Automakers (especially GM) may be reporting to your insurance co

aja8888 said:
The way it's going, I may decide to go back to my '55 Chevy or "65 Corvette. No computer stuff and classic car insurance is dirt cheap.

Or maybe pick up a cheap Valiant with the slant 6 and add A/C.
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I wonder how easy it is to find a mechanic who knows how to do an old-school "tune up". Set points, dwell, timing, adjust valves?

I know they are out there, but I imagine there are many mechanics out there who never touched one.

-ERD50
 
ERD50 said:
I wonder how easy it is to find a mechanic who knows how to do an old-school "tune up". Set points, dwell, timing, adjust valves?

I know they are out there, but I imagine there are many mechanics out there who never touched one.

-ERD50
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I don't need to find my own mechanic, I grew up with these cars and still have a dwell meter and timing light. But, any classic car club has these resources, and there are plenty of active clubs.

But if one doesn't want to stay "Old Skool", you can convert a V8 to fuel injection and electronic ignition pretty simply these days! We did that last year to my friend's 1956 Ford sedan.
 
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FLSUnFIRE said:
Apparently need to take 20+ seconds to get to 60mph to not trigger it.
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If I took 20 seconds to get to 60 mph in my Porsche I think it would automatically call for a service check... and probably list itself for sale to get a more appropriate owner! :LOL:
 
When we lived in the UK I was appalled by the level of traffic monitoring. Cameras everywhere. Some were speed at the moment cameras and others were "average speed" where they take you picture in one place, take another several miles down the road and then fine you if you were over 50mph average speed.

I hated it. Once got a ticket because my tires got into a bike lane. Not my car mind you. My left tires during rush hour. Ridiculous.

And regular commuters, of course, knew where the spot-speed cameras were. So people would jam on the gas between cameras and then slam on the brakes before they hit the lines on street the cameras used for pics. Lunacy.

Of course, these are the same geniuses who decided that at many (most?) intersections they expand to four lanes before you get to the light and then squeeze everyone back down to two lanes on the other side of the intersection. I'm sure some queuing-theory economist in their transportation department said this was a good idea. Perhaps he should actually be required to drive a car before making these decisions

Once this stuff starts its impossible get the government off of the drip-drip-drip of money. They grow like weeds. PA has introduced these cameras in construction zones for safety. Yeah, they are so concerned about safety that they post a tiny sign noticing the are monitoring the construction. For the most part they just ring the register.
 
ERD50 said:
I wonder how easy it is to find a mechanic who knows how to do an old-school "tune up". Set points, dwell, timing, adjust valves?

I know they are out there, but I imagine there are many mechanics out there who never touched one.

-ERD50
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I suspect most of them if they have been in the business a few years. Easy enough a caveman can do it. I still have my feeler gauges, Sun timing light ( a thing of beauty) and a dwell meter.

There was a time, not long ago, when I could replace the points and condenser, all 8 plugs and check/set the timing easily within ~30 mins on a 60's collectable.


That was back in the day when you could drop hand tools in the engine bay and they would actually fall to the floor everytime. (Shadetree mechanic humor:))
 
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Many cars are now equipped with a system that can read the speed limit signs, supplemented with mapping information. The image recognition is straightforward at this point. It will be increasingly harder to make unauthorized modifications without voiding a warranty, due to the side effects of protections built for cybersecurity purposes, and the consolidation of control subsystems into consolidated domains (or potentially eventually, zones).
 
RetMD21 said:
The NYT article says that they share only odometer data.
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I think that's all they admitted to, but I think they're collecting additional info as well based on some research I did. I don't have a Suburu, so I was just looking into it a little for someone else.
 
GenXguy said:
I think that's all they admitted to, but I think they're collecting additional info as well based on some research I did. I don't have a Suburu, so I was just looking into it a little for someone else.
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although not collecting is best, collecting but not reporting is better than reporting, right?
 
aja8888 said:
The Dogs at GM enrolled me when I bought my Bolt. Never told me. So I just figured out how to dis-enroll and did it. I really don't want third parties tracking me. :mad:

Thanks RetMD21 for bringing this to light!
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Many of us have elected to install the transponder I. Our cars and pay insurance based on usage and other factors. I am a safe driver and have saved a lot of money with this system
 
With regards to 0-60, I wonder how often the average person actually DOES do it in under 20 seconds? On surface streets, even if you're the lead car at a traffic light, when it turns green, very few people are going to accelerate to 60 in under 20 seconds, if at all.

