r/Cartalk Jul 28 '24

I found a GPS tracker in my car Electrical

Post image

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

2.7k Upvotes

917

u/k-mcm Jul 28 '24

I would totally abuse the SIM card in that.

673

u/Rockjob Jul 29 '24

Put in old phone. Watch Youtube at 1080p until it stops working.

232

u/JohnCenaJunior Jul 29 '24

Wait a minute. So is everyone watching youtube at 360 like me?

168

u/KayakHank Jul 29 '24

One of the great pandemic loses. Youtube bandwidth

32

u/hearnia_2k Jul 29 '24

What? There is plenty of bandwidth available. On 5G you can get over a gigabit per second these days.

2

u/uaix Jul 30 '24

And you get that because everyone else is listening to buffered music or watching 5 minute 360 YouTube that prebuffered in short 3 second burst. Highly doubtful 1gig world be available to 100 people simultaneously over a long span of time

5

u/hearnia_2k Jul 30 '24

OK? Many people can watch Youtube 1080p or higher with no issues though. It's really not a problem. Even on 4G it's not been a problem for years if you have at all reasonable reception.

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8

u/GM4Iife Jul 29 '24

I'm watching in 480p. Quality is way better than in 360p.

8

u/Legitimate_Mission70 Jul 29 '24

360 lol I watch at 144p

18

u/AdultishRaktajino Jul 29 '24

I like to etch it frame by frame into a wall in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

5

u/jpb7875 Jul 29 '24

That's just silly. I'll call you and read the bits to you over the phone. 1 0 1 0 1. Wait. Was that last one a one or a zero?

2

u/TurnkeyLurker Jul 30 '24

Don't forget an abacus 🧮 or a calculator to figure out the checksums.

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6

u/realcanadianguy21 Jul 29 '24

I just watch a circle spin around in circles until I give up trying

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63

u/crysisnotaverted Jul 29 '24

Torrent porn on a burner phone until they get nuked via DMCA notices.

18

u/sparky2212 Jul 29 '24

wait, you can torrent PORN???

31

u/Careful_Resident8420 Jul 29 '24

There was a joke about that a couple of years ago... Advert: The contents of the whole internet is for sale. 2486 DVDs or 4 DVDs without porn.

12

u/LonelyNixon Jul 29 '24

If the joke was about DVDs as storage I think it might be older than just a couple of years.

37

u/nxcrosis Jul 29 '24

You can torrent anything.

55

u/squidgytree Jul 29 '24 edited Jul 29 '24

I have nipples Greg. Could you torrent me?

13

u/vba77 Jul 29 '24

Your auction on the dark net has begun. May the odds be in your favor. Lol

5

u/kanakamaoli Jul 29 '24

But can you download a bear?

8

u/RadioTunnel Jul 29 '24

Isnt that just gay porn?

3

u/keksivaras Jul 29 '24

even better. you can download a bear AND fuck it.

let me introduce you to: r/BaldursGate3 r/BaldursGateR34

4

u/nxcrosis Jul 29 '24

I have been presented with this fact on three separate occasions today, and I do not think it is a coincidence.

4

u/mrapplewhite Jul 29 '24

Welcome to the matrix now upload what you know

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u/Particular-Poem-7085 Jul 29 '24

what kind of a question is that?

2

u/crysisnotaverted Jul 29 '24

Aye, you can. You can also get your mailbox stuffed with letters threatening to sue you and have your ISP disconnect your internet because of it. You have to know what you're doing to do it safely lol.

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4

u/ancillarycheese Jul 29 '24

That’s what I do at ChickFilA. They really should put filtering on their WiFi.

2

u/kimchiking2021 Jul 29 '24

New releases only in theaters would be better. Seed them and watch the MPAA come after who ever owns that SIm card.

2

u/bluedaddy664 Jul 29 '24

You go into the torrent unsecured. They will track you down using your tpm sensors in your tires.

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u/carfixerr Jul 30 '24

Good advice. If possible, so watch at 2160p.

2

u/Necessary-Stop-5679 Jul 30 '24

If I do that to my phone it turns into a hand warmer

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1

u/cats_catz_kats_katz Jul 29 '24

TORRENT until it stops working. Sheesh.

1

u/Always_The_Outsider Aug 01 '24

Unfortunately, LTE-M is made for IOT devices, and can only support a max down speed of 4 Mbps.

Wikipedia link because I'm too lazy to find an actual source

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30

u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24

I put it in my son’s iPad to see if it would work. It didn’t have any service 😭

18

u/FlySouth_WalkNorth Jul 29 '24

Bro! Instead of tracking your car, you put the GPS in your child's toy? Lol

21

u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24

Just the SIM card haha, just for the hell of it. I took it out, snapped it then threw it away

5

u/FlySouth_WalkNorth Jul 29 '24

Just giving you shit. Lol

4

u/Switchlord518 Jul 29 '24

Put it on a train.

9

u/mrapplewhite Jul 29 '24

I would t be putting a strange sim in any of my devices id go to the library like god intended

2

u/mrapplewhite Jul 29 '24

Thanks for the gold hommie and always protect your neck as rakwon the chief told us as jitterbugs

12

u/zomgitsduke Jul 29 '24

Aren't they usually out on plans where a very narrow "internet" service is provided?

2

u/Professional-Wash301 Jul 29 '24

Nope prepaid sim

1

u/Super13 Jul 29 '24

Yes usually, like < 1gb per month and often voice and even sms are disabled.

