have left is more and more control of the lives. At least until AGI is reached when we're not needed and can be disposed of.

quickslowdown 2y ago
I'm just curious who they think will buy their shit when the whole market has no income. I guess nobody has ever accused a CEO of having foresight beyond the next 3 months.

rpcope1 2y ago

This among many other problems with "Jeeps" feel so profane given the marque's heritage. I guess there's good reasons you'll probably see a significant number of XJs, TJs, YJs, CJs and ZJs probably still rolling down the road (with basically all of the sheet metal replaced) long, long after the current crop of garbage has been crushed. That all said, I would gladly fork over whatever money someone wanted just for a new XJ, just the way they were in 04 or 98, or a similar time machine GMT400 or GMT800 truck from GM.

_ea1k 2y ago

My ad blocker was detected by their site that refused entry. I find that kind of stuff more annoying than an occasional notice that they'll let me extend a warranty.

Workaccount2 2y ago

The likely outcome of this is going to be cars that will shove ads in your face, play repeatedly over the ad-fotainment system, and will track every movement you make, every place you visit, and require you to sign in with an account in order to drive it. This will allow the car to be sold for thousands less, effectively allowing you to trade your soul for a $1000 down $150/mo lease of an otherwise bare bones car.

akomtu 2y ago

Corporations is a clever way of organising people in such a way that all humanity in them is suppressed and whatever little evil in them is empowered. Corporations do so by putting a mask on employees that lets them act anonymously, on behalf of the corporation, and creating the only objective metric - profit. Anything that goes against this metric is ignored, and the few ideas that grow this metric are empowered. No normal person would dare to approach a Jeep customer face to face and try to poison his car with ads: such a confrontation would be unbearable to anyone with a somewhat functioning moral compass. However the same person can do this easily when covered by the corporate mask: not needing to confront the customer openly makes it much more bearable. Corporations wouldn't be able to do this with a bunch of saints - those would just sit idle and refuse to do this evil shit even under the mask of anonymity, but so long as some employees have a seed of evil in them and a bit of creativity, corporations will make that seed grow.

booleandilemma 2y ago

What does the company's CEO drive? Does he get pop-up ads too?

blinded 2y ago

That is so lame of them. Image having to watch an add before being able to turn on heated seats.

globular-toast 2y ago

When I scrolled down on this page a thing popped up asking me to give my details to them. Nice.

inahga 2y ago

I brutally ripped the cellular modem out of my Jeep and have not had this problem since then. See https://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=7&pid=462&year=2019 https://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=7&pid=462&year=20.... It has the drawback of breaking the GPS and compass. Also I imagine any recalls that are fixed via over-the-air updates won't apply. Hopefully that never happens, because I don't want to have to try to explain to the dealer that I need them to apply the update locally.

Molitor5901 2y ago

https://archive.is/WZGea https://archive.is/WZGea

deckplecksetter 2y ago

Is there some kind of database for stuff like this, where people can report abusive products? That would be a great way to avoid such things while also naming and shaming companies who do it.

ryandvm 2y ago

Advertising is absolutely the root of so many of our problems. It's turned news into ragebait political bubble machines. It's why we have an epidemic of screen addiction and social isolation. They spy on us and sell our weaknesses to the highest bidder. Drug companies literally spend more on advertising than actually developing drugs. Billboards clutter up the landscapes and digital ads litter all our screens. It is a blight on humanity and future generations are going to look back on us with the deepest pity on how we voluntarily did this to ourselves just to not pay for anything (directly).

mgdev 2y ago

Yikes. Great way to ruin your brand. I've owned multiple Jeeps in the past. Never again.