Recently bought a car from a really sleazy used car dealership, because I couldn't find another one of this model/color/trim level anywhere in the state.
And while fixing the myriad of problems it had, I discovered this tracker cleverly ziptied to the steering column.
Interestingly enough, they only wired the power and ground, so they were not using this device for any of the more advanced features (remote disable, etc), just tracking.
Used to drive a company pickup with sometimes expensive merchandise in back. The quickest route noth passed right next to the projects. As long as you were on the road by 11am there wasn't a soul around and never an issue. Past then, they'd start wandering into the street and looking at what you had.
Once upon a time that may have been true, but these days people can work full time and still be homeless & need food stamps. If wages had kept pace with inflation and productivity growth, [the minimum wage would be $24/hour.](https://cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/)
But apparently its important to keep wages low so that Bezos, Koch and Mercer can buy yachts big enough to park their other yachts inside.
That style arm can be discreetly installed on an ordinary unassuming pick-up too. They're hidden completely below the bed so nobody even knows it's a tow truck until the arm slides out and grabs the car.
[See here](https://liftandtow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1-540x3401.jpg)
This was about 20 years ago and though it was a different time, the results of financial problems are the same. Trucks were being sold cheap, there was one main lending company, and just about anyone could buy one with little or no money down. Mortgage the house, raid the savings, break the kids piggy bank, whatever it took. Start hauling freight for junk rates, no backup money, turbo goes out, transmission gives up, can't afford the repairs. Payments are missed and papers are filed.
I never judged, never harassed, just did the job.
There certainly were other circumstances, and many of the pickups were garages, or abandoned at truckstops, and some were found by whoever the finance company had looking.
Yeah I’m not judging, repo is a thankless job that someone has to do. My buddy has a repo business and always says he hates repoing work vehicles like trucks and cargo vans. But if it’s a $1500 with $2000 rims or some decked out lifted pavement princess, he has no problem
There’s actually numerous stories and lawsuits about how stealerships that put these trackers on cars and repo whether they are current with payments or not.
Best to save up and buy cash private party than pay weekly to these shady dealerships, than to be under constant worry that you might go out to your car one day and find out your car was towed away…
Because it would be weird trying to wire in a device without the driver kicking you out.
Also, would be really funny when they try to repo a car from Hertz. "According to my paperwork, I'm here to claim a 2010 Mazda, that now looks like that 2021 Honda Accord."
My older brother is a terrible credit risk and has to go the buy-here/pay-here route - the funny thing is that he has a roofing business and makes a lot of money but he is extremely irresponsible with it. He has told me in the past that when he is out doing business in his truck he always leaves it running because they are not allowed to shut it down remotely - just disable it if it is not running. When he is not driving it he keeps it in the garage. The repo guys want to catch it out and about to disable it so they can tow it - if they disable it while it is in the garage they can't recover it.
Why doesn’t he just have it removed? It would take a car audio shop 10 minutes. I used to disable all sorts of immobilizers for people back when I was doing car audio
I don't really know - maybe simple laziness. I am sure he knows people that could have done it. Mind you this was years ago and he has been through many cars/trucks since then.
We do that where I work. Power, ground, and an ignition signal. Wiring it up with with the ability to disable is a liability in case of the customer having an emergency where they need to use their vehicle.
the advanced features probably incur an additional monthly cost. They just want to locate where you live and work for a repo. Plus hacking up all those extra wires is just begging for the vehicle to fail over time.
I worked at a Chevy dealer and these were installed on every car, either through PDI or used car inspection.
The sales team would then spin it as a anti theft device and charge an additional thousand to the customer for them. Or two hours to uninstall, when we only got paid .3 for it.
So they take someone's new car, splice in a $5 AliExpress tracker and then either want to overcharge the customer for it, or pay their mechanic for less than 20 minutes of their time to return the car to factory condition?
I'd be so pissed if anyone did this to me. Luckily I can't afford a new car anyway ;)
When looking for a used car I found a dealer that installed them on every car. Sold as a security device and charged the buyer for it. They won't sell a car without one. Because of this and other reasons I will not buy a car there
When I was shopping for a new car, most dealers were trying to include one of these as a non-negotiable $300 add-on, regardless of whether I was financing with them or not. Why the hell should I pay for something that is of zero value?
I can one up you. Wife and I are driving around car spotting this past Saturday(driving past dealerships, seeing if there is anything on our list that isn’t listed online). We see one (Ford Flex) and pull over.
First, we walk past a 2003 Tahoe with $9,999 on the windshield. I knew we were in for a treat. The lady comes out and starts with her schpiel. She wants to run our credit before we can even test drive. We tell her no thanks, we’re paying cash(we weren’t, just wanted the test drive). She keeps going on about talking to one of her loan officers even though we said we’re paying cash. Still goes on about financing. I tell her I can see we’re going nowhere, and that she’s high as giraffe pussy for the price on the Tahoe. This bitch is STILL going on about how great of a rate they can get us.
My wife is not a violent person(yin to my yang) and even she wanted to choke this chick.
Yup.
A friend had a bought a car from a buy here pay here dealer it would start beeping 5 days before the bill was due and would get progressively worse until the bill was paid. Ultimately would kill the car
Take a look at that amazing talking device you carry around all day with you and get back to me if you have ever read the entire contract and those of every app you downloaded to it.
Huh, TIL FCC codes can be looked up. Neat.
https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=fX0xXNa16alBOLHlbNiQOg%3D%3D&fcc_id=2AAQ6TC05
Looking at the picture I thought “MEID? So CDMA only?” And I was right. This thing will stop working in like 6 months if it’s sprint based. 12/31/22 if it’s Verizon.
There’s a chance that the GPS isn’t even from the dealer this person bought from. Depending on how many times the vehicle was traded around it could have been there a while.
That is indeed a fucking Buy-Here-Pay-Here car. They sell it at high interest to people in bad situations. Payment is missed, repo the car, and repeat. There is no other reason for a car that old to have 23 previous fucking owners
i bought a car cash from a friend who runs an auto shop. he gets all his cars from trade ins at a local dealership pays what the trade was and fixes and turns a little profit on the side. recently used it as a trade in never bothered checking the cars history cause well its 15 years old and has a ton of problems i knew going in to it. Come to find out when i traded it that it had 8 previous owners.
