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I was hooking up my direct-to-battery wires today for my battery tender and noticed two wires on the terminals that were definitely not factory. Curious, I followed the wire and pulled this out from under the battery case where it was stuck on the low side. What the heck? A little Google action shows it's a GPS Tracker. The manufacturer says its used for fleet management or sometimes requested by finance companies to they know where the vehicle is located. Now I know why they let you go on test drives by yourself, they know exactly where you are and how fast you are going in their car with a high degree of confidence.
I called my sales guy and he verified its in all their new cars (even the Macan I bought from them three months earlier). He said I can toss it if I want, they pay $ 399 for 3 years monitoring, all done at the dealership level. At first I was going to toss it, then remembered my insurance company gives an additional discount if there is a GPS tracker on the vehicles, so I'll leave it on for now, but after three years probably not.
It's attached directly to your battery in the car if you want to see if yours has one.
We have so many cars come in the shop with a GPS tracker installed. We always ask the customer if they know about it. They never do and they always have us remove it.
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I wouldn't disconnect it... take it back to the dealer and have them remove it. Let them pay a tech to remove it and assume the risk (not that there's any risk, but it makes a point).
Porsche will take any path available to avoid a warranty claim, so much so that adding radiator protectors is a no no in their eyes. To me this part has the potential as an easy out for anything electrical in nature warranty wise.
As for the dealership.. IMO unless they disclose this tracker (this is a dealership level tracker) and you've approved of it (you may have in your purchase agreement), they've exposed themselves legally. I'm no proponent of lawsuits, but this pushes my hot button for privacy.
If it’s used for COVID test drives, I suspect that the dealer forgot to remove it when they sold it to you and they gave you a cute CYA answer. It’s also possible that they simply charged you for the device/service somewhere in your paperwork, because car dealers don’t eat costs at the $400 level.
It also could have been a requirement of your lender. That being said, your car already has a system to aid the repo man — it’s called Porsche Connect. GM invented OnStar for this very purpose. You don’t have to subscribe to either for the automaker to locate your car. There’s a reason that this hardware is included in every car nowadays.
A GPS tracker where you don’t have access to the data isn’t anything more than a spying tool. At least, your dealer fessed up to it. If it wasn’t theirs, it could have been a prying spouse, private investigator, or law enforcement.
01-03-2021, 07:11 PM
Surprise! GPS tracker in my new 2021 992 S Cab