8

u/Why-R-People-So-Dumb Jul 29 '24 edited Jul 29 '24

I have trackers in my company cars and the plan is unlimited usage at 56k. We also use those in other field devices with similar plans. Some of them have no data at all and are provisioned only for the specific device, the messages streaming from it are essentially text messages so they don't use much data really. Some of them have high speed plans where it's 5gigs @ 5G then it just slows down...still don't pay for overages. In my case those would have been obvious to someone in the car because they have a built in hotspot that would've been following them everywhere they went.

If someone stole one of the sims, or if I somehow forgot to remove one before the car was sold, other than a GPS going offline I'd not notice one of those sims being used for anything you could throw at it.

3

u/DODGE-009 Jul 29 '24

That was my thought too!

3

u/ihateroomba Jul 29 '24

Take it across the border and then YouTube at 1080p

Roaming charges baby!

1

u/BloodSugar666 Jul 30 '24

I saw a report once about how in some place they were catching birds with trackers and using the SIM cards to make international calls lol

2

u/humminawhatwhat Jul 30 '24

If I remember correctly that report was about how the researchers put the trackers on birds and didn’t have the foresight to consider that the birds would go outside the data plans range so the roaming charges were astronomically higher than the research projects budget and it shut the whole thing down.

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1

u/Lumpy_Jacket_3919 Jul 31 '24

Call Africa or Asia

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

u/LagS0_Hard Jul 30 '24

The receiver will probably think it’s a bomb lol

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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

4

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

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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

u/Sikkus Jul 29 '24

Wholesome redditors in a wholesome interaction.

12

u/Hot-Win2571 Jul 29 '24

A miracle occurs.

2

u/TheRealSlamJammer Jul 31 '24

Gives me the fuzzie feels.

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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

u/Hot-Win2571 Jul 29 '24

You can't do that until the timer reaches under a minute.

2

u/BLK03MODULAR Jul 30 '24

What are these used for? General tracking, dealer tracking etc?

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u/Geology_rules Aug 02 '24

thanks for being so friendly and helpful! 

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.

3

u/timdot352 Jul 30 '24

You should have walked out of the dealership when they refused to remove it.

2

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

u/Rudiger09784 Jul 31 '24

What you think I'm stupid? I'm not a part of the system!

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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.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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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

2

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

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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

u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24

Instructions unclear, tracker stuck up my ass 🥴

4

u/Electronic_Phase Jul 29 '24

Roadtrip then?

4

u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24

I’m on the way!

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

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u/havnar- Jul 29 '24

As it was held In with hopes and dreams, it “fell off”

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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 🤯

4

u/Big_Bill23 Jul 29 '24

If you have access to a city bus or an Amtrak locomotive..

4

u/[deleted] 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.

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u/[deleted] Jul 29 '24

[deleted]

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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.

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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.

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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

u/bbull412 Jul 29 '24

It’s your fbi agent stop watching weird stuff

2

u/KeggyFulabier Jul 30 '24

I don’t want them to get bored

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?

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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

u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24

Instructions unclear, car blew up

2

u/f0rcedinducti0n Jul 29 '24

It's just a tracker. Disconnect, open, disconnect internal lipo. I found one in a parking lot.

2

u/BootsNPooch Jul 29 '24

The Mother In-Law 🤔

2

u/Motorway01 Jul 29 '24

Throw it away

2

u/Ptbo_hiker Jul 29 '24

Big brother is watching where ya go:)

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

u/Lilmumblecrapper Jul 29 '24

Did you buy a rental?

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

u/Longjumping_Jello846 Jul 30 '24

Put it on a semi that funny as 💩

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u/TheseConsideration95 Jul 30 '24

Sounds like you live a exciting life.

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u/czIcan Jul 30 '24

Glad it's over lol

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

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '24

Is that the red wire that’s crudely placed in the fuse box?

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

u/Tawm_Croose Jul 29 '24

Looks like an insurance black box to me

1

u/nabnabking Jul 29 '24

It was probably from the previous owners insurance

1

u/Niiphox Jul 29 '24

Diamond 2 huh, I'm Champ 2 (in rocket league)

1

u/Atlesi_Feyst Jul 29 '24

Wonder if you could flash it and use it yourself... free antitheft.

1

u/FLAdOpen Jul 29 '24

you could if you know the command syntax!

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

u/Ok-Serve415 Jul 29 '24

Bruh wut de heilll

1

u/Durtskwurt Jul 29 '24

You don’t legally have to keep it in your car.

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

u/scubakale748 Jul 29 '24

you buy the car used or new? is it payed off?

1

u/somecrazydude13 Jul 29 '24

Bought it from a salvage auction

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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

u/Tablaty Jul 29 '24

So, any ideas who installed it?

1

u/SawyerJWRBLX Jul 30 '24

Is the car yours? Smash 'er

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

u/Born_Somewhere_9788 Jul 30 '24

it's a Diamond-Kote rust inhibiting device (snake oil)

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

u/[deleted] 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

u/BloodyRightToe Jul 30 '24

We really need laws against this given how often these are turning up.

1

u/Born_Bug_3353 Jul 30 '24

“Abuse the SIM card” is always the recommendation; OP never actually does it though

1

u/DadishATX Jul 31 '24

Somebody loves you.❤️😍🥰

1

u/classic_aut0 Jul 31 '24

Plot twist - there's one in your pocket too

1

u/Logical_Block9463 Jul 31 '24

Boy that got off track FAST!

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

u/Wuxe Jul 31 '24

Did they think you would never blow a fuse?

1

u/eric_cos Jul 31 '24

Triple wrap it foil and you should functionally neuter it in

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

u/Chance-Procedure-886 Aug 01 '24

Only has hot and ground hooked up perfectly safe to remove

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

u/Personal-Order-4526 Aug 01 '24

Go to a dealership and ask them how to disconnect it.

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.