- cross-posted to:
- cars@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- cars@lemmy.world
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.
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“Glitch”
More like
“Let’s see how people react”
Didn’t another car manufacturer have a similar “glitch” with in-car ads fairly recently? This story feels so familiar.
Yes, Jeep, owned by Stellantis who also owns Dodge.
Two weeks ago it was Jeep. Now it’s Dodge. This is how it creeps. Are both those companies owned by Crystler?
Yes, along with Ram pickup trucks and IIRC Fiat, somehow.
Chrysler Corporation (Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram) was owned by Daimler (which also owned Mercedes-Benz) from 1998-2007, then operated on their own again (and spun off Ram from Dodge) until 2014 when they were acquired by Fiat, forming Fiat Chrysler Automotive (aka FCA). FCA and PSA (Peugeot) merged in 2021 to form Stellantis.
There you go.
…to the loud apathy of us GM owners.
Plus Peugeot, Citroën and Opel.
It’s called Stellantis now.
Ask your doctor if Stellantis is right for you…
…may cause watery eyes, small penis, or death by fire.
Yeah, zero surprise seeing this happen to Chrysler/Stellantis cars first.
If you just do a standing burnout at every light will it not pop up?
They’ll start using the traction control sensors to circumvent this life hack
The folk with the random alphanumeric username, asking the real questions
Oh, look…!!
Yet another good reason I’ll not buy a new car. 🙄
Perfectly happy with my current 03 model thank you…
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
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.
Is that an 8-track 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!!
Narrator: And that’s when he hit a speed bump, and the whole engine just fell out.
I’ve been debating getting a new car after paying a ton to fix up my old one but now I think I’ll keep her forever.
Anybody got a lead on a rebuild turbo for a 2.0L TSI?
Same boat, big bill this time though. Weighing my options. Not really liking the price, quality, or connectivity of newer vehicles…
Blows my mind that this kind of stuff isn’t a safety issue… I guess as long as it’s “touch-free” it’s not considered distracted driving lol
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The Muse’s cleavage knows what’s up.
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Greater than the sum of their parts, love it.
@KayLeadfoot
Maybe try uBlock Origin on that “muscle” car?If we had actual regulation here this would be illegal for distracting driving.
Illegal to look at phone (I know everyone does it and isn’t enforced, but still illegal on paper) but not illegal to watch this short message from our sponsors?
I hate living through a bad joke. Much rather read about this shit and laugh then wondering what the next stupid thing is.
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This is old and they’ve already said it’s a bug. Stellantis sucks for sure though.
Be less gullible
“It’s just a bug, trust me bro”
Yeah OK huge corporation. The followup question is why this mechanism exists at all if it was never intended to be used in this fashion.
The ad was most likely supposed to be shown once. Not literally every single time the car stops at traffic lights. Car companies may be stupid, but not this stupid.
As if that is any better. My dashboard is not their fucking ad space
You know, I always expected Tesla to be the first to do this kind of shit, but never underestimate Stellantis’s commitment to be at the bottom.
I’d get rid of that car so fast it would make your head spin. There is no car I’d put up having this garbage to keep
Well I’d put up with an ad-driven free version of a Nissan GTR or so. Easily. But not if I paid for it properly.
Absolutely not. The “I’d deal with it if I get [nice thing] for less” mindset is the entire reason we’re in this situation to begin with. Companies see that people will put up with it, realize data collection from that is where the real money is made, then it leaches into everything else.
Fuck ads entirely.
What if you cannot afford the [nice thing] normally otherwise?
Then don’t get it.
If you must have it, find something equivalent, maybe a bit cheaper and older, that isn’t ad-supported.
Barf
Been doing this with Jeeps already. They claimed it was a mistake.
https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/jeep-in-car-ads-popup-stellantis-software-revenue/
“Oops! We accidentally incorporates ads into our software! It was an honest mistake…”
I’ve never wanted to go smashing car windows in a lot until now
You right. This is the second time I’ve felt the urge.
Yeah, happened to me last week. I wanted to do a simple bugfix and next thing I knew I had implemented, configured and released an ad solution to our software…
Whether it is a feature or a bug depends on how their sales numbers look for Q1 2025.
Call it Schroedinger’s bug.
Also known as how to ensure a robust used car market until they pull their head out of their ass.
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 in the same way Elon Musk has got almost 6 inches to work with.
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.
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.”
That is even worse. So it has been ongoing for at least 4 months now.
Yeah, that’s how I read it :)
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.”
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.
