Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: pepsionice
On cars, most all of the premium vehicles now made...have a cellphone ‘relationship’ with the car and data passes along. No cellphone? No data passing along.

In 2018 I bought a new Toyota Camry, not a premium car. Toyota does the oil changes for the first 25,000 miles. I bought the car as my commuter vehicle so I put a LOT of miles on a vehicle, about three times the normal rate of most drivers which I think is about 12,000 miles a year. The first oil change should come at about the 10 month point logically since their oil change interval is 10,000 miles. Because I drive so much I hit 10,000 miles at about the 3 month point instead of 10 month. When my car hit about 8,000 miles, slightly after owning it two months, I started getting emails from Toyota telling me it was time to schedule my service. The car hadn't been anywhere near a Toyota dealership since I drove it off the lot but somehow they knew the car was approaching 10,000 miles. They couldn't have been going off of time because if I was an average driver I wouldn't need it for a least another six months, yet they knew. I don't have any kind of cell phone data plan for the car, it's just a basic Camry that doesn't even have satellite radio. I do use the bluetooth to connect my Iphone to the car so I can use the hands free talk feature.

The point of all this long winded post is that even without the premium avionics options, I think the new cars are designed to relay data back to the manufacturer somehow. I don't know if it's done using my cellphone when I connect it to the bluetooth or if it's got it's own cellular modem that's transmitting data. Perhaps it's bluetoothing data to some data collection receivers when you pass them on the highway, I don't know. I am pretty certain thought that newer cars are constantly downlinking data to the manufacturers which means the government has access to it also anytime they want it.

36 posted on 09/16/2023 5:12:56 AM PDT by GaryCrow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies ]


To: GaryCrow

“I don’t have any kind of cell phone data plan for the car...”

Oh, you do, as you seem to now understand. But since you haven’t paid, you don’t have rights to use that system, just Toyota and whoever else they allow to access your vehicle.


40 posted on 09/16/2023 5:32:30 AM PDT by BobL (I own an F150 so that I can tow my boat all day Saturday and look Manly)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson