I know this is out of left field... BUT... do they have the ability to turn off our car's engine, or otherwise stop our vehicle, if for example we are in a high speed engagement versus... anyone? I was thinking about this today...

 

From what they advertise, if you report the car stolen then they tag it in their system, call the police, and start trying to track it down through it's GPS system, relaying the information to police. If it becomes apparent that the police are chasing it, then the police (when they're ready/in position) can tell the Onstar people to send a message to the car to go into reduced power mode, limiting it to a small speed or stop so the police can do their job.

Here's the official link: http://www.onstar.com/us_english/jsp/plans/sva.jsp

 

Wow... that is scary. How can we disable this "feature"

 

Well, short of disabling the Onstar box in the car, I'm not sure. There are threads on that around here that you could search for. I'd just be careful about how you disable it, because simply taking it out can cause your car to not run due to how the different devices inside the car all communicate with each other. If I remember right though, it just involved a little wiring work to bypass it is all.

The only other thing I can think of, is simply letting your subscription run out. I hear that once it's no longer activated, it's unuseable until you reactivate it. At a first glance that probably makes sense, but I mean from a hardware level.

 

If the hardware is present... they can and will activate it. Not that I am some crazy individual, but... I dont like the idea of someone else having complete control of my vehicle...

 

then dont get involved in a high speed chase with a bunch of cops after you?

 

I added more to my post^. There are resources you can read up on about physically bypassing the unit if that's the route you'd like to go.

I heard many thieves disable the cell/GPS antenna right off the bat anyway, which also renders this useless. I suppose that's another option too. Just disconnect the GPS/cell antenna from the box, so the box has no way of knowing where it is and can't communicate with anything. It'll create an error (red light on your mirror), so you may need to devise a non-antenna closed loop for it to think everything's hooked up okay if that bothers you.

I'm no expert in this though. The resources are out there depending on what you're wanting to do.

 

It is not about that... it is about CONTROL


I find it hard to understand how no one else cares...

Ben Franklin said it best...

When people sacrifice liberties for securities... they deserve neither and will soon lose both...

 

Can't ya just pop off the antenna on the roof? I though the big pad was for XM, and the stubby was for the OnStar?

You can always test it, by popping off the removable stubby, and pressing the blue button and see if it works.
OnStar uses the same cell signal for calls, and for general OnStar data, I think.

T

 

While I don't particularly care for ONSTAR capibilities myself, but please don't do this quote a disservice by misquoting it. The correct quote is:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.".

Those two words change the meaning of the quote significantly. If you truly believe that ONSTAR is giving up essential liberty for temporary safety, I would recommend stepping back from your life for a bit and examine some of the rather horrendous incursions our government has been making into our lives over the last 30 years, and compare that to ONSTAR being able to shut down your car.

/steps off soapbox.

Remember the 4 boxes of freedom:
-Soapbox
-Ballot box
-Jury Box
-Ammo Box
Where are we?

 

Big brother : 0

 

09+ GM Onstar can do this, before that it doesn't have the feature. If you plan on running from the cops in the near future you could always remove the onstar antenna.

 

Recently that quote has been cribbed the way I stated it for obvious reasons...

While I agree with what you are saying....

Don't undermine my point.

 

Could you reiterate that point? Maybe I misunderstood what you were getting at. A private company, working with another (well used to be) private company to install a hardware solution that people were asking for and _voluntarily_ working with law enforcement is a far cry from federally mandating that all vehicle manufacturers require this shutdown feature. If you don't like it, let the company know that is the reason you are not using their service. Talk with your dollars. Enough people do this the company WILL listen.

Now if the government starts mandating this, or things like OBD III as it is proposed (black box recording in every vehicle that can be used against you), GPS tracking of your position for "tax" purposes (also coming in a lot of states, NC is trying to get this passed even now) it is a completely different matter.

As for me, I'll simply disable the ONSTAR since I definitely don't like the idea of some faceless corporation deciding they are going to shut down my car, I let them know I was not going to use their service (its really worthless). If enough customers do that, they will remove that feature.