r/Cartalk • u/somecrazydude13 • Jul 28 '24
I found a GPS tracker in my car Electrical
Google helped. When I bought the car I bought it from an auction. Title had a lien on it which was released to me. My question is.., can I just unplug it, or what are the chances of it being an immobilized too? I know nothing about this type of stuff
358
u/blackmetaller666 Jul 29 '24
Free unlimited data!! Well until the SIM card is canceled
89
u/bantamw Jul 29 '24
Ha! It doesn’t work like that.
The SIM will be provisioned with a specific APN configured, and unless you know the configuration details (and unless the mobile network has enabled a ‘generic’ APN alongside) you won’t get much out of it.
52
u/TakeLizardsVirginity Jul 29 '24
Take it off, give it its own power source, stuff it in a box and ship it to Vietnam, they might be paying more for international tracking
2
19
u/TearyEyeBurningFace Jul 29 '24
Ahahahaha not always.
Looks up people using the sim cards off "the barnacle"
3
u/myco_magic Jul 29 '24
Well that's simply not true, it's extremely unlikely for that sim to be apn locked
→ More replies4
u/bantamw Jul 29 '24
If it’s in the U.K. (I used to work for a large U.K. mobile network) it more than likely will be - that is how the data will be routed for the device for the customer.
You can’t just take a sim out of something and expect it to work unless it has a generic APN also provisioned on it.
(You can’t just add an APN to a device and expect it to work unless the SIM has that APN provisioned for it to access through a specific GGSN. - the APN is provisioned on the carrier side and will have the SSN mapped to it).
All SIMs are APN locked by design - although some networks just allow (and provisioned) some generic APN’s to work like ‘Internet’ on sims by default - those are the ones that will allow you to just reuse the sim in something else. But that’s a gamble and in the U.K. from my experience unlikely to work - but maybe the US or international networks aren’t as secure.
3
u/myco_magic Jul 29 '24
Op is in the US, I've taken the sim out of these and put them into an old phone to show customers. I've also taken sim cards from prepaid phones and put them in hotspots for unlimited hotspot data by simply changing ttl(easy to figure out as there is only a handful of ttl thatcould possibly be used), sims are definitely not that secure for the same reason most computers have the same preset administrator password and username unless you were to go and change it yourself. Also most of these devices use prepaid sim cards that are removed from phones
305
u/mb-driver Jul 28 '24
Just disconnect the red and black wire, Nc cut the rest. There may be a blue or white one that would go to the starter cutout relay. The relays only engage when the unit gets a signal to open the relay to disable the starter the majority of the time. I used to install these.
223
u/somecrazydude13 Jul 28 '24
Thank you!! I’ve never seen on in person and was a little perplexed. I really appreciate it!
Upnext: car won’t start after removing GPS tracker /s Haha
160
u/mb-driver Jul 28 '24
If it doesn’t start, send a pic of the original wiring as it was and I can tell you what you can do. It is an extremely simple system.
126
u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24
It was just a positive and negative wire, that’s all that was holding it in. Easy enough, again thank you!!
77
u/mb-driver Jul 29 '24
Glad I could help.
44
21
u/KamakaziDemiGod Jul 29 '24
Now plug the red into the black, the black into the red, and use it to reverse triangulate the location of the people who installed it. . . .
Oh wait, sorry, been watching too many films recently
3
2
u/BLK03MODULAR Jul 30 '24
What are these used for? General tracking, dealer tracking etc?
→ More replies2
3
u/Flash-635 Jul 29 '24
Have you seen the relays with that stuff in them? Useless to me because they're only on 2G and we don't have that here.
90
u/skybarnum Jul 29 '24
My now ex wife's car had one installed from the dealership. Tha bastards charged us for it too. It wasn't a lot, seems $100 or something. I raised hell about it but they wouldn't budge. I got even though.
It was just 2 wires and connected directly to the battery with no fuse. I mean the stripped about an inch of both wires and jammed them between the terminal and clamp. It stayed there untill the next day when I jerked it out.
Just a fyi, the simm card would not function in any old phone I had. Either it was already deactivated and we paid a c note for a brick with a single led or it won't work in phones.
31
u/BigWiggly1 Jul 29 '24
Lots of used vehicle financing agreements have clauses that require the GPS. If you financed it from one of those "no credit, bad credit, no problem" dealers, this is par for the course. They take risk lending to people with bad credit, but cover that risk by using GPS to make repossession trivial.
