When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Make sure you check under your steering column for this!!!
So I’ve been working on my cobalt that has needed the attention since the day I bought it. But I quit my job and have all the free time to do it at my pace and not really have the repercussions. One of these problems has been the battery just wouldn’t hold a charge. Not a second thought past the battery being bad.
I switched her out with one I know holds charge from my project ss/sc and yesterday I came back out to work on the overboost issue and got sick of data logs and research and tinkering. So I got to turn it on and get some food and dead. No way it was the battery and my original was holding a steady charge being out of the car. So if two good batteries hold charge except in your car it’s time to find the parasite. I’ve saw some cobalts are bad about it but I wasn’t looking for the common cause. I checked fuses and got to the dlc. After running the afr and boost gauge on it I remembered there was a weird box that had imei numbers and had chalked it up to the onstar and or xm. i used neither and if it’s whats spliced into the obd2 hot, then it’s gone.
This box was zip tied and tucked by the power steering unit so well that I and the previous owner never really bothered to go checking out what it really was. I knew the hot wire spliced like that wasn’t oem and I needed to know exactly. Imetrik gps tracking. Along with the tracking being sent over cell tower and stored on their data base, it’s also controllable and they can at least beep for an alert to you and shut your car off. I’ve owned other vehicles that have had some random boxes like this for remote locks and what ever else but I’ve never had a tracking device on my car and been totally oblivious to it. I’d feel more violated if I thought someone still tracked the device and were not planning on taking it out knowing it’s a privacy violation. But this little thing is still on and is transmitting and receiving if that’s what the lights inside indicate.
Always give your car a good look under the skirt and make sure you don’t have one. The right person could hack the system it reports to and have all the data sent to them. Be careful with what you buy. I got bent over on this car and it’s really bad when you find stuff like this that makes it seem like it was a worse buy than you intially thought.
Steelmesh. I only know the guy before me and he got it from copart. It’s a rebuilt title so it probably got an easy history access. I’ve just never done it. It would be cool. I assume it’s from a no credit car dealer though. That seems to be the market they shoot for. Fleet vehicles for companies too but someone somewhere has access to this still. I’m pretty sure it’s one of those lifetime acces deals.
Steelmesh. I only know the guy before me and he got it from copart. It’s a rebuilt title so it probably got an easy history access. I’ve just never done it. It would be cool. I assume it’s from a no credit car dealer though. That seems to be the market they shoot for. Fleet vehicles for companies too but someone somewhere has access to this still. I’m pretty sure it’s one of those lifetime acces deals.
I recently learned some used car dealers intentionally repo cars they sell over and over, cycling through high risk buyers, rinse and repeat. Installing a gps tracker probably makes this process more efficient.
Yep. They make a ton of money from these loan/repo/resale cycles, and the companies that make the GPS track EVERYTHING (and they sell this data), and even have the ability to kill the ignition on the car if you're late on payments.
I think GPS trackers are not just used by shady companies. I heard that many finance companies require that a GPS tracker is put in cars they finance just so they can locate them if the owner defaults on the payments.
On a related subject, if your car originally came with Onstar, beware that even after the trial subscription ends, GM legally has the right and ability to continue to collect and record data from the vehicle, and basically use that data as they please. When I found out about this years ago, I disconnected my Onstar box. If I was ever involved in an accident and an insurance company got a hold of my gps/speed/G-force data, it wouldn't be hard to make a case that I'm a habitual reckless driver
I think GPS trackers are not just used by shady companies. I heard that many finance companies require that a GPS tracker is put in cars they finance just so they can locate them if the owner defaults on the payments.
On a related subject, if your car originally came with Onstar, beware that even after the trial subscription ends, GM legally has the right and ability to continue to collect and record data from the vehicle, and basically use that data as they please. When I found out about this years ago, I disconnected my Onstar box. If I was ever involved in an accident and an insurance company got a hold of my gps/speed/G-force data, it wouldn't be hard to make a case that I'm a habitual reckless driver
i personally don’t mind onstar in my fiancé car. I won’t use it in my cars because they are old and featureless where as hers has the Wi-Fi , diag, current pid values, and my favorite the cell phone that can lock and remote start your car anywhere at&t has coverage. But I might disconnect it from my cars.
Originally Posted by steelmesh
I recently learned some used car dealers intentionally repo cars they sell over and over, cycling through high risk buyers, rinse and repeat. Installing a gps tracker probably makes this process more efficient.
Steelmesh we have a car lot that I know quite a number of people got screwed by. He has almost consistently bad prices marked but “makes you a deal” until you’re in the contract that practically doubles the final amount you pay. Weekly payments or he comes to get the vehicle no matter what you tell him. He went the day that a payment was suppose to be made and repo a kids truck because he didn’t have it an hour before closing. The kid didn’t even have a chance to get his check cashed and even called the guy and left a message telling him he’d have it. The guys a thief and I don’t he has tracking in those cars. He has 150 on the lot week after week. I could only imagine if he had the trackers.
Steelmesh we have a car lot that I know quite a number of people got screwed by. He has almost consistently bad prices marked but “makes you a deal” until you’re in the contract that practically doubles the final amount you pay. Weekly payments or he comes to get the vehicle no matter what you tell him. He went the day that a payment was suppose to be made and repo a kids truck because he didn’t have it an hour before closing. The kid didn’t even have a chance to get his check cashed and even called the guy and left a message telling him he’d have it. The guys a thief and I don’t he has tracking in those cars. He has 150 on the lot week after week. I could only imagine if he had the trackers.
predatory lending at its finest. generally shady car lots like this are offering financing to people who have no business financing something, and its in the contract that if you are even 1 day late on a payment they can repo the car. payments are usually weekly. usually what happens is after a couple months a payment is late and the car gets repo'd and it ends up back for sale on the lot for near the same price, and the cycle starts again. the gps tracker just helps them find the car real fast, and many of them can disable the vehicle remotely. i remember seeing an article about a car lot that sold one car 19 times in 3 years.
