Someone stole a truck in my neighborhood last month. I had never heard of the attack before. They bring a laptop up to the house and use a directional scan to find your car keys (in your house) they replicate the code using the laptop and keep it going as they drive away in your car.
I wonder, is there any vehicle rating service that goes off of privacy and security? Some source that tells us what cars have what data collection, and possibly how to turn it off?
My car is dying soon, and I could use a replacement. It would be nice to have that information on hand when shopping.
Not a strict guide, but privacy wise the earlier in the 2010s the better. If you can find a low mileage 90s/2000s that’s even more simple and less connected, but you begin to enter the age issue where everything rubber is disintegrating. Pretty much to care about your privacy in a car you have to become a little bit of a gearhead to keep some simple old beater healthy and maintained.
Find a nice used MK 7 Golf. Bonus if you get a Wolfsburg produced model. You can have all the nice modern features of android auto physical controls, and radar cruise control, but without the constant monitoring. You can get it with faster engines or AWD if that’s your jam, or a diesel estate wagon if you live in the civilized side of the world. manual transmission avaliable too.
They’re a popular platform with a strong community, albeit weak water pumps, so budget it in. the trunk is a black hole to store your shit.
James May said it was the best car for being a car or something like that, Clarkson owned a bunch of gti’s as well.
Look for base models if you go newer. Some models will have tech packages for higher trims
Drove my father’s 2020 F350 the other day. Has keys, but everything feels so fragile. Door handles and tailgate handle all feel like I can break them off if I pull slightly too hard. In fact, the tailgate handle already pulled off and we fixed it with PL Construction Adhesive. Never felt like I was going to pull the handles off of my 1999 F250. Never gonna git rid of that thing. If it gets in a wreak, I’ll pull the engine and trans and stick it in something even older.
I specifically sought a manual transmission, manual window, manual everything car and have stuck with my 2004 Nissan through thick and thin. I’ve been so ass with maintenance and yet it keeps running.
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Had a 2006 Subaru Baja, stupidly traded it in on a Tacoma “because I needed something bigger.” The guy who bought the Baja off the dealer tracked me down online, because the story about the crazy Baja guy followed the vehicle (affectionately known as the caruck). Three years later, I caught his forum DM and called him. Had a good hour long discussion about the Baja and asked for first dibs if he ever sold it.
Fast forwards a few years, and it blew a headgasket outside Saugerties, NY. I gave him $1,500 cash and towed it home. Chassis was all rotted out, so I bought another '06 Baja from Virginia and shipped it north. It turned out to have a bum engine (water pump leaking bad, and oil sitting on top of the block). Swapped engines, drove it for another year and a half when the head gaskets blew again. She sits out front now, ready for the next set of hgs.
I’m not making the same mistake and getting rid of my Baja again. I’ll keep throwing head gaskets and whatever else I need to keep her running… And soaking her in Fluid Film.
Crazy Baja guy. That’s me.
Yesterday I saw a Subaru Baja in a parking lot, that car is gorgeous.
i hate pikups, but in that size? I’ll make an exception. glad you got it back
No keys, full of unnecessary electronic gadgets, heavier, bigger, clumsier handling, no manual transmission option, filled to the brim with spyware, subscription based features that used to just be pay once to have it, uses huge wheels and tires that are more expensive to replace, touchscreen controls for everything, full of obnoxious and intrusive driver aids…
I’m going to keep my car until it is a pile of rust. Then I’m probably riding a motorcycle everywhere unless the car market somehow de-enshitifies itself.
Got me a Civic Sport at the end of '24 just before they dropped the manual. It’s great. No cellular, no subscription features, nothing. Just a nice car with good handling and a gear lever.
One good thing about EVs is that generally they’re extremely low maintenance.
You still have intrusive surveillance for everything you say and everywhere you go. With the way the government is right now you probably don’t want to give them more data points.
Buy used, out of warranty, and remove all the wireless connectivity? It sucks but I think it will have to be that way if you care about privacy.
Not sure if you can do that without disabling the cars core functions, if my memory serves me.
I have an idea for a project that would enable the driver to connect/disconnect the cellular and WiFi antennas on a Tesla via a switch. I did some research and it’s more expensive/complicated than I hoped so I haven’t done anything about it but it’s definitely possible.
Couldn’t they just get all that from your phone anyway?
Not if you know how to flash a custom OS.
There’s like a bunch of these now! If I’m already on grqphene would I want to look at the other ones?
It depends on what you want out of your phone. I use Calyx because I like living a foss-as-much-as-possible lifestyle, and they’ve got some pretty cool networking features (sharing VPN over hotspot and across profiles) and I prefer to use MicroG over sandboxed play services. Muerena is kind of for people who want an iOS-like experience without the spying. Ive never actually tried iode myself. Lineage is kind of the base starting point. Its available for a lot more phones than Calyx and Graphene support (You can even install it on some Nintendo Switches!), but its not as Privacy hardened. UBTouch & Postmarket OS are for the brave souls who want to give linux mobile a go. I want to try it one day but I want to use KDE Plasma Mobile instead of Ubuntu Touch. PostmarketOS afaik is the furthest along mobile linux OS with KDE Plasma Mobile, but the phone I would want it on has broken audio drivers ATM so its a no go for me rn.