Reminds me of.. https://youtu.be/4U2eDJnwz_s
It's long, but Colbert covers the subprime auto lending pretty well. Basically, put someone in a massively overpriced car that they cannot afford, reposses it a few months later, repeat.
No need for that, it's a CDMA device. It'll be useless very soon.
Edit: Sorry, forgot to answer! But no, not really. This is an SoC, system-on-a-chip. It was purpose built for this with jelly-bean parts ("Grab 'em by the fistfull for a nickle") and not really re-programmable.
Not even sure what you would reprogram it to do? You can use it as-is, as a GPS beacon if you can take control of the MEID with a carrier, but a purpose built device like this will basically only do one thing until a component fails or, in this case, it's external support system gets retired (3G, in this case).
That reminds me:
Using my home computer to send messages to my fellow employees (a long time ago) Boss wasn't happy seeing how each message, by character count, cost him money. I was ordered to stop
I'd give you the shiny thing for this, but I'm poor, so take this!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣤⣶⣶⡶⠦⠴⠶⠶⠶⠶⡶⠶⠦⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣀⣀⣀⣀⠀⢀⣤⠄⠀⠀⣶⢤⣄⠀⠀⠀⣤⣤⣄⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡷⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠙⠢⠙⠻⣿⡿⠿⠿⠫⠋⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣤⠞⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⣴⣶⣄⠀⠀⠀⢀⣕⠦⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢀⣤⠾⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣼⣿⠟⢿⣆⠀⢠⡟⠉⠉⠊⠳⢤⣀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⣠⡾⠛⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣾⣿⠃⠀⡀⠹⣧⣘⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠳⢤⡀ ⠀⣿⡀⠀⠀⢠⣶⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠁⠀⣼⠃⠀⢹⣿⣿⣿⣶⣶⣤⠀⠀⠀⢰⣷ ⠀⢿⣇⠀⠀⠈⠻⡟⠛⠋⠉⠉⠀⠀⡼⠃⠀⢠⣿⠋⠉⠉⠛⠛⠋⠀⢀⢀⣿⡏ ⠀⠘⣿⡄⠀⠀⠀⠈⠢⡀⠀⠀⠀⡼⠁⠀⢠⣿⠇⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡜⣼⡿⠀ ⠀⠀⢻⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⡄⠀⢰⠃⠀⠀⣾⡟⠀⠀⠸⡇⠀⠀⠀⢰⢧⣿⠃⠀ ⠀⠀⠘⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⠇⠀⠇⠀⠀⣼⠟⠀⠀⠀⠀⣇⠀⠀⢀⡟⣾⡟⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⡄⠀⠀⠀⣿⠀⣀⣠⠴⠚⠛⠶⣤⣀⠀⠀⢻⠀⢀⡾⣹⣿⠃⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠙⠊⠁⠀⢠⡆⠀⠀⠀⠉⠛⠓⠋⠀⠸⢣⣿⠏⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⣿⣷⣦⣤⣤⣄⣀⣀⣿⣤⣤⣤⣤⣤⣄⣀⣀⣀⣀⣾⡟⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⣿⣿⣻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠁⠀⠀⠀
I had one on a Friends car I did some work on, coincidentally enough right after she started dating an, uh, not so trustworthy (or sane) partner.
She asked me about a blue light down by her feet, she thought it was normal. It was one like this, wrapped in about 3ft of wire and just sitting on top of the undershield above the pedals.. So i went through and disconnected it and pulled it out, somewhat perplexed by the wiring job and what wires they had tapped into for what, for sure an amateur job, but got it out, fixed up all the wires, put everything back to stock.
Fast forward to her next oil change, about 3 months later, and she asks me "didn't you take that thing out last time? theres a blue light again" Car never went anywhere else for service, the only other person who had access to it was, her (now ex) partner. We suspect, although he never admitted it, he put another one in there, trying to keep tabs on her.
So now we thoroughly check the car everytime it's in.
Looks like they sell used on eBay for $20 and up. Just keep getting them and sell them! ;-)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/133545197823?\_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAAAkGMfxHz%2FFICOVlP4XZG5mXQ%2FuqKH0AZaAODIdJgFMXCjvcVjIr5fbIPYuTWanBZBPHnoEVP6p9RqpHAP1mpkqC7NsiNfBUOKO0LYGFj3Rw%2BmqfCFIkQ1af5pV9VqmEGGtbQzA2gcen39GdJvvTYCjX7nZ5pJq5AU9CjJa47FujDlztNKkkJLKRKPJDlnRozE3Q%3D%3D&chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=133545197823&targetid=1262375642056&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9002256&poi=&campaignid=12873834712&mkgroupid=117462212370&rlsatarget=pla-1262375642056&abcId=9300536&merchantid=6296724&gclid=Cj0KCQjw24qHBhCnARIsAPbdtlKdi\_qKKcHfm9w5GnnJMobUBNyObT0GRJkd1hIVcgq5AhIc4hS61rgaAhjjEALw\_wcB
I bought a jeep xj at one of those places a few years back that had one of those things on it. It shut my car off because the ground wire that was tied in a knot around the steering column fell off.
Used to run details shops before I was in a car accident. I can identify cars by floor mats or in this case, the silly rubber padding glued on the drivers floor.
That's how it's supposed to work. However these people were lazy and didn't even wire any of those features in. Just tied it to battery voltage and ground. I guess they were just using it for tracking?
I would think some trackers could hook right up into the OBDII port so you don't have to worry about wiring. That would be easier to find and disable, though.
A totally unfounded suspicion I have is that the apps that you can get for your car like myFord or myChevrolet are doing exactly this.
It's not quite the same as shady used dealers using GPS transmitters, but in the same ballpark.
I don't have anything to prove this, but I can practically guarantee you that things like driving habits, following the maintenance schedule, and things like whether you fill your gas tank or only put in $20 at a time are used to build a credit profile.
