Popup Ads in Your Pickup Truck? RAM Trucks Now Feature Scammy Ads on the Center Display
a year ago by KayLeadfoot to c/technology
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.
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!"
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.
Absolutely?
That's not true. Our government cares about something. They care about ads.
You serious?
“Hey guys our sales are falling through the floor faster than Tesla, maybe we should rework our pricing and reconsider our policies towards buyers to move more volume and improve our imagine.”
“ Uh… nah. How about instead, we put ads on the center console!”
I just got new neighbors out here in rural Kansas. They have two kias and a ram pickup for the man. If only they had a jeep it would be like a nearly complete set of the shittiest vehicles money can buy. Looking forward to exciting things here.
Gotta carry on the proud Chrysler traditions of shunning innovation and making poor business decisions.
They rolled it out foest with Jeeps earlier this year
They were joking.
So were they.
I'm going to start pointing to this when I explain to people why I want "dumb" machines.
I don't want AI to "summarize" my google search, I don't want ads distracting drivers, I don't want a washing machine that needs updates, I don't want my TV to look at me, I want a submissive little machine that does task X.
Ngl bro but I’ve found some good uses for AI. My kids school gave me 2 bullshit pdfs with duplicate information for their school supplies. I uploaded them to chatgbt and asked it to simplify it by combining duplicates and putting it in bullet format that was easily copy pastable. Did it in 30 seconds with minor tweaking and made my back to school shopping so much easier.
AI is not universally bad. There are some things it does well. The problem is that there are a lot more things it does badly, often in harmful ways, and most people using it have no idea how to tell the difference.
You seem to be using it the right way, with caution and awareness.
and what the fuck does that have to do with predatory companies cramming unneeded avenues of fucking predation into EVERYTHING?!
Here's an AI summary of your distain for AI:
I'll begin saying this when people ask why I want "dumb" machines.
AI summaries lack quality, ads distract drivers, you want a washing machine without ads, you don't want your TV to watch you, you want machines to be submissive.
How did I do?
You did well.
This message is grok generated and posted automatically, clank clank clank.
Why do they keep trying to sell us things to improve "my lifestyle."
My lifestyle is pretty much work, then coming home to do errands, maybe video games. I don't need tacky truck nuts or whatever they're selling.
How are they gonna pay for all these child sex slaves?!
I want one of those barebones trucks that don't even have radios
no man, radio is a must.
but like the old 90s style replacement kind
Ill take whatever I can find for a reasonable price that has a towing package and, ideally, zero fuckin computers but ill have to compromise there im sure
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.
At that point, I would opt out with a hammer.
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.
When calling that number, the caller will need somekind of proof that they are in control of the car that they are trying to opt out of ads. Afaik, the easiest way to accomplish that when requiring a phonecall, would be pairing phone and car. But obviously Stellantis is not going for easy with this setup, so this is purely speculation on my part.
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.
One of their sister brands, Jeep, had a hack through the infotainment that let them control the CAN bus and disengage the transmission
The entire motor controller of ICE vehicles is computer operated today and connected to the infotainment system, they could probably brick the engine too.
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.
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.
Mine will tell me the measured pressures of all tires. But only if at least one is low. I haven't found a way to get it to just tell me the pressure in any tire if it's not throwing an error at me.
Dear Mazda, you have a full user interface in your vehicle. Why can't you let me see the tire pressure from just a menu option?
I've just been thoroughly unimpressed by all of the American car brands. Crap vehicles with lousy interiors the lot of them.
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
I'm concerned it's not making that person enough 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.
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.
The field that marketing companies truly excel at the most is advertising their own services. Researching the effectiveness of advertising is difficult because most of the information is presented by the marketing companies themselves. However, most scientific studies agree that advertising through environmental means is ineffective and sometimes can even be harmful to brands.
Marketing usually aims to take advantage of impulsive purchasing behaviour by inundating the potential purchasers environment with advertisement. However, this isn't very effective, most people automatically filter these kinds of ads, or worse are actively annoyed by them. Effective advertising activates the buyers impulsive behavior by engaging with them emotionally, which is why ad space for podcasts and other types of para social relationships are more effective.
I'd say the vast majority of data scraped from personal devices are utilized as tools to market the idea of advertisement to vendors more than they are used to actually market products. Imo marketing is useless for most types of businesses, and is mostly a field of self perpetuating scam artist.
Apparently it's mostly about familiarity. Even if we are annoyed at the time, we will often forget about it completely between then and shopping. By the time we are in the shop, we just have a vague sense of familiarity with the product. We instinctively buy the more familiar, as the "safer" option. It takes conscious effort to overcome this (which most people don't have to spare).
In saturated markets, this leads to a zero sum situation. Every customer you get is stolen from a competitor. Apparently the tobacco companies actually loved the UK ban on tobacco advertising. Their ads were intended to counter the ads of their competitors. None of them were roping in new smokers at a high enough rate to matter. The only ones winning were the ad agencies.
we just have a vague sense of familiarity with the product. We instinctively buy the more familiar, as the "safer" option. It takes conscious effort to overcome this (which most people don't have to spare).
Sounds like a perfect pitch to sell more ads. Like I said, I would hesitate to actually trust any statistical analysis of the effectiveness of advertising done by the same people wanting to sell more ads.
In a capitalist economy there's just not a real motivation for researching advertising unless you are a marketing agency. So the vast majority of information is intrinsically biased.
I think it's more that if you stop advertising, you start seeing a significant drop in sales. It's an easy experiment to test.