Give them all a look though, look into threat modeling and what features you might want. You may find Graphene works just fine for you, you may find another project suits your needs a lot more. Its hard to really say one way or another! :P
Interesting thank you for pointing me in the right direction!
+1 for GrapheneOS. Been using it for a couple months now.
Only agree to buy it if the dealership removes the TCU? I’ve heard of that working.
Not as reliable anymore. Just watched a pine hallow automotive video where he diag a 2019 jeep Rubicon with a bad cam at 70k and they can’t get a replacement for it. Chrysler /Stellantis are the worst. Even Toyota has engine recalls.
Your probably right, 2019 is right around the cut-off when electronic shit started completely overtaking the last 75 years of car improvments. I was given a loaner recently while recall work was being done (Subaru) and the loaner car just felt wrong. Tactile feedback is very important because if your flipping through touch screen menus, your not looking at the road.
It’s funny but I think you nailed the timeline on the head. I got a 2019 corolla (it’s a manual and it doesn’t need a key!) and all I had to do to get it off the internet was pull a single fuse and reroute a speaker wire. The controls are actually a pretty good mix of physical and touch too.
It used to have support for showing maps on the head unit, but that never worked reliably and required special software that has been discontinued. I tried manual updating the software and that feature is gone gone.
I have actually rented a couple corollas since then, and they’ve all been disappointingly worse as far as everything about them is concerned.
When all the old cars are gone and I have to drive something newer than 2013 I’m going to just kill myself
Don’t worry, the lack of crumple zones will get you first!
LMAO, f keys, when I switched I instantly fell in love.
- No more digging for keys
- No more fumbling
- Much easier to unlock with full hands
- Really easy to leave the car running and lock it from the outside
- The key can be ANYWHERE in the car e.g. gym bag
When it comes to cars, half the time I swear the complaints are just old car heads who just hate those “new fangled features”. Like the need for “manual” transmissions because automatic sucks, automatic transmissions haven’t sucked for a long while now. Initially it did, but it’s quite refined now.
Fuck the subscriptions though, I want the “fancy electronic features” just sans subscriptions and data collection
My partners car has keyless and I hate it. Every time I get in the key falls out my pocket and ends up under the seat, or I throw it in some cubby hole and can never remember which one.
“Can you come closer to the car, it still won’t let me in”
Then there’s the time I dropped her off in the car, she left with the key but it still let me drive away. Good job I didn’t pop into any shop on the way home.
Keyless is really something that once you daily drive it, you will miss it everytime you don’t have it.
I am all for having project/summer cars which are cool in some particular way, but daily driver should be car that most easily transports you from place to another
If tech would be ready enough, I would be willing to go for 100% automation. If I could have magic egg were I just sit in and tell where to go, and by itself it just takes me there, that would be perfect.
That’s the difference between people that have to drive and people that like to drive. I would love for most people to have reliable, comfortable, hands-off transportation so that they could get out of my way.
There isnt a single car on the market where you get the fancy features without the data collection.
New maybe, but it still needs to get that data out somehow, a little clippy clip to the internal antennas would probably do the trick lmao (as long as it’s not with a subscription feature, that might need to periodically phone home)
No “subscription feature” should exist.on a motor vehicle. The idea that they do is asinine.
I think there might have been a misunderstanding, I’m not saying it should exist or that it’s good, at all.
Just that you could still buy a new car and then sever the cellular antennas, then the collected data won’t be able to actually leave the vehicle. But, doing so might break any subscription-based features, if present, because subscription means it’ll need to phone home periodically
Yes, but I am sure some of the new cars you can turn off the data collection. Not all, but also not most.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_II378UoxY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcxCJbNrvzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7_4OBm7IJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zLZnYXU5kw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pka9KaQh7DA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SKc9rnYujU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5euh13nd10g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n0AI5aemUY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l27_75pDvd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PnZ1szh6Dg
and just because I know for a FACT you’re not going to watch any of those, here’s a simple, plain English analysis by the Mozilla foundation.
https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/
Corporations are not your friend. They do not care about you. They will fuck you over, they will sell your data, and there’s currently nothing you can do to stop them. There are no new “data friendly” cars.
Clicked on the one with the cat thumbnail. No cat was present in the first few seconds of the video. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
Great until the fob dies. Then your car turns into an art piece.
