Nothing quite says “high-performance muscle car” like a popup ad for a Mopar Extended Warranty covering your whole center console. That’s right, Dodge Charger owners are now experiencing an exciting new feature: pop-up ads that appear every time the vehicle stops at a light. This absolute garbage feature was spotted in the wild, take a look here.
Next update: play Ozempic commercials every time you stop at a light.
You do realize this is based on a almost half-a-year old reddit post? What has happens in the meantime?
Note to self, never buy a Stelantis car. Not that I have ever considered that anyway!
4 months is “almost” half a year, I guess.
Point of the post is that this popup ad thing has expanded from Jeep (small brand) into Dodge (large brand) from the parent company (Stellantis). What has happened in the meantime is that a bunch of other Dodge drivers has confirmed the issue is widespread and difficult to disable.
(Ope: I got fact-checked, turns out Jeep sells more vehicles per year than Dodge. I’m old, and apparently Dodge has lost a ton of market share since last I checked!
If y’all are concerned about recency, I updated the article to include more images of the popup ads, including one from as recently as 3 days ago.)
That is even worse. So it has been ongoing for at least 4 months now.
Yeah, that’s how I read it :)
Jeep sells more than twice as many vehicles per year as Dodge. They are not the “small brand.”
Makes sense. I was surprised that Jeep was referred to as the “small brand”.
Yeah, maybe 50 years ago but with the popularity of SUVs Jeep is dominant at Stellantis. They sell almost as many Wranglers as Dodge sells vehicles in total.
seems like 80% of people are off road cosplayers these days.
So I drive a Bronco that’s 99% stock. I have a roof rack that I added. I do go offroading, but we also have it to tow behind our motorhome since the bronco is flat towable.
I ran into this guy who’s in a new (last 5 years), heavily modded Wrangler. He has the fenders cut away, huge winch on the front, etc… I ask him if he has any favorite spots around here and he says “nah I don’t really get out and do that anymore.”
Thanks for the extremely helpful analogy
Where are others confirming this? Not in the article.
Im in a challenger every week and have never seen an ad on the screen ever.
Is your Challenger using the dealer installed SiriusXM? That would be for new and CPO vehicles. That seems to be what it is linked to.
Y’all are… surprisingly hard to persuade! I thought sharing a literal image of popup ads in the car would be the proof y’all needed to believe it was happening.
I mean, there are… more images of it happening…? Like, damn. Here’s an instance of it happening in a Challenger.
Y’all are… surprisingly hard to persuade! I thought sharing a literal image of popup ads in the car would be the proof y’all needed to believe it was happening.
people are being rightfully skeptical of an auto news site using old reddit posts to promote themselves on lemmy. a single instance does not show how widespread the issue is. if you want to be a journalist do better.
… Thanks for the downvote, boss XD
Have a great day.
I’m glad people are made aware of it!
My point was, if the ads are still pushed to cars, I’m surprised FuelArc used a 4 month old reddit post as reference. Someone most have contacted Dogde, Jeep, or Stelantis for a comment on this.
Someone most have contacted Dogde, Jeep, or Stelantis for a comment on this.
A Stellantis spokesperson told Fortune in a statement that “a temporary software glitch affected the ability to instantly opt out in a few isolated cases, though instant opt-out is the standard for all our in-vehicle messages. Our team had already identified and corrected the error, and we are following up directly with the customer to ensure the matter is fully resolved.”
Welp. That sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Of the class action variety.
Don’t worry, on the mountain of paperwork you sign when you buy a car there’s probably an arbitration clause somewhere.
Oh, I thought you meant a lawsuit from me. When I, a pedestrian am crossing the street with my walk signal, when suddenly, the guy at the opposite side of the intersection just starts driving at a red light because he was distracted by McDonalds. Didn’t even realize his foot was on the pedal, and now I got run over.
I’m pretty sure the point of showing the ads only at intersections is, that the car needs to be in a standstill
So they kinda give you “entertainment”, while you’re waiting
Obviously a completely shit move, but I’m afraid, we can’t hit them for safety issues here
Maybe more relevant would be, that people will miss the green light or produce more traffic jams, because that they’re clear to move on
(Or did I miss something how/when they show their stupid ads?)
They really don’t make them like they used to.
adds Dodge to the no buy list
Which one is NOT on that list?
For me right now? Mazda. They have always been enjoyable to drive, and if you look at their interiors in everything from the MX-5 and Mazda3 up to their big family SUVs, you see physical controls in the foreground and a moderately sized infotainment screen up and back. Good location for glancing at it, and not for using a touch screen for everything in the car.
I’ve been commuting in a 2012 mazda3 for several years and it’s been fun to drive and mechanically reliable. Also very fuel efficient with one of the early Skyactiv branded drivetrains.
Public transportation subscription.
Damn, I would be pissed if my car started showing ads. I hope this enshitification doesn’t spread.
Narrator: “It spread. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. Really you wouldn’t believe how much it spread. It spread like Domino’s™ all new creamy red sauce on only the freshest of dough seasoned wi—”
*car crashes*
Dodge dropped 29% in sales in the USA last year, and something tells me, this isn’t going to have folks lining up to buy Chargers in 2025. Watch the free market* take care of this one.
*Unless you’re Tesla, in which case the market costs $277 million to purchase.
Free market doesn’t work if all car brands are owned by like 5 companies and all of them agreeing to add ads.