Now merging onto an interstate or other limited access highway, that can be a different story. But even there, I'm not doing it from a dead stop and then punching it to get up to merging speed. I'm usually entering the on-ramp at whatever speed I took the curve leading up to it, and then accelerating up to speed. Even in situations where I'd have to stomp on it to merge, I'm often stomping it, starting at around 30-40 mph, and not from a dead stop.

I was thinking about this one day last week, when I went on a grocery run, and took my 2023 Charger. The car's probably good for 0-60 in about 5.7 seconds. Not once did I run into a situation where I had to even stomp on it, let alone do a 0-60 run. Heck, I don't think I even got up to 60!

So, that has me wondering...do those tracking devices only penalize you for a "true" 0-60, or do they get on you every time you stomp the gas pedal too hard for their liking? In some situations, it's actually safer to go faster, such as passing a slower car, merging on a highway and getting up to the flow of traffic, and so on. So unless the tracking knows the actual reason WHY you stomped on the gas pedal, it seems pretty useless from a true safety standpoint. In fact, it sounds like it could encourage you to drive dangerously (i.e., pulling out slowly into traffic and risking getting rear-ended) in some situations.
 
same downsides as letting your insurance company track your driving with one of those devices that plugs into your ODBII port.

e.g. some idjit cuts in front of you then slows down to make a turn so you have to stomp on the brakes

which is penalized by both w/o any of the above context
 
ncbill said:
same downsides as letting your insurance company track your driving with one of those devices that plugs into your ODBII port.

e.g. some idjit cuts in front of you then slows down to make a turn so you have to stomp on the brakes

which is penalized by both w/o any of the above context
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Exactly, good driver or not, it's counted against you. Giving your info away to be used for evaluating your "performance" is not a great idea.
 
Andre1969 said:
With regards to 0-60, I wonder how often the average person actually DOES do it in under 20 seconds? On surface streets, even if you're the lead car at a traffic light, when it turns green, very few people are going to accelerate to 60 in under 20 seconds, if at all.

I was thinking about this one day last week, when I went on a grocery run, and took my 2023 Charger. The car's probably good for 0-60 in about 5.7 seconds. Not once did I run into a situation where I had to even stomp on it, let alone do a 0-60 run. Heck, I don't think I even got up to 60!

So, that has me wondering...do those tracking devices only penalize you for a "true" 0-60, or do they get on you every time you stomp the gas pedal too hard for their liking? In some situations, it's actually safer to go faster, such as passing a slower car, merging on a highway and getting up to the flow of traffic, and so on. So unless the tracking knows the actual reason WHY you stomped on the gas pedal, it seems pretty useless from a true safety standpoint. In fact, it sounds like it could encourage you to drive dangerously (i.e., pulling out slowly into traffic and risking getting rear-ended) in some situations.
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Well you did say average... But, in my case I'm doing 0-60+ in the 6 to 7 second range every time I leave the house. And much quicker if I see traffic coming. Of course the speed limit in front of my house is 70mph (and most are doing 80) so if I don't want to impede traffic and/or get run over, I better get my a** in gear.

So I'm not going to try and explain why I'm doing this to a insurance company when most don't.
 
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When we bought our current Corvette new in 2017, the dealer activated the data reporting system without telling us. For the first month I was driving the new car like Grandpa, to gently break in the engine, transmission, brakes, etc. But at the end of that month I got the report and it was shocking- something like 110 instances of excessive acceleration, 95 instances of hard braking, etc. Really bizarre, for someone feather-footing around town.

I immediately called GM/Onstar and told them to disenroll me and delete the existing data. The agent easily agreed to drop us from the system, but said he couldn't delete the old data. I told him I wanted to speak to someone who could do that, eventually I was connected to someone who said he could and did delete the info, but I have no way to verify that.
It's now been almost 7 years and I drive the car like it was meant to be driven, neither the police nor State Farm have come calling and so I think I'm actually deleted. Since I drive the car in competition occasionally, those numbers would give the nannies heart failure.

On the Corvette Forum website, several people have posted about wanting to disable the reporting system in the car, apparently it can be done but is not easy.
 
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Gearhead Jim said:
.....It's now been almost 7 years and I drive the car like it was meant to be driven, neither the police nor State Farm have come calling and so I think I'm actually deleted. Since I drive the car in competition occasionally, those numbers would give the nannies heart failure.....
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:) It seems to me to be particularly idiotic of GM not to carve out a Corvette exception. There have been reports about Mary Barra planning that GM would get over $100/ month in subscription fees from owners and I imagine that they have a target for data sales per car as well. I don't see a bright future for the company.
 
Didn’t BMW try out a subscription plan for ongoing use of car features like heated seats? Or was that just a trial ballon press release to see how the driving public would take to the idea?
 
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