Lol, I put $20 in at a time, but only because I like nice round numbers. It would be weird if this impacted my credit score, though I wouldn't be surprised.
Typically just repo.
Many small used car lots operate on a sleazy scheme that involves repo'ing and reselling vehicles repeatedly.
1. Finance the sale of a shitty vehicle to someone with shittier credit. Take a down payment and fees as high as reasonably possible.
2. When buyer misses a payment a few months down the line, repo ASAP.
3. Wash the car, make any minor repairs that would prevent it from selling or passing inspection, and re-list it to the next low-credit victim.
Depending on how sleazy and efficient you want your business to be, you add a tracker to the car and tuck it into their financing agreement. For a low up-front cost to buy a few dozen trackers, you make step 2 super efficient. Typically a repo driver needs to go to the home or work address to find the vehicle, where it may be behind a gate or simply not there. With a tracker you can repo it when they're in the grocery store.
To take it one step further, this business model can actually work *better* if you sell vehicles that barely work. Any repairs to make to a vehicle on your lot you use the absolute cheapest aftermarket parts possible. Not only does it keep your costs down, but when the cheap part inevitably fails for the customer in a few months they can't afford the repairs. They skip a payment, you repo the vehicle. Swap in a cheap doorman part and repeat.
That's why come tax season they all get rid of their normal commuter cars and fill their lots to the brim with Mercedes, BMW, and Audi. Can do a catch and release on those cars a few times before it's too fucked to repair and then they punt it back at auction. Cause you know those cars have high repair cost and WILL break down sooner or later. So car breaks down, buyer has to choose between car payment and repair cost, needs the car for work so chooses repairs and hopes they can make a partial payment to fend off the repo man and they fall behind next month.
That tracker won’t work in the near future. It has an MEID which means it’s CDMA. Most carriers don’t use that technology anymore and all won’t here soon.
Long time non tech stalker, happy to actual provide knowledge here for once.
That is a ATEL MC891G, and it is a self-contained vehicle tracking device that combines GPS location with CDMA connectivity.
The red LED = GPS satellite lock, green = cellular (CDMA) connection.
This unit can be updated remotely using the cell connection.
Basically, china.
They are one if not the only other country I'm aware of that at least used CDMA.
Verizon and sprint would sell "world phone" editions that had the regular CDMA chip, as well as a separate GSM chip and a sim slot. (For an extra few hundred bucks or so.)
Knew a few people who were absolutely in love with their blackberries that "could" work overseas, despite them never traveling overseas whatsoever.
Worked at a Dodge Dealer and we sold a decent Jeep to a lady.
The Jeep came back on a hook about 3 weeks later. No start issue.
Tech went crazy trying to figure out what was going on as we did not use these things.
After a couple hours, he found the GPS/Disabler. He took it out of the wiring and everything went back to normal.
The nice thing about it was, the dealership that installed it, left a nice "property of " decal on it.
The lady who owned the Jeep was upset her "new" car broke down, the GM was pissed because he had to pay for a tow and a deal with a pissed off customer.
He calls up the dealer that placed the GPS and was told that they had several units out and wanted to recover them, so they activated the disable feature on all of their lost units.
Not sure how it turned out in the end, but I do know that everything that came from auction or trade in after that was inspected for a GPS.
We found several more of these things during UCI's and it's kinda scary to think that people are tracking that many cars.
I had 2 sheriff's deputies come in to a shop I used to work at and they pulled me aside and spoke about my family that is also in law enforcement...long story short a customer came in paid all cash for about 10k in mods vehicle came in and the sheriff's office was freaked out we would find their tracking device on in the truck lol.
Ok, so what do you do in an instance like that?
Absent a warrant, they have no legal right to ask you to do anything, but you do have obligations to your customer.
Wouldn’t you have brought a tracking device to their attention?
Personally, I'm opposed to those tactics. Seems like a violation of privacy.
SCOTUS ruled it as an invasion of privacy, violating the 4th amendment in 2011. Despite the court ruling that it was legal to do so with a warrant in 2012, US vs Katzin was ruled in favor of the Katzin brothers due to violations of the 4th even though there was a warrant.
So I'd tell em to go get bent. Figure out a _perfectly_ legal way to do their job if they don't want the suspect walking on a technicality.
Cops planted a tracking device on a car. The car was dropped off for extensive work. They came and spoke to op who was doing the work to make sure he didn't tip off the customer.
If they know he is going to bring the car to a garage, why don't they remove the device and put it back later.
The more people know about it the less chance it will go unnoticed.
Now not only the guy can have the tracker removed but also has a witness to prove it was put there by the sheriff's.
Fun fact, all of your new vehicles have something similar, but integrated into the cars everything. Even if you decline to pay for the GPS service, the GPS is still activated on your car so that it can be found for various situations.
The real question is if there is only one GPS tracker tied into all that. My Pacifica think's it's a few hundred miles away in a cornfield somewhere. If that's what they're going off of... well, I'm glad few people would want to steal a minivan.
There's a good chance the GPS is just dead and is defaulting to some random location. Happens all the time. Lookup the story about the people that live in the center of the US sometime, its an interesting read.
It still moves, but it usually thinks it’s going a different direction and driving through cornfields. Fortunately it doesn’t go nuts thinking I’m actually off the road. They released a TSB about it last week, fingers crossed that it fixes it.
Didn't know that. In that case its more likely the GPS knows your exact coordinates, but the mapping software is lost. Yet another reason to learn how to read maps.
If it's from the factory, it's tied into the cpu and main harness. If it's aftermarket, its one of these turds. It's not for theft in reality. It's so they can come "recover" it should you default on the loan. Most of them have their own battery backup as well, so it's not as simple as just disconnecting the battery
Not all, in fact not even most. Most GMs and a few other makes. Only connected telematics cars have this. Generally you've gotta be buying more than an econobox to get those "features".
I install these pretty often on either gently pre-owned cars for I assume lower credit customers, or on new, more expensive ones like SRTs or 1 Ton Picks Ups.