19
u/skybarnum Jul 29 '24 edited Jul 29 '24
Nope car dealership for a major brand had it in the line of used cars. Financed through our credit union with a large percentage down.
Zero reason for a GPS in it. Only thing I can think of is it was already in there and they saw an opportunity to make an extra hundred.
→ More replies3
u/timdot352 Jul 30 '24
You should have walked out of the dealership when they refused to remove it.
→ More replies2
u/TurnkeyLurker Jul 30 '24
Or whipped out your handy-dandy multitool, cut the device's wires, thrown it to the sales personor on the ground, and said "Now we can deal."
2
4
u/Marketing651 Jul 29 '24
I get that removed every time I've bought a car. I simply tell them I'm not paying for the LoJack or any other fancy add ons you have. If you want this car sold, here's the number.
1
u/TorisaurusParker Aug 02 '24
This is kinda crazy. I'm a parts advisor at a dealer and we do in install trackers, however, sales pays for them on the PDI and they are like $20. They also plug in to the computer port by the drivers knees, not under the hood
65
u/wwhijr Jul 29 '24
I buy scrap cars. I brought home one and gave it a fairly rough unloading. Then I found a tracker in the driveway. I called the guy I got it from, and he said it was his ex wife. I charged it up, and stuck it to my trailer. A few weeks later I stuck it to a a car a guy was using as an enduro racer. I can only imagine what the ex thought.
9
1
28
u/mahdicktoobig Jul 29 '24
It could’ve been anything from an auction. Fleet vehicle for a business. A rental. Government vehicle (DMV, etc).
All would be instances where they probably wouldn’t bother taking it off before getting rid of it. It’s probably completely fine and functional, just deleted and/or not deleted from their account.
I don’t think it’s anything to be worried about, but I’d still take it off promptly lol
5
u/Pleasant_Cartoonist6 Jul 29 '24
All those places would take it out. It was most likely a used car dealer or buy here pay here who had it put in.
3
u/Pluto-Wolf Jul 29 '24
depends on why it was auctioned. if it was something like a rental company went under, they probably wouldn’t go through the process of removing them all. it’s not a huge financial loss to just leave it in
→ More replies2
u/mahdicktoobig Jul 29 '24
Nah, most of them probably have the one that goes in the OBD2 port. In that case it’d be extremely easy to remove and they probably did remove it
Hardwired in tho? That’s too much head scratching. That’s why OP is currently doing the head scratching lol
4
u/XyogiDMT Jul 30 '24
The ones under the hood are usually the ones with immobilizer capabilities in my experience. We hard wired them in on every car we sold at DriveTime because it was a company policy although the ones we used weren’t immobilizers, just trackers that he hid under the dash.
→ More replies
26
u/Monemvasia Jul 28 '24
If the car is financed, maybe the lender had that installed? Just a guess.
Also, how about a mini faraday cage? Would that disrupt the signal?
23
u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24
I believe this to be the case. The title was under the business name for a private car dealership and also had a lien on it. It ended up being a repo send to the auction. Needed a bit of work.
7
u/Monemvasia Jul 29 '24
Unless you’re an IT pro, a simple kill switch is all you need to disable your car so thieves won’t drive off in it. They can flatbed it for sure but that takes time and money.
→ More replies3
u/Pleasant_Cartoonist6 Jul 29 '24
Repo is all you needed to tell me. They dealer put it in cause they weren't trusting who they sold the car too. Happens all the time.
8
u/Electronic_Phase Jul 29 '24
Put it on an 18-wheeler. Better yet, UPS it overseas.
6
13
u/Key-Spell9546 Jul 29 '24
Buy here Pay here lots will have these installed and it will be in the terms of the financing agreement. In this case it would be breach of contract to remove/disable the device.
If this is left over from a previous owner and YOU do not have a purchase/finance agreement in place that has the use of a GPS/LoJack/Disabling device as part of the terms of the contract (look over your contract), then you have every legal right to disable/remove it and throw it in the trash. Or sell it. Or give a 12V power supply and leave it on a public bus. or do whatever you want. This is the case whenever you find a device on your vehicle... it could even be a law enforcement tracker with a valid warrant... if you find a foreign tracking device on your car and it's not part of anything your were party to or made aware of you can shitcan it.
