I’m given to understand that it is not an uncommon practice on cars that are bought on credit, for a dealer to install a hidden GPS tracker on it so that if the buyer fails to make the payments, the car can be tracked down to be repossessed.
I am wondering if there is any way to determine whether such a tracker is present on either of our cars.
The older car was financed through a company that specializes in financing cars for people with bad credit. Surely that company gets much more than its share of deadbeats, and would have a strong motive to make it easier to repossess a car from a delinquent debtor. We paid off that loan a few years ago.
The other one, we just bought yesterday, from CarMax, and paid it in full, up front. I’m pretty sure that CarMax would not have put a tracker on it, there’s no telling whether the dealer or creditor involved with the previous owner would have done so.
In any event, both our cars are paid in full; we don’t have any debt on either one. I hadn’t really thought before, of the possibility that such a tracker might be present on either car, but now I’d like to know if they are there, and remove them if they are. No legitimate reason exists why anyone should be tracking our cars without our knowledge or consent.
Other than a visual inspection, there’s no way for the average consumer to detect a modern radio transmitter. Even with my $10,000 spectrum analyzer, I would have a very hard time finding a radio, especially if it was low power, and only transmitting every few hours.
In the case of the older car, I know which company is most likely to have put such a tracker on it. Like I said, a finance company of such a nature that it would get more than its share of deadbeats. If I asked them, do you suppose they would give me an honest answer?
The newer car, like I said, I have no reason to suspect that the dealer from which we bought it would have put a tracker on it. We paid for it outright, and did not take any debt on it.
It supposedly has had only one previous owner. There’s a badge on the back of the car, like some dealerships put n cars that they sell, with a single, otherwise-irrelevant-seeming name. @Seanette has come across some information that seems to indicate the state in which this car began it’s time on the road. I suppose that if I searched for car dealers in that state, having that name, I might identify the dealer that sold it to its original owner. Do you suppose that dealer would honestly answer me, if I asked about a tracker on it?
It’s not likely that if this car had a tracker on it, that CarMax would even know, would it. I suppose that’s probably well outside of anything they know or try to look for in cars that they are processing to sell.
You raise a very interesting question, and not one I’ve thought about. Here’s some thoughts.
A “GPS tracker” knows where it is by passively listening to GPS signals from the satellites. And it can record where it’s been as a time series of positions stored in its memory. So far so easy for a self-contained little box attached to the car’s electrical supply someplace. But it can’t tell anyone else where it’s been or where it is now unless it has some way to “phone home”.
Having the equivalent of a cellphone built into it gives it an easy way to “phone home” and dump its history every so often. But that means someone has to be paying $X/month for that cell connection. Those low-use connections can be had for cheap, but not for free.
As well, presumably the data goes to some 3rd party service that the car dealer / finance company subscribes to to track its cars of interest. That costs money too.
So I’ll make two arguments for why your cars are highly likely to be safe:
The business who’s paying for the tracking service on cars they care about does not want to be paying $X/mo for each paid off car they’ve ever financed. They’re incentivized to deactivate that car’s service when it’s paid off. So the tracker may well be trying to phone home, but its line has been disconnected or home isn’t answering its calls anymore.
Depending on the age of of the tracker it may well be based on an obsolete cell standard where there aren’t even towers listening for those kinds of calls anymore.
This is legal? Seems like an invasion of privacy, especially if they gave no notification to the buyer that it in fact exists. Of course, it could be hidden in the fine print somewhere.
There’s the cost of the device itself, too. A GPS receiver with cellular transmit capabilities is something they’re probably gonna want back after the car is paid off. What are they gonna do if you store your car in a garage?
The reason AirTags work is that everyone else’s Apple mobile phone is listening for every AirTag, including yours. And that person’s phone will “phone home” to Mama Apple on your tag’s behalf.
Is your phone listening for Brand X car theft / deadbeat trackers so it can phone home to brand X’s data gathering service? I thought not. Mine sure isn’t. And what of Brand Y, Z, and all the rest?
Some brief Google-work suggests that the device is worth $150 bucks on average so they might be willing to wrap that into the car cost and write it off rather than hassle with getting it back. However, these things also come with service plans for the actual GPS ability and it seems unlikely that a dealership is gonna pay an extra $100 a year just to follow you around on your daily commute for fun.
According to Do, he spoke with someone “in a higher position” at the unnamed dealership. That person claimed the dealership doesn’t install GPS trackers and played dumb. But when Do presented the tracking device, the guy changed his story, claiming they were installed to track vehicles in stock in case they’re stolen.
But that story doesn’t add up. Do was there at the dealership when the Toyota Corolla GR came off the transport truck. So why did they install the GPS tracker?
Here’s an article from four days ago:
In Do’s case, the tracker has no apparent legitimate purpose. He claims that he turned down the dealer’s offer for a GPS tracking device meant to track the car if it was ever stolen. On top of that, since he bought the car outright, the dealer (or financing institution) has no need to worry about repossessing it.
The articles said that Mr. Do discovered the device after letting his brand-new car sit for a while and the tracking device drained the car’s battery.
I guess fitting cars with trackers when the arrive at the dealership is sensible for preventing theft from the lot. But why would a dealer care about the theft risk after it’s sold? That’s on the buyer and the buyer’s insurance; if the car gets stolen or crashed, the insurer cuts a check, and if the loan is still outstanding, then the dealer is first in line for payment.
[quote=“Jophiel, post:11, topic:1003337”]
Some brief Google-work suggests that the device is worth $150 bucks on average so they might be willing to wrap that into the car cost and write it off rather than hassle with getting it back.[/quote]
That maybe makes sense if it’s a particular high-dollar vehicle that’s at high risk for loan default and may need to be repossessed. But as a matter of uniform policy, if a dealership sells 100 cars a month and spends $150 outfitting every one of them with a tracker, that’s $15,000. Can a dealership plausibly prevent, on average, more than $15,000 of expense/loss per month by using trackers on vehicles after they’ve been sold?
I mean you just add the $150+ for the unit (plus service cost) to the cost of the car when you add it up. Make the customer pay for it rather than incur costs in trying to get it back and then eating the cost of any you can’t retrieve. The sort of dealerships using these devices are usually doing their own financing as well (“Buy here, Pay here”) so having to pay for the dealership’s GPS unit is part of the cost of having to finance through those locations.
FWIW, my 2022 Bronco has a Ford-provided GPS tracker and cellular modem which allows me to track its position and do things like unlock it remotely. There is no monthly charge for this service.
Yeah, my Sonata has a tracker so I can use the app to find it in a parking lot (or if stolen, I suppose) and remotely lock the doors, turn on/off the engine, etc. But none of that is “hidden”.
I have to pay a fee for my service, which I don’t because I barely used it during the free trial year.
I guess? I would assume that someone needing to buy a car with a GPS tracker to secure financing isn’t in a position to do a lot of comparison shopping and that dealerships DOING financing of that type are aware that they have the customer in a tight spot and come on heavy with the fees and rates anyway. It’s not the same as me threatening to walk out the door with my 800+ credit score if they don’t take the Lojack subscription off my invoice.
If you’re financing through a Buy Here, Pay Here (“All Credit Accepted”) establishment and have a GPS tracker to make sure you send the checks, you’re already overpaying for your car.