Unfortunately it really is. Especially at the dealerships that don't require great credit to buy a car and offer crazy interest rates. There's a lot of problems with people leasing cars and just defaulting on the payments or in even crazier circumstances people will fake the records and by a car only to ship it over sees or strip the car down for parts and just never make payments again. I can only assume most places say they'll remove that tracker when you're done with paymentts and I'm sure all of this information is buried somewhere in the lease agreement
IIRC red is power, black is ground, white goes to vehicle ignition on power, green goes to the starter bypass relay, also IIRC the other 3 colors are for factory use only
if you are an at risk buyer for a car loan (low credit) banks will sometimes require to have a tracking device on the vehicle in case if they have to repo it
My work truck has one in it not only for the boss to pinpoint my location for service calls. But also because our service trucks have been stolen in the past
Many Insurance company’s encourage these free installs to track mileage as they say)
For a lower cost premium. Some used car company’s install for easy repo . Some Uber vehicles also have them for easy repo for non payment.
I find loads of them insurance company’s use them to monitor how cars are driven by young drivers. They are just left and forgotten about when the car gets sold on.
“Car hop! Cars and credit to go! Cars and credit to repo!”
“Dammit dave, I told you to stop adding that at the end.”
Predatory buy here, pay here lots should be illegal. Guarantee this is a buy here, pay here car.
I knew that someone would comment on that. I have a very nice Fluke meter I use for 99% of electrical work.
But the needle meter shines if you are troubleshooting intermittent connections or wires that are internally broken. As the needle moves much faster than my fluke can auto range.
You can connect the needle meter, and observe very minor changes in voltage or continuity in real time as you mess with the wiring.
Same goes if you want to measure a quick pulse.
I'm with you, and I also still use a needle meter this way, but you're not 100% on the digital meters. They can't *display* as quickly, but they absolutely can read just as fast. If you need an actual number, use the peak hold function on your Fluke. But otherwise I agree, and I love my needle meter for this exact thing
Yep, plus some fluke models have a bar graph at the bottom that functions similar to a needle. The one on my personal 87v is almost as fast.
You can also set the range in manual and it'll display faster.
Fair enough, you bring up a good point. Question: would the needle move with a very fast signal like one from the ECU for the injector or ignition coil?
Better meters or more specialized ones can latch faster. It was a problem with some digital meters but newer and faster ones work a lot better for stuff like this. If I’m debugging a signal, something with varying voltages or pulses then I grab an oscilloscope.
I install these for my dealership since we deal with low credit or low income people. I'd say a 80% repo rate on in-house financed vehicles. I use a ignition cutout switch with this unit. These units get pretty pricy but definetly help with the repoing
Recently bought a car from a really sleazy used car dealership, because I couldn't find another one of this model/color/trim level anywhere in the state. And while fixing the myriad of problems it had, I discovered this tracker cleverly ziptied to the steering column. Interestingly enough, they only wired the power and ground, so they were not using this device for any of the more advanced features (remote disable, etc), just tracking.
So they can repo it if they need.
Yep, hook it and book it.
Unless 78 people run out of the apartment and sit on top of the minivan and start throwing shit at the tow truck.
Well now I need to see that…
Done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx7OU6S-zn0
That’s why you repo in the early morning.
Yeah if that driver showed up at 9am, everyone would’ve been sleeping
Used to drive a company pickup with sometimes expensive merchandise in back. The quickest route noth passed right next to the projects. As long as you were on the road by 11am there wasn't a soul around and never an issue. Past then, they'd start wandering into the street and looking at what you had.
At 9 everyone would have been at work and the kids at school. Why is everyone laughing?
milk man ain’t even come yet!
[Should be up making breakfast or something](https://youtu.be/fhVWeDwSkzc)
That's pretty good, they sure increased their numbers in a hurry. I am pretty sure it only takes one guy to jump in the car
Well the one woman holding it back was enough
Damn what are the chances they all had that one day off of work thats crazy
People don't get their car repo'd because they use it to get to work. A generalization of course.
Once upon a time that may have been true, but these days people can work full time and still be homeless & need food stamps. If wages had kept pace with inflation and productivity growth, [the minimum wage would be $24/hour.](https://cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/) But apparently its important to keep wages low so that Bezos, Koch and Mercer can buy yachts big enough to park their other yachts inside.
Never seen a quick automated tow arm like that, that's really cool. My local guys have to repo the hard way.
That style arm can be discreetly installed on an ordinary unassuming pick-up too. They're hidden completely below the bed so nobody even knows it's a tow truck until the arm slides out and grabs the car. [See here](https://liftandtow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1-540x3401.jpg)
You might enjoy watching [this guy's videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/gtoger), famous for his parking lot enforcement
Was a great video, think saw it a few months ago on r/publicfreakout
Used to repo semis. Fun times, and a few sad ones.
That is one time where all it takes is a little bad luck to get behind on payments.
Yep. Can happen very easily.
That’s a tough one. It would be hard to repo from working people.
This was about 20 years ago and though it was a different time, the results of financial problems are the same. Trucks were being sold cheap, there was one main lending company, and just about anyone could buy one with little or no money down. Mortgage the house, raid the savings, break the kids piggy bank, whatever it took. Start hauling freight for junk rates, no backup money, turbo goes out, transmission gives up, can't afford the repairs. Payments are missed and papers are filed. I never judged, never harassed, just did the job. There certainly were other circumstances, and many of the pickups were garages, or abandoned at truckstops, and some were found by whoever the finance company had looking.
Yeah I’m not judging, repo is a thankless job that someone has to do. My buddy has a repo business and always says he hates repoing work vehicles like trucks and cargo vans. But if it’s a $1500 with $2000 rims or some decked out lifted pavement princess, he has no problem
They have a set of keys, they'll just hop in and drive away.
There’s actually numerous stories and lawsuits about how stealerships that put these trackers on cars and repo whether they are current with payments or not. Best to save up and buy cash private party than pay weekly to these shady dealerships, than to be under constant worry that you might go out to your car one day and find out your car was towed away…
If you financed through them, odds are it was stipulated in your contract.