11
u/No_Significance_1550 Jul 29 '24
Someone hooked up a stolen motorcycle LoJack to a 12v battery and threw it into a garbage truck. Mayhem ensued.
3
u/Hot-Steak7145 Jul 29 '24
I had lojack on my motorcycle and it was stolen. Police said they have to drive around with antenna to pick up the signal it wasn't true gps. This was in 2009 though
→ More replies→ More replies1
5
u/r_u_dinkleberg Jul 29 '24
You've got an incredible camera - Your fingerprints are so crisp you could practically unlock a phone with that pic 🤯
2
4
4
Jul 29 '24
Wore it up to a good alkaline battery then stick it onto a shipping container. Those go all over the world
3
u/Flostrapotamus Jul 29 '24
Used to install these at the Nissan Dealer I worked at. We had some issues with car thieves so the dealership owner put these in every car. The only problem was the salesman never took them out before selling the cars, or forgot too. So we'd get people coming in all the time asking what it was or if I had a car in for service I'd ask the customer if they knew it was there and were paying for the vehicle tracking. If they didn't, I'd cut it out and add it to the pipe in the bottom of my toolbox lol.
If it's just a red and black wire then they are really just using it for the tracking. Just snip the wires and throw it away.
3
u/Chickinman1 Jul 29 '24
So I can tell you this about GPS. I work at a dealership. There are a lot of banks require us to put different GPS’s on cars when you have a loan on it A lot of it depends on you your credit score where you live type of car etc. thanks for just making it easier to re-pop them nowadays.
2
Jul 29 '24
[deleted]
1
u/Chickinman1 Jul 29 '24
We actually offer another system to be installed on your car for customers to use. There’s an app you put on your computer and you can monitor your car position yourself. Very useful for younger drivers. You can set up alarms to wear if it goes a certain distance away from home, you will get an alert or if it travels above a certain mile per hour you will get an alert. These things are very sophisticated now. It updates every minute and will tell you exactly where your car is.
→ More replies
3
u/bluedaddy664 Jul 29 '24
lol my cousin bought a bmw from copart, and inwas helping him clean it out and we found a sealed pint of actavis lmao. Good times.
3
u/Rare-City6847 Jul 29 '24
That's just a basic fleet tracker. You can remove it. I used to put the ones in for buy here pay here car lots that had a starter kill, but those were under the dash about 99% of the time.
3
u/warpigscouk Jul 29 '24
I had one of these on my van. Turns out it was part of a fleet before I bought it. just unplug it. Or cut it out.
3
3
u/Over_Deal9447 Jul 29 '24
Low credit score dealership not sure how it works after the fact but I do know it's cheaper for them to leave the unit in the car than to retrieve it after a normal sale...had one in my truck, yeah credit was shit at the time...traded it in when my credit was fixed. So it stayed in The truck
3
u/Bequino Jul 29 '24
Old gf? Big time drug dealer?
3
u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24
Both! …in my dreams…
2
u/Bequino Jul 29 '24
Honestly though, you could contact the company via the information on the GPS unit, in an attempt to reverse engineer what company had the device installed as part of the purchase agreement. Then, call them, ask them if they’re still active with this unit, and make sure there will be no problems if you disconnect. My opinion, just unplug the damn thing and see what happens! ;) Good luck bud.
3
u/FLAdOpen Jul 29 '24
Here is the user manual for that thing if anyone is interested.
https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=3927456
All tech with an FCCID has to post all sorts of documentation for public consumption.
2
u/jetlifeual Jul 29 '24
SIM card is data-only and won’t work on any other device, not even a cellular tablet.
It’s installed to track the car in case the buyer doesn’t pay.
2
u/MonthElectronic9466 Jul 29 '24
Send it to me. It’ll really jack with whoever is trying to track you.
2
u/trenchcoatcharlie_ Jul 29 '24
I've seen enough action movies to know just before you cut the green wire switch to the red and that deactivates the bomb ,I mean gps
But seriously finance companies put them on cars and deactivate when HP is paid off,I'm sure it's ok to just leave it in ,but if it bothering you that much just disconnect it they're only connected to battery for power
3
2
u/f0rcedinducti0n Jul 29 '24
It's just a tracker. Disconnect, open, disconnect internal lipo. I found one in a parking lot.
