Nothing quite says “high-performance muscle car” like a popup ad for a Mopar Extended Warranty covering your whole center console. That’s right, Dodge Charger owners are now experiencing an exciting new feature: pop-up ads that appear every time the vehicle stops at a light. This absolute garbage feature was spotted in the wild, take a look here.
Brand new 2024 vehicle: I disabled all connectivity. No software updates, no remote start through their app, nothing; it will never connect to the internet. These greedy car and ad companies have lost the benefit of the doubt. Literally no amount of money will ever be enough for these giant corporations…
It must be annoying to remove their mobile antennas though? It seems like most new cars have built-in connectivity.
To be completely honest, I haven’t gone that extreme yet. I know where the antenna is and could disconnect it fairly easily, but for this particular model it doesn’t seem necessary. I’ve disabled all wireless connectivity (similar to airplane mode) and so far it persists through battery changes. No nags after the first one and no attempts to connect or re-enable wireless functionality, but I’m keeping an eye on it…
Any particular trick? Pulling a fuse or antenna or just declining requests to go online?
The latter, disabling all connectivity, even emergency, etc. I’m watching it closely, but it hasn’t re-enabled.
So while you are allowed to use a cars dash for car functions, you should not be drawing someones attention away from the road while at a red light.
How could this be anything but distracted driving.
What happens when this ad pops up, you look at it and read its quite lengthy text, and then get rear ended because you weren’t keeping an eye on the rear mirror?
I’d love to see that lawsuit (although it’d suck for the hurt person)
I would take that car back immediately. Fuck that.
We need to tally up all the accidents and pedestrian hit-and-runs that occur involving cars with this “feature.” It would likely be enough of an increase you could reasonably make a class action lawsuit. I have no sympathy whatsoever for a car manufacturer that can’t get it through their heads that distracted driving is a major cause of accidents, and could easily happen by their own features.
That’s the grim truth, isn’t it
Look up “depraved-heart murder.”
It’s when someone knowingly does something that’s so obviously likely to cause death or injury that that indifference to life can essentially be treated as intent, and if someone does as a result it isn’t manslaughter or wrongful death, but murder.
Classic examples would be arson or knowingly selling tainted medicine.
I never thought I would say this, but thank god there are a bunch of car hobbiest in my area.
If this type of invasive shit becomes mainstream, I at least know that the auto community around me will be able to fix anything that gets put into my travel device.
They just did this with jeeps last month. Said it 2as an error
“Oops! The error seems to have spread to our next most profitable lineup. We’ll get right on that!”
“OH no, we accidentally deployed ads to your car using a system that took months to develop, how could that have ever happened”
Error my ass. “Market research” was the word they wanted.
So… um… will the buyer get money from Dodge to drive this shit then?
I just want a car that drives and doesn’t collect any tiny bit of data about me
Electrify a classic. It’s cheaper than a midrange new car these days.
nobody deserves it more than dodge charger owners
Probably for bail bondsmen
Like the ridiculous subscription mouse a few months back, I’d be willing to bite with the right incentives, but those aren’t incentives the manufacturer is going to be OK with. I’d take a car with ads, so long as it was sufficiently discounted compared to a normal car. And then I’d look up how to disable the ads.
Some day every surface we look at will have advertising on it. Some Day.
I liked that part of Minority Report where he gets his eyeballs replaced and then all his customized ads in the mall are targeting the wrong person.
… In a dark, dystopian crystal-ball sort of way. Not in a “corporations should use this as an instruction guide” sort of way.
Who would have thought, the customized ad part would be right, but the expecting malls to exist part would be wrong?
Philip K. Dick was an unacknowledged prophet in so many ways.
Welp. Never buying a new Dodge vehicle or from a Dodge lot.
0 tolerance for this.
BMW, Mercedes, Tesla, Toyota, Jeep, Dodge have all tried to add subscriptions to their vehicles basic functions or otherwise monetize owned property.
Hit their mommies and daddies, while Im at it.
BMW Group: BMW, Mini, Rolls-Royce
Mercedes-Benz Group: Mercedes-Benz, Smart
Tesla, Inc.: Tesla
Toyota Motor Corporation: Toyota, Lexus, Daihatsu, Hino
Stellantis (Owner of Jeep & Dodge): Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Citroën, Vauxhall.
I’d quit my job and start running the campaign for anyone who’s willing to run on outlawing this shit. I’d work 75 hour weeks handing out fliers about distracted driving.
If this happened to me and assuming I had physical knobs/buttons for AC, etc, and those wouldn’t be affected, I would take a hammer to it, mount an iPad Mini or something for GPS, and just listen to music/podcasts/audiobooks on my phone via a Bluetooth speaker.
I already have bad road rage (I’m not proud of this & am actively working on it) and this would send me over the edge.
Good on you for working on yourself.
I can only respect that. Dodge ought to be afraid of you.
