Well folks, it finally happened. The screen in your pickup truck… your last bastion of peace from the chaos of unskippable advertisements… now plays popup ads. Not even subtle ones. We’re talking full-dash, head-unit-commandeering infomercial panels in your RAM 1500, like you’re driving a Times Square billboard on wheels.
I would raise such hell at the dealership if anything like this happened to me.
But I prefer my cars with NO INTERNET, no touch screens, and very low tech (easier to fix).
GM was talking pretty publicly about doing this a couple years ago and there was a mild dust up over it. They also mentioned enthusiasm over the potential revenue to come from mining and selling driver data (which got them sued) . Last I heard about it was late 2023 or early 2024, so it seems their new data team.has been busy.
Don kid yourselves though, if GM is doing it, everyone else is or will be.
Never buy a new car
OH. And espn thought of this in 2011
2022 model and about every three months I’ll get one for Sirius XM or something related to that. It’s only when the vehicle starts up and initializes. Its annoying but Ive been on the Internet since the late 90’s, my ability to practice the 5 D’s: dip, dodge, duck, dive and dodge for popups is muscle memory.
You dodge twice?
For reference, for anyone who isn’t familiar with the 2004 movie Dodgeball.
If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.
Are you kidding? Always dodge twice!
My 2025 ram has never done this… not saying it won’t ever but… we’ve heard the same stories about all the manufacturers.
How is this street legal? Can’t use your phone but can have popup ads?
It’s okay cuz it makes some rich guy money
Oh no don’t worry it’s fine cause it’s only at start up. If we just keep moving the bar of what is acceptable everything is fine.
Driver distraction is a leading cause of accidents, including fatal ones. This is a total dealbreaker, should be illegal, and should result in Chrysler getting sued into nonexistence.
Apart from how insane it is to put obtrusive ads on a car dashboard, having to link your phone to your car and then call a phone number to opt out of touchscreen display ads is 🤯
There is going to be a reason that they’ve set it up like that.
Someday in a few years there will be an accident in the opt out service that routes 95% of attempts into a 500 error screen. All they have to do is underpay and never check on the server admin for that service for years until they don’t care.
It wasn’t asking them to pair their phone to call the number to opt out, it was asking them to pair their phone so they could call the number to buy parts for their truck. You’d have to manually dial the number to opt out.
At that point, I would opt out with a hammer.
This is why I’m not going to buy RAM / Dodge / Chrysler/ Jeep / anything Stellantis owns, and this is why I’m not buying any new car with “smart” / “built-in” junk.
I don’t know of any car that has an actually good head unit. Its either garbage because its a giant touch screen, making it super difficult to navigate without looking (that’s why all the controls in an airplane are different shapes and sizes), or its just a hub for you to run Android Auto / apples equivalent.
Now ads? Ffs…
My Honda civic 2012’s head unit firmware isn’t that bad.
It tells your input source, volume, if your trunk is open, if your tires are fucked, and includes a hookup for a backup camera that only made it into other models, making it ezpz to retrofit.
Could be a lot worse. Wouldn’t touch a modern one with a ten foot pole lmao.
“Front left tyre is fucked.” “Your fucking trunk is open.”
Now that I would not mind having shown when starting the car.
Actually the bastard won’t tell you what specific tire. Just that one of them has low air pressure.
Kind of a dick move since there’s no way the computer can’t tell which tire it is when they’re four separate sensors.
Wake up sheeple!
Feel like ads in cars should be illegal, but the US doesn’t have a government that believes in good things.
That’s not true. Our government cares about something. They care about ads.
If it’s like the other cars with this same shit then it only plays when fully stopped.
And that somehow makes it better?
Better, as in less bad, but not good.
I never said it was an improvement.
Absolutely?
Absolutely fucking not.
My attention is not free and they have no fucking right to my attention.
And second, fuck them for thinking they do.
Have you ever seen a smart person driving a DUI1500?
Imagine getting a bud light ad while you’re blowing into your ignition interlock device
That’s perfect timing, since in a moment the car will be started, and they can resume drinking…
The Ram 1500 is the official car of “more than one, but not so many they take your license away” – both DUIs and beers before going to work.
Time to hack / root cars…
“You wouldn’t download a car (firmware)”. Hold my beer…
To me this looks like something potentially worse than just an ad. It looks like this text might be configurable by the dealership. I wonder if all of that gets screened and approved by people that work for the carmaker. Otherwise we will eventually see some funny stuff show up in people’s trucks.
I remember a while ago when this started appearing in chargers and they tried to act like it was an accident.
“Accident”
This is the defacto stance of advertising agencies doing horrible things.
“OOHHHH, You mean you DIDN’T want ads on your coffee maker or vibrator??? Our bad. This was a technical error we will fix immediately!”
Back at the office:
So it seems people don’t like ads on their vibratory which means they are viewing them. Let’s wait a couple of years for the anger to die down then do it again.
They don’t admit it’s a mistake, call it an error, or try to fix. They call it a feature.
Vote with wallet
It’s an “opportunity to see special offers.”
They’re aggressive parasites.