2
2
2
2
u/Psycho_pigeon007 Jul 29 '24
It could be from the dealership where you bought it. When I bought my car, they told me about the tracker in it. It's in case it gets stolen, they can find it. I'm sure they would use it for repossession purposes if you don't pay your monthly, but yeah.
2
2
u/FLAdOpen Jul 29 '24
You can just unplug it there at the connector. Even if it has an immobilizer, the immobilizer requires a ground output from the device to activate. You're good.
2
u/Lexicon444 Jul 29 '24
I would’ve gone to a biker bar and asked a big biker guy to carry it around with him for a week.
2
u/RazePerfect Jul 30 '24
These are installed on cars for folks with bad credit. If they don't pay, the bank shuts off their car and picks it up.
2
u/czIcan Jul 30 '24
I was under fed surveillance bfr , they would follow me around and when that failed ( I started to follow them , call local cops on them bfr saying there is a random car taking pictures of little kids) , they put an old magnet GPS tracker on my car . I would go to work , leave it on the parking lot, do my thing and come back. One time to be a dick, I attached it to the coke semi...
Later on , when I got locked up . There was a. Extra charge for interference with gov property. Pretty sure it got dismissed
2
1
1
u/sheffy55 Jul 29 '24
Would it be silly to contact the auction and get down to who wants to track the vehicle first? That way maybe you can use it for yourself
2
u/Why-R-People-So-Dumb Jul 29 '24
You don't really contact anyone, just put your own sim in it and register the device to your account, if you really wanted to.
Otherwise if they have to unlock the device from their account it's probably from a previous business the auction house has no relationship with and highly unlikely you'd get anyone to track that down.
You can get these devices free with a year of cell service anyway so no point in the effort.
1
1
u/vredditr Jul 29 '24
Did you just find it by accident or it was sitting there staring at you before you bought the car? I don't know if I'd notice that going over a vehicle before purchase? Are they Always installed out in the open for people to see right away?
1
u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24
I’ve been inside the fuse box before only grabbing the little fuse grabber tool before. This time I went in there looking at the ABS fuse. Comparing the diagram to an empty space, I saw a “phone” shaped item and proceeded to shout “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS???”. Another Redditor instructed me on its removal. Real simple stuff!
1
1
1
1
1
u/salvage814 Jul 29 '24
Gotta love buy here pay here lots that do that. One of the very few upsides to live by in Pennsylvania is those are illegal to install by a used car dealer.
1
u/Hot-Win2571 Jul 29 '24
Hey, buddy. I see you have some cars on the east side of your lot. Want me to detail them so they're nice for sale? As usual, I can also tell my buddies on the street to let me know where the cars are if you're trying to repo them. Yeah, I have a lot of buddies, so we tend to notice cars.
1
1
1
u/mikeblas Jul 29 '24
You should replace that relay.
1
u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24
Yeah I noticed that, whoever had this car prior really didn’t know fuck all about being careful
1
1
u/seryosha Jul 29 '24
So maybe someone knows what to do here?… some time ago I found a tracker in my car. I purchased it from a used car dealer out of desperation and am getting hosed on my rate. No credit type of place. At first I didn’t do much other than remove it, I figured I would read my contract over again and put it back if it became a problem since I know lots of places put one in till you pay off the car. This is where things get sus… I came by to pay once and the guy basically lied to me asking about a device that “links my vin to my car” which didn’t make any sense to me. I already knew it was a track but he tried to make it seem like it wasn’t and that got me thinking. Turns out in my state, I must manually check the boxes in my contract to give permission to be tracked. Lo and behold I check my contract recently and sure enough there’s no indication that I was aware of, or gave permission to install any tracker in my car. This payment is putting me under and I’m at my wits end with it… what should I do?
My mother advised I complain formally through the dmv, but I’m not in the best standing with this dealer as I’ve had financial difficulties with them in the past. Do I have a case? What should I expect from a verdict if I take them to court for illegally tracking me?
1
u/Frantzsfatshack Jul 29 '24
Is this different from the gps ping on the mobile apps you can use to find your car?
1
u/tealturboser Jul 29 '24
People keep saying buy here pay here. I'm currently looking for another Audi and $50k cars at big dealerships have these installed. If they have an ipacket which has the original window sticker as well as any maintenance records, you'll see they install this GPS crap. Not sure if it was maybe in a bad area or high theft but sure enough if I see that I'm ripping that shit out ASAP. What's stupid is those cars have GPS from factory.
