Context:
I don’t want the car reporting to insurance hard breaks and such. But frankly I just find these things creepy and I just want a base model car.
Always remember that once you sign the dotted line, there’s no changing your mind later. That’s the advice I received in the Navy from my Chief. This is where doing your homework really pays off.
When buying a car, try to plan ahead ten to twenty years. Most people don’t buy a new car every couple of years, so you’ll need a car that suits your needs for a long time.
Are you planning on getting married and having kids one day? Maybe a minivan. Do you do a lot of trade work? Maybe a pickup truck. Are you just trying to get from point A to point B? Maybe just a regular four-seat car. Planning ahead will save you headaches in the future.
Get something that’s easy to repair yourself, the spare parts are cheap, and are easily obtainable. Some brands are extremely difficult to fix yourself and that’s by design.
As for car internet privacy, I don’t know what to tell you.
You know, you can always sell your car and get something that fits your needs better? Don’t buy something more expensive or big just because you might need it in five or ten years .
Read the manual
Buy one made before, I dunno, 2005?
I’d recommend a 2009 Honda Civic. Mine has held up really well and is nice and dumb
I only saw a few people saying this, but buy a used car from anywtime-2012 max.
Make sure that car is in good shape, has been up to date on oil changes and was well taken care of. And if you wants some newer car features, adding in a newer stereo could do the trick.
But get used to learning how to fix your car because less cars will be made that meet your requirements. Meaning that if you don’t to sacrifice privacy for a new car when yours breaks down, be ready to fix it.
Are cars outside the United States more privacy conscious, or is this a gap in GDPR as well?
There’s no way you’re “covering up” an antenna. Frequently the antenna is the body of the car itself.
Look up the fuse box layout of the car model you’re interested in to check if the communication system is on a separate fuse that you can pull without disabling anything else useful.
Just wrap the whole car in foil.
Car circuits have too much stuff to do that. It would turn off mant essential things. Instead find antenna connectors and short them with a 50ohm resistor.
Don’t get a tesla for one, apart from that try not to get any that has internet or other services if you can.
The effort needed to neuter surveillance equipment in modern cars without compromising functionality is comparable to the effort of sprucing up an older car. Possibly biased from driving and maintaining a decades-old car. Is there a particular reason you prefer a modern car?
I’m used to driving old shitboxes but a few years ago we rented a completely new car. It was almost driving itself, making sure I stayed in my lane, it had automatic beam selection, a big screen for playing music and navigation, tiny little plastic thingies that pops out when you open the door making it harder to dent adjacent cars. It was a fucking spaceship. I’m not going to lie, I would love to have all of those fancy features.
Don’t forget that even if you can disable its network connection (which is still an important step to avoid remote control shenanigans), the data collection may still continue, and if that’s the case the make’s diagnostic software will forward it to the cloud the next time your car is at service. I’m afraid that can’t be avoided.
There are individual car repair shops. Well if you trust them to not sell the data, a trust that can be betrayed at any time.
but how will they do diagnostics without the car maker’s diagnostic tool?
All new cars that I know of come with either online trackers or offline trackers. Some are part of a safety system (like the one automatically dialing the emergency number if you crash), others are part of the infotainment system (live traffic updates, map updates), and then there’s the app stuff. A new car carries with it one or more cell phones and anything cellular can easily be tracked (which is even worse if you live in a country where carriers sell live location data to bounty hunters, like the USA).
If you know what you’re doing, you can probably take out all the transmitters so you can’t be followed live. Data will be stored on computers inside the car, but as long as it doesn’t get stolen or sold that data is safe inside. Might void your warranty and pop up a check engine light, though. You should also be wary of disrupting any internal antennae, like the ones for reading pressure sensors and other digital communication inside the vehicle. You may disrupt something and crash your car, and if you survive your insurance will fight tooth and nail not to cover your medical expenses.
If you don’t know much about cars or don’t want to go hunting for the exact right transmitters, buy an older car.
However, with how many dashcams and traffic cams are installed alongside the road these days, I don’t think it even matters much what you do to the car anymore.
Maintaining privacy in a (new) car might be difficult. Maybe by emitting white noise with an external bluetooth speaker so that possible microphones can’t pick up voices easily?
The problem with privacy in a new car is that there is nothing much one can do about it. Even if it were possible by altering the cars’ software (think of something like the equivalent of a browser extension for your car), this might pose a problem in case of an accident (the insurance will try to refuse compensation, because the cars’ software has been altered and thus, the car is deemed to be not road safe).
One thing to aviod this problem would be to buy an older, used car. With that, there wouldn’t be any issues regarding privacy, but mainaining the car might be more expensive, as older cars often have worse emission standards, which can result in higher taxes, depending on where you are located. Also, older cars might have a worse fuel effiency than new cars, depending on the size, weight and engine power of the car. An old economic compact car might have the same fuel efficiency as the latest doomsday street tank.
My personal advice: a used compact car, not older than five years (the older the car, the more repairs might come up, also there is a chance that a car this age already has a USB port for connecting a thumb drive or phone equipped with music), but with rear doors. Having two additional doors is an underrated feature that not only comes in handy when you pick up some friends, but they also serve as additional loading hatches that are accessible from both sides of the car.
Find where the cellular antenna is, and cover it with a rudimentary faraday cage.
financially aim for minimal depreciation. typically thats buying a 3 year old car and selling it when its 6 or 7. try to find total cost of ownership data to minimize repair costs.
practically find one that suits your needs.
Interesting. I’ve been buying mine at 3 years and keeping them until they become uneconomic to repair. My current car is 11 and it’s still in great shape.
What is the logic behind selling at 7? Are you considering increasing efficiency of new models and average maintenance burden?
the logic is depreciation. if you sold your car at 7 it is worth a lot more than at 11. imagine buying a 1 year old cellphone and selling it at 2 years old. compare that to buying a brand new cellphone and keeping it 6 years. the depreciation is related to the markets expectations of the items functionality vs it needing expensive repairs. a 3-7 year old car generally is reliable and considered functional. obviously different brands and models differ on these curves. a 7 year old honda is very different from a maserati.
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Is there a way to disable the cellular antenna? Vehicle have to be prepared for dead spots. Maybe yours is always in a dead spot.