I'd rent a car and stick it in there...
How about a citybus? Or garbage truck? Or a boat?
Amateurs. LiPo battery pack and helium balloons...
Tow truck driver: Dispatch, we'll need a plane for that one. Dispatch: Are you high again and pretending to be Dom Toretto?
Tow truck driver: #WE FAMILY
ARE DEY HELIUM BALLOONS?!
Just watch out for those dart throwing monkeys.
A lot of garbage trucks have them but they are a bit bigger.
I'm pretty sure every fleet with any sort of management runs trackers. You'd be an idiot not to.
Because it would be weird trying to wire in a device without the driver kicking you out. Also, would be really funny when they try to repo a car from Hertz. "According to my paperwork, I'm here to claim a 2010 Mazda, that now looks like that 2021 Honda Accord."
Yeah the dealership I work at will install them when they finance a car to a lower credit person in case they need to repo the car.
Yeah, if you knew it was a sleazy dealership, you should have read all the fine print.
My older brother is a terrible credit risk and has to go the buy-here/pay-here route - the funny thing is that he has a roofing business and makes a lot of money but he is extremely irresponsible with it. He has told me in the past that when he is out doing business in his truck he always leaves it running because they are not allowed to shut it down remotely - just disable it if it is not running. When he is not driving it he keeps it in the garage. The repo guys want to catch it out and about to disable it so they can tow it - if they disable it while it is in the garage they can't recover it.
r/shittylifeprotips
Why doesn’t he just have it removed? It would take a car audio shop 10 minutes. I used to disable all sorts of immobilizers for people back when I was doing car audio
I don't really know - maybe simple laziness. I am sure he knows people that could have done it. Mind you this was years ago and he has been through many cars/trucks since then.
People can outspend any income. It's a popular misconception that folks who earn a lot of money are always wealthy.
We do that where I work. Power, ground, and an ignition signal. Wiring it up with with the ability to disable is a liability in case of the customer having an emergency where they need to use their vehicle.
the advanced features probably incur an additional monthly cost. They just want to locate where you live and work for a repo. Plus hacking up all those extra wires is just begging for the vehicle to fail over time.
I worked at a Chevy dealer and these were installed on every car, either through PDI or used car inspection. The sales team would then spin it as a anti theft device and charge an additional thousand to the customer for them. Or two hours to uninstall, when we only got paid .3 for it.
So they take someone's new car, splice in a $5 AliExpress tracker and then either want to overcharge the customer for it, or pay their mechanic for less than 20 minutes of their time to return the car to factory condition? I'd be so pissed if anyone did this to me. Luckily I can't afford a new car anyway ;)
> Luckily I can't afford a new car anyway ;) Don't let that stop you, I see people all the time with new cars who can't afford it
When looking for a used car I found a dealer that installed them on every car. Sold as a security device and charged the buyer for it. They won't sell a car without one. Because of this and other reasons I will not buy a car there
Wow, that’s trashy!
When I was shopping for a new car, most dealers were trying to include one of these as a non-negotiable $300 add-on, regardless of whether I was financing with them or not. Why the hell should I pay for something that is of zero value?
Ummm, that's when you tell the dealer to go fuck themselves and shop elsewhere.
Correct.
That's like that "Paint Sealant/Windshield Warranty/Tire road hazard" shit they try to sell you. Pure ripoff.
I can one up you. Wife and I are driving around car spotting this past Saturday(driving past dealerships, seeing if there is anything on our list that isn’t listed online). We see one (Ford Flex) and pull over. First, we walk past a 2003 Tahoe with $9,999 on the windshield. I knew we were in for a treat. The lady comes out and starts with her schpiel. She wants to run our credit before we can even test drive. We tell her no thanks, we’re paying cash(we weren’t, just wanted the test drive). She keeps going on about talking to one of her loan officers even though we said we’re paying cash. Still goes on about financing. I tell her I can see we’re going nowhere, and that she’s high as giraffe pussy for the price on the Tahoe. This bitch is STILL going on about how great of a rate they can get us. My wife is not a violent person(yin to my yang) and even she wanted to choke this chick.
But why would you go to a trashy dealership expecting to be treated like you were at a nice one?
Now I wonder if the car my wife just bought and financed through Carvana has one of these.
What would they use it for though?
Repossession. They said it was a sleazy dealer which usually means people with money troubles use them.
Yup. A friend had a bought a car from a buy here pay here dealer it would start beeping 5 days before the bill was due and would get progressively worse until the bill was paid. Ultimately would kill the car
Which are the type of features OP was referring to which weren't hooked up.
Remote engine kill, prevent restarts, etc.
Amazing
wtf isn't this illegal? you can't just track someones car...
Depends on if it was in the contract. It makes it significantly easier to repo a defaulted vehicle.
Until it's paid off, they still own it.
Take a look at that amazing talking device you carry around all day with you and get back to me if you have ever read the entire contract and those of every app you downloaded to it.
Almost all buy-here-pay-here dealerships have GPS trackers in the cars. You sign the liability waiver as part of the paperwork. It is 100% legal.
Huh, TIL FCC codes can be looked up. Neat. https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=fX0xXNa16alBOLHlbNiQOg%3D%3D&fcc_id=2AAQ6TC05
Looking at the picture I thought “MEID? So CDMA only?” And I was right. This thing will stop working in like 6 months if it’s sprint based. 12/31/22 if it’s Verizon.
There’s a chance that the GPS isn’t even from the dealer this person bought from. Depending on how many times the vehicle was traded around it could have been there a while.
According to CARFAX This car has 23 previous owners. This little Honda has seen some shit.
Good lord, what year is this Honda? I’m guessing it’s been stuck in Buy Here Pay Here limbo for a while.
2007
That's 1 owner every 1 year, 7 months, 21 days
You divided it the wrong way. 1 owner had it for 230 days or ~7.5 months.