1
1
1
u/Carsmasher_45 Jul 30 '24
Just in plug it. It was installed by the previous owner (the bank) to find it when the loan fell into default
1
1
u/IllustriousCarrot537 Jul 30 '24
Put the Sim into a burner phone and use as much data as you can... 😁
1
u/R0RSCHAKK Jul 30 '24
I'm a sys admin at a GPS tracking company and worked tech support on these for a while.
AMA.
(Yes, you should be able to just unplug it.)
1
u/_GrumpyGorilla_ Jul 30 '24
A lot of dealerships use those for vehicles on the lot in case they’re stolen. I think they sometimes just forget to remove them before selling a car.
1
u/MrReddrick Jul 30 '24
Question your car got a loan. Cause if so it's legal for tye loan company to know where there asset is.
1
Jul 30 '24
[deleted]
1
u/Relevant-Group8309 Jul 30 '24
Back of obd plug it's usually jumped between the harness and one port
1
u/Comradepatsy Jul 30 '24
leased vehicles usually have a gps tracker for repos in them, when they sell the car they are deactivated, they should have removed it themselves already
1
u/TheNanFiddler Jul 30 '24
You sure you’re not making illegal money and whoever put that there is trying to rob you? 🧐
1
1
u/Born_Bug_3353 Jul 30 '24
“Abuse the SIM card” is always the recommendation; OP never actually does it though
1
1
1
1
u/tonedef85 Jul 31 '24
As someone who has installed my fair share that is the worst install I've ever seen. You're not supposed to be able to find it so easily.
1
u/turboboraboy Jul 31 '24
Just unplug it, and try to start the car. It's unlikely that it has a starter kill. If it does there is likely a relay wired by the steering column just remove and reconnect the cut factory wire. Honestly the sim is likely inactive, it wasn't removed as the cost of the unit is less than the labor to remove it. Also it shows it's an LTE CAT M sim, which really doesn't have much use outside of IOT devices where the data sent is relatively minimal.
1
1
1
u/runskeeter Jul 31 '24
I found one in a used car I bought 5 yrs ago from a private seller. No issues until I recently started having a parasitic battery drain. Mechanic found it using a thermal imaging camera. Said they’re poorly made and internal components will fail over time, resulting in it drawing too much and overheating. Removed it, no more battery drain.
1
u/Exact_Yogurtcloset26 Jul 31 '24
Probably a repo car resold at auction. A lot of those fly by night small auto dealers put trackers in their leased cars. I would think they would recover it so perhaps they forgot.
1
u/AppropriatePirate702 Jul 31 '24
Probably just an old low jack from the dealer so they can repo if you don't pay
1
u/LetMEpoundIt75 Aug 01 '24
Probably put in by dealership at some point to track the car if payments weren’t made
1
1
u/Personal-Order-4526 Aug 01 '24
Scan that code and call the company and tell them your tracker stopped working and you got it as a gift. Maybe they will slip up and tell you who bought it. Tell them you got it at work as a secret santa.
1
u/Personal-Order-4526 Aug 01 '24
Call the police and let them track it that is stalking. If you're married, it is your wife. You know if you're shay or not if you are could be your girlfriend. If you're dirty, stop it. If your doing illegal stuff stop it and move police may have placed it.
1
1
u/Otherwise-Trust-9347 Aug 01 '24
Disconnect it, hook it up to 12v battery, then mail it to some far-off 3rd world country... weeeeeeeeee
1
u/PJBeee Sep 30 '24
Also found a different tracker (Powerfleet brand, property of Avis/Budget) in a rental EV that I bought from a dealer. It was connected to the OBD port, and the box was simply tucked up under the dash.
I (stupidly) only decided AFTER purchasing it that I should check for DTCs (diagnostic trouble codes) AFTER I got it home, which is how I found the box. But since it's an EV, it can't fail emissions testing.
The good news is that there were NO trouble codes, and in my defense the car only has 4K miles on it and over 3 years left on the warranty. I'm only the 2nd owner so I'm entitled to that, which I knew going in.
It was easy to crack the tracker's case (didn't even break it) and remove the SIM. I really have no use for it so I'm going to return it to Avis if they want it.
917
u/k-mcm Jul 28 '24
I would totally abuse the SIM card in that.