Can the data recorder in our cars be disabled???


The very front of our owners manual says it has the black box in it.

 

hmmm....my owner's manual mentions nothing of a black box.

 

I believe they call it: event data recorder.
1st page in the manual.

 

i wont f with that

 

Oy, this raises some privacy issues.

 

"Beware if you disconnect the event data recorder you will be violating an obscure federal vehicle safety law and in the event of a serious accident your insurance company will have grounds to dispute payment.".....claymore

you going to have to provide your source.... because i did a quick search of black boxs and it seems that each state has it own laws and some states the laws are pending. however, did not see any federal vehicle safety law.

Also read a news article (from 2002) that said black boxs will be in 2007 car models.

 

So the question is: how can you get into the data recorder and erase data?

 

There is no way to erase it. The only way they can see the data recorded on the device is to get it out of the car, and is ONLY used in the event of a crash. Think of it like the black box in airplanes. Why are you so worried about whats on it?

 

I think a major crash is more than enough reason to look at the black box. They are only looking at it if something happened. If you did nothing wrong then it will prove it. If you caused the crash then you deserve whats coming.

 

Wasn't a car rental company busted by the Feds for charging additional fees to renters that broke spped limits (recorded by the rental companies installed black boxes)?
Also check out the book Fatal Exit - it has all the poop on black boxes and how they are NOT currently illegal to remove or tamper with pending some kind of sepreme court decision

 

What privacy issues. Unless you have a really long driveway, or your own private racetrack, aren't you driving on PUBLIC roads?

 

I think you guys are overthinking this.

The black box in the car is mainly used to record the minute detail before your car malfunctions/fails. For example, if you misshift and blow up your engine, the dealer can tap into the black box and check whether or not there was abuse. The black box will give RPM data and throttle data. I don't think EVERY detail is in there. But it's just for the dealers to decide whether to honor or void your warranty.

 

I will admit there is a potential for a "slippery-slope" argument here. I have a 6GB microdrive in my PDA the size of a compact flash card. I also have a 60GB iPod that is no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Although now the boxes write over the data on a very short cycle, there is the potential for them to store all kinds of data, for a longer period of time.

If you think about it, though, the "Big Brother" argument doesn't really hold water, unless things have changed since I went away. In any state that has a turnpike, the potential for data acquisition has existed since those turnpikes opened. Every ticket is time-stamped. If the Ohio Highway Patrol wanted to (and it seems my home state is one of the more moving-violation crazed ones there is) they could install simple time, speed, distance software in the toll booths that would issue you a speeding ticket if your average speed between the entry and exit points exceeds the posted maximum. If that is being done today, it's news to me. If not, why would the presence of a black box in your car worry anybody?

 

do they have this black box in the canadian versions?

 

These "black boxes" are standard in ALL automobiles.

 

Hello,

First Post. :-)

Technically you don't own you're vehicle if you're financing it, the title holder does, i.e. the bank. You're insurance is not for you, it's for the vehicle, usually required by the title holder. What we run into is when the title holder doesn't like the fact that you just destroyed their property in an improper and illegal manner. That being said, most of us contact our insurance companies when we get in an accident, not the bank, right

So the adjuster looks the vehicle over and in a "Serious accident" as someone mentioned, however that be define, one can assume they may want to pulled the data from the "Black Box". Most insurance Policies state that if your vehicle has any kind of data recording device relating to safety and it has been disable by anyone other than the dealer, you're policy will be terminated. I'm almost positive my progressive policy states that, a little lite reading.

The bigger issue is that once you are in an accident where you are at fault or not any officer on the scene has the right to search your vehicle to determine the cause of the accident and confiscate anything in it. I know it's that way in SC and most other states. But as always, check your local laws.

Black Box's have been around for a while. I believe Lexus/Toyota, BMW, Volvo, Mercendez, and other luxury vehicle manufactuers have been using them for sometime.

BTW...I don't own a Fit yet, but I want an Orange Sport MT

 

just leave the damn thing there. It's not like it's tapping into your phones lines and recording private conversations, hacking your computer to see all your porn/downloaded music, and stealing your identity!

it doesn't harm the car's performance and disabling/removing it won't add increase HP or "free up" HP from parasitic loss.

 

If you want more HP, just put more stickers in the Window!

 

Ok all you worry warts,

Here's some info to scare you more: your car probably has more than one black box.

The "black boxes" are the various modules that run your car.

The module that runs the air bags takes a snapshot of the information coming to it in a predetermined period of time before a code is set. The code most of you are talking about is for a deployment event. Ask your service manager to tell you what the inputs are to the airbag control module, and you will have a good idea what information is stored. On a very advanced car, it could include steering wheel position, yaw rate, brake information, lots of things that could help reconstruction what was going on before an accident.

The powertrain control module is another example. To show how a dealer might use the information from it I'll tell you a little story. When I worked for a Cadillac dealer, we had an owner bring in his Escalade with a check engine or MIL (malfunction indicator light) on. He said his son was driving and the light "just came on". The information stored with the code showed the gas pedal was wide open, the vehicle was going 97 mph, and the driver shifted into third gear manually. Don't remember what was wrong with the vehicle, but the owner got to shell out several hundred dollars.

Best that I can remember, the 2004 Seville had over 20 modules capable of storing failure codes. Not all included a snapshot of the inputs, but several did.

As for big brother, how long before they have the Onstar systems in GM cars call the police when you speed?

 

Drive like hell and screw the black box!