Bought a new vehicle in 2019. Have had it serviced at the selling dealer, last time several months ago at 11,123 miles. Mostly in town driving so miles are below normal.
I was very surprised when I got an email from the dealership asking if I would like to trade for a new vehicle as used vehicles are in high demand. My estimated mileage they listed for my vehicle was 12,597, notice- not an even number like 12,600 or even 13,000 miles.
Scary part is my vehicle’s mileage was 12,602 miles. Coincidence? Or are they “watching me” and they know what my exact mileage is at any given time?
Did you get any kind of security/theft tracking system?
Example:
Easily locate any parked vehicle on- or off-lot
GPS geofencing with automated alerts Send customers maintenance and recall alerts
Device resale for additional profits
I know my 2019 Jeep Cherokee has a service through Mopar and once a month the onboard diagnostics get emailed to me (tire pressure, mileage, gas mileage, how much gas is left, ABS system, etc. I think like 20 things. I wonder if my dealer can get the same information from them?
Many of these makes are collecting data on your car:
Some of the data from these sensors never leaves the car, but increasingly, a lot of it does. Manufacturers such as BMW, General Motors, Nissan, Tesla, and Toyota are selling vehicles with data connections that allow them to gather a detailed portrait of both car and driver.
“Cars are generating so much data, and all of it is incredibly valuable,” says Joseph Jerome, policy counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology. “Carmakers are champing at the bit to find ways to monetize it.”
And there’s potentially plenty of money to be made: A 2016 white paper from industry research and consulting firm McKinsey projects a $450 billion to $750 billion industry for automotive data by 2030.
My Subaru dealer had my exact mileage (well as when I left home to drive to the dealership) when I took it in for service. I do not subscribe to their Starlink service, but apparently when I plug my phone in and turn on CarPlay (IOS app) it transmits not just my mileage but a boatload of other info to the dealer. For example they know how much gas I have added to the car since I bought it!
Not sure if it overlaps with some of the other devices, but I’d heard they were installing black boxes in random cars. IIRC there was a street racing accident where lo and behold, they were able to prove the teens weren’t driving prudently despite their stories.
That was awhile ago; these days, there’s probably a black box in your car.
I was watching a youtube video of a guy who got rubbed on the interstate by a guy who cut him off. They pulled over but apparently the offender changed his mind and took off. He chased him down etc. and showed the video to the cops. But his dashcam also recorded his speed, which got up over 100 mph. Wasn’t he handing them proof that he broke the law as well?
With a dash cam, at least you chose to get one for data collection.
A friend of mine, who owns a Tesla, recently had her windshield caved in by a flying chunk of metal. She asked Tesla if they could provide all the data logs they had, and they sent her CSV files for hours of driving logs. It included obvious stuff like speed and position, as well as less obvious things like accelerator position, steering wheel angle, whether a passenger was present, the position of the driver/passenger seats, and so on. Dozens, maybe hundreds of telemetry values. Not really a shock to me; actually it was more of a shock that they released the data to her without any particular pushback.
The OP’s scenario could also just be the result of mileage being recorded in the dealer’s system at each service, with the 12,597 number being simply an extrapolated estimate of current mileage, presented without any rounding from the system.
