Latest grab by auto manufactures

[BoylermanCT]

Just bought a 2022 Chevy Silverado. It has 2 remote start options. One is on the FOB. This is mine for the life of the truck at no additional cost. Works within 200 ft of the truck. The other is remote start using the MyChevrolet app on my phone. This requires a $6 a month OnStar subscription and includes all of the functionality of the MyChevrolet app. I can start my car with the MyChevrolet app from anywhere in the US. Other app features are unlimited wifi data on the truck's hotspot, trailer light testing (every truck should have this), lock / unlock, sound alarm, flash lights, unlock tailgate, vehicle locate / tracking. For me, these features are worth $6.

 

[ultrarunner]

Thanks for posting a in the field report...

Connectivity is a big deal...

 

[mrmikey]

I can start my car with the MyChevrolet app from anywhere in the US.

Not to be an a$$ but why would you want to?
The way I figure it if a person wants to pay, in your case', $6 a month for those types of extras , have at it as it's a software extra, it's not controlling something physical on the vehicle such as heated seats, steering wheel, fob remote start etc. that I've already paid for. and should be mine with no extra charge......Mike

 

[WM75Guy]

Our car is kept in the garage so I don't think it would be a good idea to use the remote start.
A better item to have would be a garage.

Ours are in the garage at home but not at work.

 

[gsganzer]

If you lock yourself out of your car, On Star can open it for you. Cell phone can’t without an app. And if you lock your phone and keys in the car, you can borrow someone else’s phone and call On Star to have them open if for you.

So there are advantages to On Star Vs a cell phone.

I agree on the crash benefit and tracking/disabling a stolen vehicle. So does the data support that cars equipped with OnStar are stolen less and if so, is there an insurance discount that off-sets any monthly fee.

Regarding lost keys, I remember the old days of wiring/taping a spare key up under the chassis for such events.

I have a similar feature with FordPass for my F250.

It was free, but I'll need to see if it has a sundown and becomes a monthly charge. That's exactly the business model many of these features employ, start out as free and then once you take your eye off the ball, fee's begin to kick in.

 

[gsganzer]

... heck, I even remember when I had to take my gas cap off before getting fuel.

Hahaha!! My wife borrowed our spare F150 one day to run an errand. When she got back, she chewed up one side and down the other about either me or my girls losing the gas cap!!! It doesn't have one. Boy, did I have fun with that one!

 

[newbury]

Everyone has a vote on this subject. If you don't like it, the don't buy it. If enough people refuse to buy into this b.s., then it will

Except very often the manufacturer "bundles" a feature one needs with a useless to them feature.

The way to deal with that is to not buy their crap.

A year ago I was reading something about how people were sick and tired of all the software companies switching to subscriptions instead of standalone software.
I remember feeling very good about not using any microsoft or apple garbage.
In Linux there is more and better software and all of it is free.
I tell people this all the time. I show them my OS and let them play with it, I show them the various software packages etc.. So far I have achieved a conversion rate of ZERO.

I didn't get into Linux until version 0.95 on IIRC 11 3.5" diskettes., now mostly use it for data recovery.

On lost key fobs I just recently had a "close" call.
We were doing our final load for a several month trip from Va. to Ms., 2019 Ford Escape, 2 key fobs, original batteries.
My fob stopped working, wife's still worked (she rarely used it in the last three years).
Tried to replace the battery in mine, only had some "new" batteries that had been stored and were suspect, Couldn't get mine to work, no time to get NEW batteries or a new fob so we drove down anyways.
Finally got to the Ford dealership in Fulton.
Ford parts guy swaps in a new battery in my fob. Didn't work.
Tells me a new fob is in order -
$280 +tax and MAYBE A MONTH OR SO!!
I'm PO'd but what to do.
So I tell him to replace the battery in my wife's fob.
He opens it up, goes "WHOOPS", opens up mine, he had put the new battery in UPSIDE DOWN!
Changes it, and VOILA it works! Then he replaced the wife's fob battery. And only charged me for one.
I wish they had an option for JUST a KEY.

 

[Raul-02]

rue but I am referring to the "free" apps that corporations spend millions of dollars on.

There is no Million$$ or Billion$$ with Linux. Almost all the people doing the work are volunteer.

 

[Raul-02]

I don’t see nor do I understand why people live in fear of only what might go wrong?

Well there is the might go wrong as in "what if the planet opened up and swallowed you"

And then there is the might go wrong that is the kind that has happened so bloody many times before that you see it in the newspapers, hear about from acquaintances, know some who it happened to, and about which there are books written.
Everything exists on a continuum except pregnancy. No one is just a little bit pregnant.

Even Death is on a continuum. here's proof

 

[Raul-02]

A better item to have would be a garage.

I had one of those once long ago. It hated being a garage. It transformed into a weld shop a sheet metal shop a wood shop and a machine shop and is much happier now.

 

[MossRoad]

Mossy, all of these things are wonderful when the technology is used for those purposes, but all too often we are seeing these tools being abused and used against us. For example in Canada when the truck drivers protested government overreach, the found their bank accounts frozen and seized and their social media accounts locked. Do you really think it is that much of a stretch for a "dissident" to get locked out of their car as easily as being locked out of their bank account? We are already seeing too many abuses of our civil liberties for the "better good" by those who believe that the ends justify the means in obtaining their idea of Nirvana. I do not like handing that much control over my life and freedom to anyone.

I was pointing out the technical differences between On Star vs a cell phone. I have no desire to get into a political discussion regarding the use/misuse of the technologies. There’s another forum for that. I suggest folks take that part of the discussion over there.

