Long story short, in 2022 I bought out my 2019 XC60 lease and it went to my parents; in July they had a second AC repair under extended warranty which required removing the entire dash, and the dealership removed a well-hidden GPS tracker: black box with a green label that just had a manufacture date, IMEI, and FCC ID. No branding, this was not a consumer-facing KARR Alarm, which this dealer was familiar with, but one of Acrisure’s fleet management trackers.
When I determined it was an Acrisure product, I emailed their customer support (support AT acrisurepg DOT com). They requested the last 8 digits of the VIN, and confirmed the tracker had been active until the lease inception date, and was deactivated / no data collected after that. I had them run the VIN of my current Volvo and they confirmed none of their products were hiding under the dash.
My guess is that the originating dealer, who is not the dealer that leased me the car, installs these on every car?? I’ve seen a good number of KARR and Lojack installed after a car lands at a dealership, and none of them went through the hassle of taking the entire dashboard apart.
If anyone has a good recommendation for a commercial service that sweeps your car for unexpected signals, that isn’t a Private Investigator who will “figure it out”, I would gladly accept that. Checking wiring diagrams and pulling fuses, and ruling out all the built-in radios / mics / backup batteries is a complete PITA. I’m not quite ready to turn my garage into a Faraday cage, and the built-in Google OS still won’t support an OS-level VPN.
The problem is the car itself sends out cell signals, so a ‘sweep’ might not find it. the dealer is probably pretty ticked that the Post Sale guy forgot to pull it out as that cost them $$$
The easiest way is look under the dash at the OBDII as most trackers are plugged there.
If the Telematics are enabled, yes. You can stop that, at least temporarily. It also has built-in Wifi.
These types of trackers don’t plug into the OBD-II port, I have downloaded data with my scantool on the last six cars including the one that had the tracker installed. It had it’s own GPS, cellular, and a pass-through power connection (talk about dark current drain).
Nothing - it wasn’t a consideration until they dug a mystery GPS tracker out of the XC60. The dealership was the most hysterical if we’re ranking the overreaction.
My mind went there first. The current Volvo is a demo and I suspected it might have one, it did not.
When I realized the type of tracker it was, I knew it wasn’t present because of me — it’s inventory control. Captive and selling dealer both confirmed they didn’t install it. Acrisure won’t say who their customer is which is the expected response.
Dealerships often installed KARR systems across their inventory and left the hardware connected after buyers declined the paid feature. The system remained in the vehicle in a deactivated state instead of being removed.
Researchers found that deactivated systems still broadcast and accept Bluetooth signals while the vehicle is running and for up to 10 minutes after it’s turned off. An attacker could activate the KARR system remotely before sending additional commands.