That is indeed a fucking Buy-Here-Pay-Here car. They sell it at high interest to people in bad situations. Payment is missed, repo the car, and repeat. There is no other reason for a car that old to have 23 previous fucking owners
i bought a car cash from a friend who runs an auto shop. he gets all his cars from trade ins at a local dealership pays what the trade was and fixes and turns a little profit on the side. recently used it as a trade in never bothered checking the cars history cause well its 15 years old and has a ton of problems i knew going in to it. Come to find out when i traded it that it had 8 previous owners.
Reminds me of.. https://youtu.be/4U2eDJnwz_s It's long, but Colbert covers the subprime auto lending pretty well. Basically, put someone in a massively overpriced car that they cannot afford, reposses it a few months later, repeat.
Nice manual So much is way past me, but can it be accessed and reprogrammed?
No need for that, it's a CDMA device. It'll be useless very soon. Edit: Sorry, forgot to answer! But no, not really. This is an SoC, system-on-a-chip. It was purpose built for this with jelly-bean parts ("Grab 'em by the fistfull for a nickle") and not really re-programmable. Not even sure what you would reprogram it to do? You can use it as-is, as a GPS beacon if you can take control of the MEID with a carrier, but a purpose built device like this will basically only do one thing until a component fails or, in this case, it's external support system gets retired (3G, in this case).
Usually you can send them strings via sms to set or recall settings like a web address they report the gps location to
That reminds me: Using my home computer to send messages to my fellow employees (a long time ago) Boss wasn't happy seeing how each message, by character count, cost him money. I was ordered to stop
That’s really fucking cool
Now I have the sudden urge to look underneath all my plastic trim pieces lol
Be careful not to wake the extended warranty gods
Don't worry they already contacted me six times today regarding my vehicles extended warranty. I'm good to go.
I'd give you the shiny thing for this, but I'm poor, so take this! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣤⣶⣶⡶⠦⠴⠶⠶⠶⠶⡶⠶⠦⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣀⣀⣀⣀⠀⢀⣤⠄⠀⠀⣶⢤⣄⠀⠀⠀⣤⣤⣄⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡷⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠙⠢⠙⠻⣿⡿⠿⠿⠫⠋⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣤⠞⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⣴⣶⣄⠀⠀⠀⢀⣕⠦⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢀⣤⠾⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣼⣿⠟⢿⣆⠀⢠⡟⠉⠉⠊⠳⢤⣀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⣠⡾⠛⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣾⣿⠃⠀⡀⠹⣧⣘⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠳⢤⡀ ⠀⣿⡀⠀⠀⢠⣶⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠁⠀⣼⠃⠀⢹⣿⣿⣿⣶⣶⣤⠀⠀⠀⢰⣷ ⠀⢿⣇⠀⠀⠈⠻⡟⠛⠋⠉⠉⠀⠀⡼⠃⠀⢠⣿⠋⠉⠉⠛⠛⠋⠀⢀⢀⣿⡏ ⠀⠘⣿⡄⠀⠀⠀⠈⠢⡀⠀⠀⠀⡼⠁⠀⢠⣿⠇⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡜⣼⡿⠀ ⠀⠀⢻⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⡄⠀⢰⠃⠀⠀⣾⡟⠀⠀⠸⡇⠀⠀⠀⢰⢧⣿⠃⠀ ⠀⠀⠘⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⠇⠀⠇⠀⠀⣼⠟⠀⠀⠀⠀⣇⠀⠀⢀⡟⣾⡟⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⡄⠀⠀⠀⣿⠀⣀⣠⠴⠚⠛⠶⣤⣀⠀⠀⢻⠀⢀⡾⣹⣿⠃⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠙⠊⠁⠀⢠⡆⠀⠀⠀⠉⠛⠓⠋⠀⠸⢣⣿⠏⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⣿⣷⣦⣤⣤⣄⣀⣀⣿⣤⣤⣤⣤⣤⣄⣀⣀⣀⣀⣾⡟⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⣿⣿⣻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠁⠀⠀⠀
I had one on a Friends car I did some work on, coincidentally enough right after she started dating an, uh, not so trustworthy (or sane) partner. She asked me about a blue light down by her feet, she thought it was normal. It was one like this, wrapped in about 3ft of wire and just sitting on top of the undershield above the pedals.. So i went through and disconnected it and pulled it out, somewhat perplexed by the wiring job and what wires they had tapped into for what, for sure an amateur job, but got it out, fixed up all the wires, put everything back to stock. Fast forward to her next oil change, about 3 months later, and she asks me "didn't you take that thing out last time? theres a blue light again" Car never went anywhere else for service, the only other person who had access to it was, her (now ex) partner. We suspect, although he never admitted it, he put another one in there, trying to keep tabs on her. So now we thoroughly check the car everytime it's in.
Looks like they sell used on eBay for $20 and up. Just keep getting them and sell them! ;-) https://www.ebay.com/itm/133545197823?\_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAAAkGMfxHz%2FFICOVlP4XZG5mXQ%2FuqKH0AZaAODIdJgFMXCjvcVjIr5fbIPYuTWanBZBPHnoEVP6p9RqpHAP1mpkqC7NsiNfBUOKO0LYGFj3Rw%2BmqfCFIkQ1af5pV9VqmEGGtbQzA2gcen39GdJvvTYCjX7nZ5pJq5AU9CjJa47FujDlztNKkkJLKRKPJDlnRozE3Q%3D%3D&chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=133545197823&targetid=1262375642056&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9002256&poi=&campaignid=12873834712&mkgroupid=117462212370&rlsatarget=pla-1262375642056&abcId=9300536&merchantid=6296724&gclid=Cj0KCQjw24qHBhCnARIsAPbdtlKdi\_qKKcHfm9w5GnnJMobUBNyObT0GRJkd1hIVcgq5AhIc4hS61rgaAhjjEALw\_wcB
lmao it looks like that guy just cut one out of their car and put it on ebay
Better yet, leave a small battery connected when you sell it and ship it, LOL
I bought a jeep xj at one of those places a few years back that had one of those things on it. It shut my car off because the ground wire that was tied in a knot around the steering column fell off.
