I think similar devices have already been installed in cars. It makes your car break down immediately after your final payment.
ha!
Planned obsolescence
They don’t need to turn it off. The parts are designed for a certain service life and will break by themselves.
No joke, this happened to me. Drove over to the local bank which held my car loan. Wrote out 5K check to pay it off. Walked outside and went to start my car....would not start, battery was dead! This was a 94 Ford t bird and it was the day before 4th of July. Had car towed in and they installed new battery. Went to fireworks next night, locked car and they had lost the access codes to my door combo (did not properly install battery and lost all pre sets) My keys were in the trunk!! AAA had to break into the car to get to the keys. What a disaster.
Actually, this is fairly common for used cars sold at "buy here-pay here" lots, for people who want or need a used car, but can't use the "normal" financing for a car.
Mark
Exactly two days after my 2005 Chrysler Town & Country went out of warranty the body computer started malfunctioning.
When I took it in the dealer told me they had to do a flash update to the programming for a fee of $125. I went ballistic and told them it was too much of a coincidence that it needed an update within 48 hours of the warranty running out and since I was in the market to replace another car (I had just test driven one of theirs a few days earlier) I would never come back if they did not fix my van.
They did the update for free but I never bought the Chrysler. There are too many computers, even in the base models, that can be programmed to rip the money out of your pocket with pre-programmed tactics such as this.