Every keyless vehicle I’ve driven has had a failsafe, usually something along the lines of starting the car by pushing the start button with the top of the FOB and it’ll temporarily be powered enough to read whatever security codes it needs
Some brands have a hidden manual key inside the FOB that you could use
My car has a spot to put the fob if the fob is dead, and it’ll just read the dead fob and be fine.
It’s not the automatic transmission I hate. It’s the electronic handbrake that disengaged itself and made me nearly rear end a parked car because I had the audacity to put it in gear, or the lane assist that wanted me to drive into a brick wall and then later on through a hedge. Also touchscreen for everything. Just give me buttons.
Luckily my actual car only needs the touchscreen for me to change to media instead of radio, then I have buttons on a stalk for it. The handbrake is manual and it has no lane assist either.
Automatics are just scary cus I’ve never driven one. I’m sure they are going to be fine when I am pushed to buy a new car.
Electric parking brake is one of those modern “conveniences” I really hate. I want a physical lever that directly actuates a brake. It should work even in a catastrophic failure (so should the steering and regular brakes, but it should be a separate system)
Sorry but automatics are absolutely shit unless it’s a high performance car.
I don’t mind all the other “fancy” features but I could never drive an automatic.
Sounds like you don’t have enough experience with modern automatics to hold such a strong opinion about them then. I love a manual transmission but modern automatics are usually very good. There was a time they were less efficient and less good at shifting at the right time but those days are pretty well gone. You do still sacrifice some fine control that you almost never need and they are less fun, but let’s not talk shit on them for issues that have been solved for years.
Fair enough but personally I like being able to change gear exactly when I need it. It’s a preference thing.
I have driven a fair few modern automatics. Most recently a 2023 5 series BMW, in assuming BMW have figured out a good Auto transmission?
Anyway I ride my Motorbike for fun so it’s a moot point really 😅
You can’t generalize all the car companies like that, multiple american car companies make garbage automatic transmissions for their cars. Chrysler did too before stellantis, wouldnt be surprised if they still do.
My 2003 dodge ram is still kicken after 260,000 miles. If it dies on me I’m gonna crashout. New cars are impossible to maintain I stg
I’m thinking of getting a new 4×4 instead of another round of mods. Pretty much only one option these days, the Toyota LandCruiser 7-series. New engine/powertrain, but otherwise as simple as ever. Just a car that won’t let you down if shit fails in the middle of no where…well, apart from the shit that failed, but that’s usually repairable in a couple hours with basic tools and a spare parts or workaround.
The only other way to get that is buying an old car and keeping the money in it to keep it running well and modernised (speakers, nav, lights, etc.)
As you Americans call it, a “truck” should only be about chassis, powertrain, suspension, repairability, and practicality. If you want more than that, you can, but the base shouldn’t have shit all through it already, stuff that has little to do with the whole concept of why you’d have a truck.
Serious question because I’m also banking on my 08 corolla lasting forever - how do you know the new land cruiser is simple and reliable?
It’s been designed that way intentionally. Their legacy is endurance and hardiness, so there’s very little difference between 2025 and 2005. Other Toyota 4×4s are like that, but contain more complex tech, so not as desirable. They have left this one alone on purpose. It is so much so, most parts are still the same as previous series so it’s easy to buy an abundance of spares to bolt in and out should anything fail.
I think power windows can still be opted out of to minimise potential electronics failures from water and mud crossings. Things like that has money put toward higher quality materials, welds, reinforced engine components, etc. They’re legacy is that making it to a million KMs isn’t unusual, so long as they are taken care of.
Toyota has always had the durability and longevity reputation as their main thing, so long as not abused.
My 2020 Subaru Crosstrek has a key and a manual transmission.
As gods intended
I had a 1995 celica. I miss that car, now it’s near impossible to find them.
Had to get something new, (thanks Ford for making water pumps that instantly nuke engines when they fail because they’re driven by the timing system inside the timing cover #@^% you Ford) and since used car prices were SO insane I got a new Civic- a 2024 with a 2 liter and a six speed manual.
Sure, it’s “keyless” but dang it, it sure seems like a pretty great little car. Port injected even, so no ruined/carbon’ed up valves for me.
I hear the new ones don’t offer a manual any more unless you buy an SI/R? That sucks.
I drove a couple 90’s shitboxes that were still gracefully deteriorating one piece at a time. New cars are made for people who buy new cars instead of the second hand market
My 2016 Toyota has only ever been a handful of times in maintenance since I bought it. Still works perfectly in every aspect.
Stop buying shit brands and claiming the old cars that survived up until now are better.
Toyota is top tier for making cars that last.
My 2007 is still running strong. It sounds like it will die at any time, but it keeps holding on. At this point I’ve been waiting for it to die for 3 years now, and can’t justify the cost of a newer vehicle as long as this one keeps going
2003 fiat doblo and 1990 fiat uno. Two tanks, one of which i’ve managed to keep going myself. they’re some of the best i’ve driven (not like that says mutch…)
Why did stellantis have to destroy fiat?