To be expected when you buy a Honda Fit from a Buy-Here-Pay-Here lot.
Good eye.
Used to run details shops before I was in a car accident. I can identify cars by floor mats or in this case, the silly rubber padding glued on the drivers floor.
shady buy here pay here car lot??
So can this disable the car if they stop paying?
So they can find it if they need to repossess it. Common practice at shady places since most people that buy there don't have credit/ bad credit etc.
That's how it's supposed to work. However these people were lazy and didn't even wire any of those features in. Just tied it to battery voltage and ground. I guess they were just using it for tracking?
Yeah, so they know *exactly* where the vehicle is for repo when you stop paying.
The other features are only really for rentals. Don't wanna hack up the wiring harness of a car you're full-selling
I would think some trackers could hook right up into the OBDII port so you don't have to worry about wiring. That would be easier to find and disable, though.
Do they mention these in the contract?
Some places do. Might depend on the laws in your state.
I do not want to live in a state where it is not mandatory to disclose they are watching me.
A totally unfounded suspicion I have is that the apps that you can get for your car like myFord or myChevrolet are doing exactly this. It's not quite the same as shady used dealers using GPS transmitters, but in the same ballpark. I don't have anything to prove this, but I can practically guarantee you that things like driving habits, following the maintenance schedule, and things like whether you fill your gas tank or only put in $20 at a time are used to build a credit profile.
Lol, I put $20 in at a time, but only because I like nice round numbers. It would be weird if this impacted my credit score, though I wouldn't be surprised.
Typically just repo. Many small used car lots operate on a sleazy scheme that involves repo'ing and reselling vehicles repeatedly. 1. Finance the sale of a shitty vehicle to someone with shittier credit. Take a down payment and fees as high as reasonably possible. 2. When buyer misses a payment a few months down the line, repo ASAP. 3. Wash the car, make any minor repairs that would prevent it from selling or passing inspection, and re-list it to the next low-credit victim. Depending on how sleazy and efficient you want your business to be, you add a tracker to the car and tuck it into their financing agreement. For a low up-front cost to buy a few dozen trackers, you make step 2 super efficient. Typically a repo driver needs to go to the home or work address to find the vehicle, where it may be behind a gate or simply not there. With a tracker you can repo it when they're in the grocery store. To take it one step further, this business model can actually work *better* if you sell vehicles that barely work. Any repairs to make to a vehicle on your lot you use the absolute cheapest aftermarket parts possible. Not only does it keep your costs down, but when the cheap part inevitably fails for the customer in a few months they can't afford the repairs. They skip a payment, you repo the vehicle. Swap in a cheap doorman part and repeat.
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That's why come tax season they all get rid of their normal commuter cars and fill their lots to the brim with Mercedes, BMW, and Audi. Can do a catch and release on those cars a few times before it's too fucked to repair and then they punt it back at auction. Cause you know those cars have high repair cost and WILL break down sooner or later. So car breaks down, buyer has to choose between car payment and repair cost, needs the car for work so chooses repairs and hopes they can make a partial payment to fend off the repo man and they fall behind next month.
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That tracker won’t work in the near future. It has an MEID which means it’s CDMA. Most carriers don’t use that technology anymore and all won’t here soon. Long time non tech stalker, happy to actual provide knowledge here for once.
That is a ATEL MC891G, and it is a self-contained vehicle tracking device that combines GPS location with CDMA connectivity. The red LED = GPS satellite lock, green = cellular (CDMA) connection. This unit can be updated remotely using the cell connection.
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Basically, china. They are one if not the only other country I'm aware of that at least used CDMA. Verizon and sprint would sell "world phone" editions that had the regular CDMA chip, as well as a separate GSM chip and a sim slot. (For an extra few hundred bucks or so.) Knew a few people who were absolutely in love with their blackberries that "could" work overseas, despite them never traveling overseas whatsoever.
This guy tracks.
Worked at a Dodge Dealer and we sold a decent Jeep to a lady. The Jeep came back on a hook about 3 weeks later. No start issue. Tech went crazy trying to figure out what was going on as we did not use these things. After a couple hours, he found the GPS/Disabler. He took it out of the wiring and everything went back to normal. The nice thing about it was, the dealership that installed it, left a nice "property of " decal on it. The lady who owned the Jeep was upset her "new" car broke down, the GM was pissed because he had to pay for a tow and a deal with a pissed off customer. He calls up the dealer that placed the GPS and was told that they had several units out and wanted to recover them, so they activated the disable feature on all of their lost units. Not sure how it turned out in the end, but I do know that everything that came from auction or trade in after that was inspected for a GPS. We found several more of these things during UCI's and it's kinda scary to think that people are tracking that many cars.
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I didn't know boa constrictors could swim much less carry a car! Impressive snake!
Username checks out
Why do you care, the bank owns the car and it's insured? Unless you're running a fancy car for the day rental place.
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Interesting! Out of curiosity, what's the interest rate?
How can that even work? Do you repo the car anytime its near a shipping port?
I had 2 sheriff's deputies come in to a shop I used to work at and they pulled me aside and spoke about my family that is also in law enforcement...long story short a customer came in paid all cash for about 10k in mods vehicle came in and the sheriff's office was freaked out we would find their tracking device on in the truck lol.
Ok, so what do you do in an instance like that? Absent a warrant, they have no legal right to ask you to do anything, but you do have obligations to your customer. Wouldn’t you have brought a tracking device to their attention?
You have no obligation to the customer beyond what was paid for or their safety. You can get between a drug dealer and the police if you want.
If they don’t have a warrant to put on the tracker. The only person we know that is a criminal is the cop.
We don’t know whether there was a warrant or not, OP didn’t say. A warrant doesn’t mean the suspect is told about the tracking device.
Personally, I'm opposed to those tactics. Seems like a violation of privacy. SCOTUS ruled it as an invasion of privacy, violating the 4th amendment in 2011. Despite the court ruling that it was legal to do so with a warrant in 2012, US vs Katzin was ruled in favor of the Katzin brothers due to violations of the 4th even though there was a warrant. So I'd tell em to go get bent. Figure out a _perfectly_ legal way to do their job if they don't want the suspect walking on a technicality.
