How is it allowed for a dealer to cut wires and install a non OEM-approved electronic device onto the CAN bus? This seems like it would void all the manufacturer warranties and potentially create liability for the manufacturer if it malfunctions.
When we bought a brand new GMC, Dealer A installed a counterfeit backup camera.
Half a tank of gas later, Dealer B claimed the warranty was void because of the camera. We brought it in because the radio kept freaking out and it would drain the battery if left off over night.
There was an active recall for both those issues. Dealer C fixed them by installing a firmware update.
Manufacturers must prove a modification to a car caused the fault in a product to deny an otherwise-covered warranty issue, regardless of who installed it. As for if this device kills the battery or what-have-you, i'm not sure what sort of liability the dealership is taking.
It's amusing to me that someone would go through the effort of deconstructing it, writing a gist, and posting it on HN before literally just googling "device under steering wheel" and seeing other people posting about the _exact_ same device.
People tend to imagine their lives are more interesting and worthy of surveillance than they really are :)
Ahh. Looks familiar. A dealer in the PNW installed one of these (without our knowledge) in a Honda CRV we purchased. Something about anti theft and vehicle recovery by finance, for all the cars on their lot.
The car had all sorts of crazy power problems. Smart display would randomly crash, interior lights wouldn’t work, just… flakey.
Called the dealer and demanded they remove this. Electrical problems went away instantly.
They put them in so that they can use a single key fob to open up all the cars in the lot. There's a socket that accepts a module. When they sell the car, they pop out their key fob module and pop in the "security system" blinking LED module and try to upsell you $1K for the privilege of having your wire harness butchered.
This is the most accurate answer in this thread. Toyota dealers in Northern California did this to me twice on new cars. (A third party autosound guy removed it and fixed the harness for me)
Even though we always pay in full for cars, the dealer has you talk to the finance guy who will try to sell you useless addons like undercoating and an “alarm system” which has already been butchered into the car by the dealer. (If you buy it they would stick a key module with a blinking red light under the dash somewhere, but most of the circuit is already there.)
I discovered it when my new car started having the same issues you saw.
NOTE: it's somewhere between a scam and a crappy business practice. Here in southern california it's by no means only used cars or shady financing. The dealers install them on all the cars to keep track of their own inventory. Then they try to sell it to you as a kind of lojack for $$$$. If you are smart and decline, they just deactivate the unit (stop paying for the service), but do you think that they remove it? or repair the wiring?
Looks like a dealer installed 'alarm system'. I bought a mazda in 2011 which had a similar system, as best as I can tell the dealer installs them as asset trackers for cars on the lot and then tried to upsell it to me as an 'alarm system'. Its a bit sketchy that they didn't mention it to you when you bought the car...
The 433MHz is likely a keyfob receiver (and possibly transmitter to spoof the original key).
I had this exact system. If anyone is interested in removing it:
It has a bunch of "fake wires" acting as taps into the wiring harness, and it detects if you remove a tap and then trips trip a relay where it cuts the ignition wire that is rerouted through the unit. So I removed the device, and put the ignition wire back together and the car was back to normal. I think if OP's car still has warning lights go off, he likely nicked some of the other wires inadvertently, or broke them while pulling the taps out.
Tracking devices don't need to be nearly so complicated nor hard wired into the ignition.
If it's a remote kill for a lease/lender then you'd expect some ability to transmit it's location. Why go through all the trouble of installing a remote kill that can't transmit it's location nor actually disable the car (it still works after removal)
[edit]
Going with the KARR "dealer alarm" per other post.
Hrmm, must be a master-key type system as stated above because this car comes from Honda with remote start, which is still working after I excised this weird thing.
That's what my speciation covers. At some point the search engine decided that page is a good result for that string, the content may have shifted since then as it currently isn't, or perhaps someone is back linking to it with "PL884-200" in the href? Either way it's something a dealer would add after market to a car and it has some connection to PL884-200.
Is there a community for those interested in removing factory tracking from newer model cars? A recent discussion here mentioned how prevalent they are in vehicles made in the last decade. (No link, sorry.)
Readit News
I found identical looking devices by using Google Lens and focusing on just the black box with the green button.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2016/08/never-buy-car-alar...
https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisit/comments/rnr48t/found_unde...
https://www.reddit.com/r/subaru/comments/7m9dv9/mysterious_b...
That's what the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty... is for.
Half a tank of gas later, Dealer B claimed the warranty was void because of the camera. We brought it in because the radio kept freaking out and it would drain the battery if left off over night.
There was an active recall for both those issues. Dealer C fixed them by installing a firmware update.
People tend to imagine their lives are more interesting and worthy of surveillance than they really are :)
Dead Comment
used cars, on the other hand, are a different story. complain to American Honda perhaps? Contact info for anyone's convenience:
https://owners.honda.com/help/customer-relations
American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Honda Automobile Customer Service
Mail Stop: CHI-5
1919 Torrance Blvd.
Torrance, CA 90501-2746
The car had all sorts of crazy power problems. Smart display would randomly crash, interior lights wouldn’t work, just… flakey.
Called the dealer and demanded they remove this. Electrical problems went away instantly.
Super frustrating.
Even though we always pay in full for cars, the dealer has you talk to the finance guy who will try to sell you useless addons like undercoating and an “alarm system” which has already been butchered into the car by the dealer. (If you buy it they would stick a key module with a blinking red light under the dash somewhere, but most of the circuit is already there.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30833566#30838294
I discovered it when my new car started having the same issues you saw.
NOTE: it's somewhere between a scam and a crappy business practice. Here in southern california it's by no means only used cars or shady financing. The dealers install them on all the cars to keep track of their own inventory. Then they try to sell it to you as a kind of lojack for $$$$. If you are smart and decline, they just deactivate the unit (stop paying for the service), but do you think that they remove it? or repair the wiring?
Why do I get the feeling that If i did that to the car I sold privately, I would be in jail really fast?
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dmh5s/does_this...
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/doe17/update_to...
Really, we swear. But we can't tell you which ones. Maybe the apps running on the cell towers.
The 433MHz is likely a keyfob receiver (and possibly transmitter to spoof the original key).
https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433
It has a bunch of "fake wires" acting as taps into the wiring harness, and it detects if you remove a tap and then trips trip a relay where it cuts the ignition wire that is rerouted through the unit. So I removed the device, and put the ignition wire back together and the car was back to normal. I think if OP's car still has warning lights go off, he likely nicked some of the other wires inadvertently, or broke them while pulling the taps out.
Tracking devices don't need to be nearly so complicated nor hard wired into the ignition.
If it's a remote kill for a lease/lender then you'd expect some ability to transmit it's location. Why go through all the trouble of installing a remote kill that can't transmit it's location nor actually disable the car (it still works after removal)
[edit]
Going with the KARR "dealer alarm" per other post.
Perhaps this is a part of one of those units? They have "hard wired" as a option on the site, but it's greyed out.
Speculation: the site used to talk about a PL884-200 hardwire kit but they have since stopped selling it.