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I ended up calling and having OnStar cancel my "trial" in my 2018 era truck in 2019, to the point I instructed them to disable the OnStar lights on the mirror a

I ended up calling and having OnStar cancel my "trial" in my 2018 era truck in 2019, to the point I instructed them to disable the OnStar lights on the mirror and everything. This was a task as they're very annoying and persistent... Once that was done I originally pulled the daughterboard housing the entire modem but this bricked my compass and GPS. To keep those working I ended up altering the modem itself with a soldering iron per the pdf posted here: https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-with-any-4g-lte-sim-card.34865/ https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-wi... The guy there on that forum did so in an effort to use your own sim with the HMI, but using 0 ohm resistors or just solder bridging the relevant connections is enough to prevent my vehicle from getting online, but leaves the GPS intact. You can test by trying to make phone/onstar/data related actions - it just won't work. Another good measure is to remove one of the antenna leads, I forget which one is cellular primary, but the other is more GPS/aux. Doing it all this way allows you to still connect your vehicle to wifi should you so desire to, for updates and such. There are other secrets and tricks to these things, including a git repo I cloned that is now gone from the public internet, where a guy figured out how to solder an EMMC reader to a few points on the mainboard to get and modify the filesystem. Edit: here's a mirror https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git They really go out of their way to keep you from owning your vehicle. Also bought a device that lets me plug HDMI inputs into the truck, unfortunately some kind of refresh rate or resolution issue prevents it from working properly. As an aside, if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port, and used sticky tape to hide it somewhere - make sure to remove that once you're not financed through them as well (it is illegal to do so I believe before using alternative financing or paying it off).

ricardonunez 4y ago
That seems like a lot of work to own something. At that point I will go with an alternative brand that doesn't have those kind of system or subscription. The problem will be when all the brands have something similar.
- ilikenwf 4y ago
  Even if it doesn't have all that, if you finance most vehicles they will install a poorly hidden cell tracker that usually draws power from the OBD2 port. It is legally problematic to remove until you switch financing... In addition, if tracking bothers you, your tire pressure sensors all have trackable (if there are enough sensors around a city) IDs, and if bluetooth is on, and it probably is, that as well...aside from your cell phone... My next (secondary) vehicle will 100% be a dumb vehicle from the 90s or earlier.
  - kkielhofner 4y ago
    There’s also in-vehicle Wi-Fi. A while back I set up a Ubiquity Wi-Fi system for a friend who lives near a fairly high-traffic street. The default Ubiquity scan interval for spectrum and Wi-Fi network awareness was enough to map schedules for a shockingly high number of people driving by. I imagine something custom built for this purpose would be significantly more, umm, “effective” for this purpose.
  - ensignavenger 4y ago
    What laws prevent you from removing a gps tracker from your vehicle? It may be a civil agreement between you and the lender?
  - quintushoratius 4y ago
    > If you finance most vehicles they will install a poorly hidden cell tracker that usually draws power from the OBD2 port. What kind of janky banks are you working with? My spouse and I financed a couple of cars recently, one new and one slightly used, and did not have anything of the sort. Different manufacturers, different banks, different dealerships.
    - sidewndr46 4y ago
      They don't disclose when they install those devices generally. If they do, it's buried under 100s of pages of documents.
tyingq 4y ago
>0 ohm resistors Had me scratching my head for a minute there. I guess it's a thing now, though we used to just call them jumpers.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  They've been around for decades, both for thru-hole and surface-mount. When you're using automated machinery, you don't want to mess around with wire jumpers; a zero-ohm resistor can be inserted or pick-and-placed using the same automated equipment that normal resistors are placed with.
  - tyingq 4y ago
    It's just a funny name to me. Zero ohm and resistor are mutually exclusive. To me, it's still a jumper, shunt, etc.
    - brians 4y ago
      Ah, but the trick is to get the low tolerance ones. Two reasons: A) then it’s +/- 20%, right? Which means you bucket them and resell the + ones, using the rest to mine crypto, and B) you save money because 5% of 0 is no more than 20%.
    - thayne 4y ago
      It's also physically impossible for it to actually be 0 ohms. Unless there are consumer grade superconductors that I didn't know about.
      - cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
        That's why 0 Ω resistors have a current rating.
  - cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
    They're rarely just jumpers, they're often fuses as well because they have a current rating. 0 Ω are sometimes uses as sacrificial fail safes when there's not a cost budget for thermal self-resetting fuses such as those used in automotive applications. And it's usually cheaper to bridge two pads with a blob of solder than maintain and source another part in the BOM.
sytelus 4y ago
What is so special about GM that you are willing to go through all these?
albrewer 4y ago
> if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port ALL buy-here-[pay|finance]-here car dealerships put a GPS tracker in your car. Where it's located and how it's connected to your car's electrical system will vary, but they ALL do it using[0] companies[1] like[2] these[3]. [0] https://gpsandtrack.com/ https://gpsandtrack.com/ [1] https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/ https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/ [2] https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships/ https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships... [3] https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/ https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/