 

[Hay Dude]

Mossy, all of these things are wonderful when the technology is used for those purposes, but all too often we are seeing these tools being abused and used against us. For example in Canada when the truck drivers protested government overreach, the found their bank accounts frozen and seized and their social media accounts locked. Do you really think it is that much of a stretch for a "dissident" to get locked out of their car as easily as being locked out of their bank account? We are already seeing too many abuses of our civil liberties for the "better good" by those who believe that the ends justify the means in obtaining their idea of Nirvana. I do not like handing that much control over my life and freedom to anyone.

^^^^THIS^^^^

 

[Hay Dude]

I was pointing out the technical differences between On Star vs a cell phone. I have no desire to get into a political discussion regarding the use/misuse of the technologies. There’s another forum for that. I suggest folks take that part of the discussion over there.

It would be nice if, instead of closing a thread because of politics, it could be moved to the FP once it becomes political.
Theres a lot of really good locked threads with very interesting points of view, like Indy Jay’s, that could be exported to the FP.
There’s no absolutes in life and in many non-FP threads there is some degree of politics involved.

 

[MossRoad]

It would be nice if, instead of closing a thread because of politics, it could be moved to the FP once it becomes political.
Theres a lot of really good locked threads with very interesting points of view, like Indy Jay’s, that could be exported to the FP.
There’s no absolutes in life and in many non-FP threads there is some degree of politics involved.

It would be nice,too, if some people would stop interjecting politics purposefully to get threads locked or moved to FP where they can spew all they want. That would keep the useful information out here in the public forums. Take the politics over there, stop injecting politics out here. Pretty simple.

You could even post something like, “Hey, I know this is a touchy political-ish topic, so how about we continue it over in the FP? I‘ll start a post over there on the topic.”

Anyone that wants to can go over there and talk all they want, while the pertinent info to the original topic can stay out here in public.

 

[bmaverick]

^^^^THIS^^^^

I would agree there is a level of politics involved in all of this. If we leave it out, we can also point to the BIG BUSINESS that lobbies the political. Those in BIG BUSINESS have agendas. They are keen with their Think Tanks to make more money off the consumer one way or the other. All of the basic and free stuff still comes at a price in electronics. The big one is SELLING your data of usage or your GPS tracking everywhere you go. The buying and selling of this information is a huge business. For those who like privacy, it will become a major pain keeping BIG BUSINESS out. Their Think Tanks now are not a group of smart people in a stuffy office room anymore. It's very sophisticated using AI analysis and computers. When trends are noticed, a human is notified.

Anyone have toll readers/transponders in their vehicles? Those are used more so on ALL ROADS for tracking vs the toll ways. This information is sold and shared extensively. Even to law enforcement and agencies. Your past behavior is monitored and recorded for LIFE. When an abrupt change happens, your profile is RED FLAGGED with this action. These are rated in a points system. Too many gets agencies to monitor you habits even closer.

You can also get RED FLAGGED doing normal activity being noticeably near a hot event in progress, even without you noticing. Your location being very near an event, not recognized by you can still place a long watch on your profile. The digital forensics places you at the scenes of those events. You are then GUILTY by association of location in the system.

With the advent of soon having new vehicles with KILL SWITCHES, those having association of location can be literally STUCK in a hostile environment. Imagine traveling on a vacation with the family someplace and a riot breaks out. You are headed very near the hot spot and see odd things taking place in the streets and windows of stores are being smashed out. You decide to turn around and leave. BUT, due to the KILL SWITCH policy, you and your family will be placed in harms way and not able to even leave !!!! So, people are willing to PAY for convenience and sacrifice SAFETY of your life and others.

The wise saying of, When they declare peace and safety, watch out as sudden unexpected destruction can come your way. So peace of mind of these in vehicle devices can in fact leave people totally unsafe.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Not to be an a$$ but why would you want to?

My FOB remote start will not work from the window in my office at work. Large commercial building, Too much steel and glass in the way. The starter in the app works perfectly so I can cool the truck in summer and heat it in winter.

 

[oldpilot]

Yeah, $30/month for heated seats in New Zealand! (Perhaps they only need it one month a year?)

I won't even rent Word or Quicken. I buy 10-year-old install disks secondhand.

Sigh, and I've reached the point where I'm thinking I need a heated steering wheel in my next car. Maybe I can rent it by the day? I only want it when the temps are below zero F.

 

[kenb1023]

I thought I remember Toyota got so much backlash they canned the subscription requirement for remote start and other features they were thinking about.

I hope the same happens to GM and Subaru, buyers should take their money elsewhere. If another manufactures offers these features without a subscription even if the base price is a little more then I'm buying the one that does not require the monthly fees!

If this was the case when we bought our Subaru we would not have purchased it. May not matter to much, they can't get chips to power all these fancy gizmos anyway. Give me a 67 Impala SS any day

 

[thorn]

The way to deal with that is to not buy their crap.

A year ago I was reading something about how people were sick and tired of all the software companies switching to subscriptions instead of standalone software.
I remember feeling very good about not using any microsoft or apple garbage.
In Linux there is more and better software and all of it is free.
I tell people this all the time. I show them my OS and let them play with it, I show them the various software packages etc.. So far I have achieved a conversion rate of ZERO.

People are funny. They get used to taking the beating and actually experience discomfort at the prospect of no more beatings, no more abuse, opening their cage fills them with dread.

I have been using Linux for years. My wife uses Linux, she just needs a browser, email and documents and it works well. They only 2 programs that I use in windoze is Quicken and Adobe Lightroom sometimes specific programs for programming devices. The check book programs on Linux did not have the features I like. I use an older version of both since they went to subscriptions.

 

[iateyourcat]

My $.02. The "service" economy has a lot of waste and downside built in. I'm not interested in purchasing said services myself. After these vehicles fall out of warranty though, there's going to be a huge market for "service" hacks. That'll be interesting to watch.