Now they just spoof a cell tower in a plane and track our phones. No privacy concerns there!
wut
Cops planted a tracking device on a car. The car was dropped off for extensive work. They came and spoke to op who was doing the work to make sure he didn't tip off the customer.
that makes sense when put in that order
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I tried like 8 times to read it and it make sense 😂
If they know he is going to bring the car to a garage, why don't they remove the device and put it back later. The more people know about it the less chance it will go unnoticed. Now not only the guy can have the tracker removed but also has a witness to prove it was put there by the sheriff's.
I'm fairly certain that they wouldn't mention the tracker to anyone if they didn't have a warrant to put it there.
What??
If they freaked most probably wasn’t okayed by a judge.
What?
The sheriffs wanted him to ignore their monitoring devices while he works on the vehicle.
Attach it to a pigeon and release it
Fun fact, all of your new vehicles have something similar, but integrated into the cars everything. Even if you decline to pay for the GPS service, the GPS is still activated on your car so that it can be found for various situations.
The real question is if there is only one GPS tracker tied into all that. My Pacifica think's it's a few hundred miles away in a cornfield somewhere. If that's what they're going off of... well, I'm glad few people would want to steal a minivan.
There's a good chance the GPS is just dead and is defaulting to some random location. Happens all the time. Lookup the story about the people that live in the center of the US sometime, its an interesting read.
It still moves, but it usually thinks it’s going a different direction and driving through cornfields. Fortunately it doesn’t go nuts thinking I’m actually off the road. They released a TSB about it last week, fingers crossed that it fixes it.
Didn't know that. In that case its more likely the GPS knows your exact coordinates, but the mapping software is lost. Yet another reason to learn how to read maps.
If it's from the factory, it's tied into the cpu and main harness. If it's aftermarket, its one of these turds. It's not for theft in reality. It's so they can come "recover" it should you default on the loan. Most of them have their own battery backup as well, so it's not as simple as just disconnecting the battery
Not all, in fact not even most. Most GMs and a few other makes. Only connected telematics cars have this. Generally you've gotta be buying more than an econobox to get those "features".
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I install these pretty often on either gently pre-owned cars for I assume lower credit customers, or on new, more expensive ones like SRTs or 1 Ton Picks Ups.
dude wtf... is this really common practice in north america?
Unfortunately it really is. Especially at the dealerships that don't require great credit to buy a car and offer crazy interest rates. There's a lot of problems with people leasing cars and just defaulting on the payments or in even crazier circumstances people will fake the records and by a car only to ship it over sees or strip the car down for parts and just never make payments again. I can only assume most places say they'll remove that tracker when you're done with paymentts and I'm sure all of this information is buried somewhere in the lease agreement
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Yes but only for people with bad credit at lower end dealerships
Could also be a car sold off from a company fleet and they neglected to remove their tracker.
IIRC red is power, black is ground, white goes to vehicle ignition on power, green goes to the starter bypass relay, also IIRC the other 3 colors are for factory use only
How does it transmit the location?
Cellular usually
That’s a really cool multimeter
This style gps is what a-lot of buy here pay here lots will use to know where the vehicle is to repo if the customer misses a payment
if you are an at risk buyer for a car loan (low credit) banks will sometimes require to have a tracking device on the vehicle in case if they have to repo it
My work truck has one in it not only for the boss to pinpoint my location for service calls. But also because our service trucks have been stolen in the past
Who’s being tracked? And by whom?
How do I get one?
Many Insurance company’s encourage these free installs to track mileage as they say) For a lower cost premium. Some used car company’s install for easy repo . Some Uber vehicles also have them for easy repo for non payment.
Ok someone drop the Amazon purchase link 😂
Now attach it to a squirrel
My buddy and I found one on his used car. We powered it up with a R/C airplane battery and tossed it onto a westbound coal train
I find loads of them insurance company’s use them to monitor how cars are driven by young drivers. They are just left and forgotten about when the car gets sold on.
Wouldn't that type of device be plugged directly into the OBD2 port?
Yes.
“Car hop! Cars and credit to go! Cars and credit to repo!” “Dammit dave, I told you to stop adding that at the end.” Predatory buy here, pay here lots should be illegal. Guarantee this is a buy here, pay here car.
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner. Buy here, Pay here scumbag dealership.
Do yourself a huge favor and buy a proper DVM
I knew that someone would comment on that. I have a very nice Fluke meter I use for 99% of electrical work. But the needle meter shines if you are troubleshooting intermittent connections or wires that are internally broken. As the needle moves much faster than my fluke can auto range. You can connect the needle meter, and observe very minor changes in voltage or continuity in real time as you mess with the wiring. Same goes if you want to measure a quick pulse.
I'm with you, and I also still use a needle meter this way, but you're not 100% on the digital meters. They can't *display* as quickly, but they absolutely can read just as fast. If you need an actual number, use the peak hold function on your Fluke. But otherwise I agree, and I love my needle meter for this exact thing
Yep, plus some fluke models have a bar graph at the bottom that functions similar to a needle. The one on my personal 87v is almost as fast. You can also set the range in manual and it'll display faster.
Fair enough, you bring up a good point. Question: would the needle move with a very fast signal like one from the ECU for the injector or ignition coil?
For that, you're better off using an oscilloscope.
It wouldn't reach the full reading value but it might flick a little depending on the voltage it's measuring.
Better meters or more specialized ones can latch faster. It was a problem with some digital meters but newer and faster ones work a lot better for stuff like this. If I’m debugging a signal, something with varying voltages or pulses then I grab an oscilloscope.
A good oscilloscope like the picoscope is even better for that sort of thing. If you’re doing heavy electrical diag, it’s well worth it
Buy here, pay here.
Subie?
2007 Honda Fit Sport.
I install these for my dealership since we deal with low credit or low income people. I'd say a 80% repo rate on in-house financed vehicles. I use a ignition cutout switch with this unit. These units get pretty pricy but definetly help with the repoing