ricardonunez 4y ago

That seems like a lot of work to own something. At that point I will go with an alternative brand that doesn't have those kind of system or subscription. The problem will be when all the brands have something similar.

ilikenwf 4y ago
Even if it doesn't have all that, if you finance most vehicles they will install a poorly hidden cell tracker that usually draws power from the OBD2 port. It is legally problematic to remove until you switch financing... In addition, if tracking bothers you, your tire pressure sensors all have trackable (if there are enough sensors around a city) IDs, and if bluetooth is on, and it probably is, that as well...aside from your cell phone... My next (secondary) vehicle will 100% be a dumb vehicle from the 90s or earlier.
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  There’s also in-vehicle Wi-Fi. A while back I set up a Ubiquity Wi-Fi system for a friend who lives near a fairly high-traffic street. The default Ubiquity scan interval for spectrum and Wi-Fi network awareness was enough to map schedules for a shockingly high number of people driving by. I imagine something custom built for this purpose would be significantly more, umm, “effective” for this purpose.
- ensignavenger 4y ago
  What laws prevent you from removing a gps tracker from your vehicle? It may be a civil agreement between you and the lender?
- quintushoratius 4y ago
  > If you finance most vehicles they will install a poorly hidden cell tracker that usually draws power from the OBD2 port. What kind of janky banks are you working with? My spouse and I financed a couple of cars recently, one new and one slightly used, and did not have anything of the sort. Different manufacturers, different banks, different dealerships.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    They don't disclose when they install those devices generally. If they do, it's buried under 100s of pages of documents.

tyingq 4y ago

>0 ohm resistors Had me scratching my head for a minute there. I guess it's a thing now, though we used to just call them jumpers.

midoridensha 4y ago
They've been around for decades, both for thru-hole and surface-mount. When you're using automated machinery, you don't want to mess around with wire jumpers; a zero-ohm resistor can be inserted or pick-and-placed using the same automated equipment that normal resistors are placed with.
- tyingq 4y ago
  It's just a funny name to me. Zero ohm and resistor are mutually exclusive. To me, it's still a jumper, shunt, etc.
  - brians 4y ago
    Ah, but the trick is to get the low tolerance ones. Two reasons: A) then it’s +/- 20%, right? Which means you bucket them and resell the + ones, using the rest to mine crypto, and B) you save money because 5% of 0 is no more than 20%.
  - thayne 4y ago
    It's also physically impossible for it to actually be 0 ohms. Unless there are consumer grade superconductors that I didn't know about.
    - cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
      That's why 0 Ω resistors have a current rating.
- cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
  They're rarely just jumpers, they're often fuses as well because they have a current rating. 0 Ω are sometimes uses as sacrificial fail safes when there's not a cost budget for thermal self-resetting fuses such as those used in automotive applications. And it's usually cheaper to bridge two pads with a blob of solder than maintain and source another part in the BOM.

sytelus 4y ago

What is so special about GM that you are willing to go through all these?

albrewer 4y ago

> if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port ALL buy-here-[pay|finance]-here car dealerships put a GPS tracker in your car. Where it's located and how it's connected to your car's electrical system will vary, but they ALL do it using[0] companies[1] like[2] these[3]. [0] https://gpsandtrack.com/ https://gpsandtrack.com/ [1] https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/ https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/ [2] https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships/ https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships... [3] https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/ https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/