That is why we need to regulate cooperations as well as enforce them properly.I think that has more to do with ending production on the LX Platform Challenger / Charger tbh. They haven’t quite managed to gather the same hype among domestic car nerds with their replacements as those old boats had.
Hornet, Journey, Charger. That’s it. Hornet is a piece of cheap, charger has ads. Journey…?
Journey exists for rental fleets.
Their new $85k Charger will surely save them…
Also known as how to ensure a robust used car market until they pull their head out of their ass.
Oh, look…!!
Yet another good reason I’ll not buy a new car. 🙄
Perfectly happy with my current 03 model thank you…
Narrator: And that’s when he hit a speed bump, and the whole engine just fell out.
I said that about my older reliable car. Until I was rear ended at a stop light and it was totaled. During a time that used cars were more expensive than new. (I did find an 8 year old Corolla with high miles and lots of body damage for $18k though!)
I went without a car for nearly a year. Had to buy one when my partner was forced back to work in the office.
Peeking at the used market, it’s still not great where I am. Better than 2022-23 at least.
A wreck like that is my one fear…
Doesn’t take much of a hit to “total” an older vehicle like that. 🤷♂️
It really doesn’t. I also dislike the fact it can be more difficult to find some parts for older cars too, so even if you wanted to salvage, it may not be viable.
Haven’t run into the “finding parts” problem…
That may be a regional feature though. Driven older vehicles my whole life and never had too much trouble finding parts… even from junk yards if necessary.
I have many junk yards within 50 miles, most within 20. 🤷♂️
And I’m familiar with local/online companies that provide NOS as well as new fab for older vehicles.
That happened to me, too. During covid pricing, I had a 1992 Ford Taurus that I absolutely loved (and hated, but that’s a different story), and got rear-ended on the freeway at the tail end of 2021. Wasn’t severe and the car was drivable, but insurance still totaled it. The kicker is that even though I only paid $1000 for the car, insurance gave me a whopping $4700.
I managed to snag my current 2008 Toyota Sienna for $4500 when most were going for $6-8k. It needed some work at first, but it’s a solid car and serves as our family hauler and handles multiple roadtrips a year like a boss (split custody, yay 🙄).
Seriously! My 2003 has a CD player and a tape deck
😂 🤣
Yeah, mine did too…
I updated the “entertainment deck” to a unit with aux, usb, sd card, and Android Auto (which is what I really wanted).
All good!!
Is that an 8-track tape deck? 😉
My ‘15 car is amazing except for the fact that it only has slow-ass laggy Bluetooth and NO AUX JACK
The removal of 3.5mm jacks with no simple, universal, physical way to connect an audio device has been such a thorn in my side.
Excited to see what they’ll do with Revanced for cars.
I get that this is the point of the article, but wow seeing an ad in your car makes it look cheap as fuck.
There’s a chance I might tolerate it on a rental, but not on something I own. Absolutely not.
Welp, my days of not buying Dodge cars seem to be coming to a middle.
Fuck this made me giggle
For that rhyme you deserve a nickel!
Better than a twisted nipple.
You sure? Sounds like a nice tickle.
Be careful, it might be illegal to not buy one.
Took my Dodge vehicle in for service. They wanted my email address “so they can get in touch with me if I don’t answer the phone.” I gave it to them.
It took less than half a day for the first spam mail to hit my inbox.
…do you not have a fake email you can log into?
I bet someone has “anyoneemailingmeisacunt@gmail.com”
Actually tried it, seems like gmail doesnt like swear words
They wanted my email address “so they can get in touch with me if I don’t answer the phone.”
“Lol no”
Then walk out.
DuckDuckGo offers a nice relay service; you get a duck.com email address that mails through to your regular email, but it strips out all the trackers and other bullshit. It’s good for situations like that.
Mozilla has one too. And Fastmail. You can invent a different email address for every site, then block the ones that get spammed.
Pro-tip: Fastmail integrates with 1Password to generate random emails and save them.
Also with bitwarden!
Use addy.io and support an open source dev!
Weren’t they going to discontinue both the charger and challenger?
I thought they discontinued the challenger in 1986. The whole brand kinda blew up.
Theres a core memory! Those 80s challengers were real pieces of shit. Ignoring that, challenger space craft have about the same longevity. Too soon?
If you disconnect the car’s cellular network, do the ads go away?
If you can find an antenna it can be blocked or disabled. Basic instructions for a faraday cage can be found very easy.
Yes, but now the car can’t pull data to operate the gas tank.
Operate the gas tank? What new feature did they add that requires a container of liquid to be networked?
gas-as-a-subscription service. For $300 a month you can get gas at select service stations at no cost to you. Terms and conditions apply.
I can feel the sarcasm but it would be remiss to ignore the fact that a lot of manufacturers are trying out subscription models. I would like to think of HP here and there ink service they offer with their printers but for cars.
This is like shooting a hole in the bottom of the boat so the leaking water has somewhere to go out.
If this ever happens to any car I buy, it’d be going right back to the dealer.
I bet you might have a court case if you could prove that the dealer had disabled this advertising “feature” during your test drive.
I would drive it straight back into the dealership through their display room window.
No you wouldn’t.
Of course he would. If he stopped outside he’d have to watch another fucking ad.
Is this your first time on the Internet? Welcome!