The dark art is increasing sales via advertising. That's where the marketing people pull off the real bullshit.
I agree that it seems most marketing firms are seemingly scamming businesses at this point. The internet is so saturated with absolute garbage ads that anyone buying ads must be expecting $0.001 return on the ad dollar.
I’m not buying any car made after 2015 ever.
Stellantis is barely an American brand
Stellantis is leaving ram Chrysler dodge gona be on their own soon. They tarnished the brand to much to make it salvagble/profitable.
Back when covid drove the prices up. They didn't have a logistics problem like the other manufacturers because they didn't upgrade their lineup. They just re sold outdated models for way too much money. Hence, the ram classic. But now all the leases and financing terms are ending, and you have a customer base that won't get shit all for trade in to upgrade to a new model/ used market. So over about a 3-4 year span of worth of customers aren't in much of a possition to buy a new veichle.
Unfortunately, they are all pillaging your data in the worst ways. The only solution is to not buy new.
I've got a 2010s car and drive a rental in 2023. Really liked the new safety features but fuck all this scummy bullshit.
And not even a fucking "don't show again" option. Either "call" or "remind me later". So there is no escape. Either take the ad in the ass or it'll show up again. Fuck that
Do you think Stellantis understands consent?
[ ] Yes
[ ] Ask me again in 2 weeks
This genuinely stressed me out. 😂
There is an X in the corner at least
That's the other "Remind me later" button
Pretty sure that X is as good as clicking "remind me later".
The X is for the syncing phone book notification... It's not on the notice itself.
Oh you’re right, lol.
Wow, that's a good as getting raped but with a condom!
This is just terrible. Every aspect of life doesn't need ads. I don't care if it makes a company money or not.
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.
I call on all hackers to defeat this parasitic disease from incorporating our everyday lives only to make money for its creators. Ads are a fucking disease and needs to be contrroled from entering our lives without our permission.
I call on all Americans to start the revolution so we can treat the disease instead of the symptoms.
I mean tear down and replace this government so the balance of power shifts back to the people and we can bring the corporations to heel.
And take it one step further so that whoever wants to check on it will see the ads playing even though no ads are playing.
Time to hack / root cars…
"You wouldn't download a car (firmware)". Hold my beer...
Eventually someone is going to get the idea that hospitals should start installing chips and screens into the skin of newborns and it either displays ads or it only cost $150k to have it removed. Thanks for having your baby at our hospital. The ads help pay for our CEO’s 4th mansion.
Your dreams DON'T have advertisements?
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.
They're the first victims of what will inevitably be rolled out to every new vehicle.
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.
I agree but it's not always black and white. It's a pop up every once in a while that I click an x on and move in with my life.
I'm not defending it, but I'm also not loading a new OS on my truck or spending time working on changing it. I obviously hate the popup and don't want it but it's been 3 years, its just something I have to do and move on with life in 2 seconds every few months.
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.
I… will. Thanks!
It's Bill Burr's 21st century and we're all just living in it.
He's crushing it on Star Wars stuff, his comedy is on fucking fire, and weirdly he's one of a small axis of Americans (bad word choice lol) who has the backbone to resist our descent into fascism. I agree with him and I fuckin hate it, bring back buttons, I don't' want to drive an iPad.
This is why my old shitty 2001 accord will always be best.
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).
I would raise such hell at the dealership if anything like this happened to me.
"Oh sure, bring the car back in. We can have our technician look at it. Just need a $200 deposit and $80/hr for labor."
Live footage of bringing the car in:
That's how I pay server costs :)
Feel free to use ad block, doesn't hurt my feelings one bit. AdBlock Plus is still good. I'm shocked to meet a programmer who doesn't already block ads TBH!
Kei Kei's delivery service.
I sometimes feel shortchanged as an American (no healthcare, FUUUUCK), but I only get real mad about it when I think about how we don't get Hiluxes and Kei trucks.
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.
MFW I say how much 
on the Fediaverse.
Everyday, I wanna ram my car into a building and hope I run over the CEO in their office.
Now the hardest part isn't ditching and risking my way of life, but choosing which CEO to ram 🤬
Hasnt Jeep being doing this since at least last year? Every time you stop at a light or whatever you get an ad for Sirus radio.
Yes, replacing the head unit would stop it.
Is it even possible to replace the head units on deeply integrated cars like this?
When did ads become the one commodity to rule them all. They are used more like a threat rather than information. You have to pay to see them or pay to make them go away. Doesn't make sense. Have adverts replaced gold as the dollar standard? Weird. I guess they are good for money laundering due to the subjective nature of costs for "production", "design" and "talent".
Is there a custom firmware to counter this? And is there a way to inject custom firmware into it?
It's very strange that no one has created a custom firmware to counter this.
I don’t think there is much overlap between the sets of people
- buying these cars
- having the competence to hack them
- having the willingness and finances to potentially brick the car
The difference with vehicles vs computers is everything is so god damn expensive and/or hard to fix. So it will never be worth the risk of failure because I need it to function for emergencies, work and life. RAM wins this round unfortunately and I guess I just have to deal with it for now.
The odds of a Ram 1500 driver drunk-dialling the number on the popup ad blocking their backup cam is low... but never zero!
You just tap the “call” button, you do t type the number.
Still dumb, though.
Here I am extremely pissed at the people who made it where my dogs trigger fasten seatbelt beeps in a old Tacoma.
You don’t have a car harness for your dog? Even if you don’t give a shit about your dog dying (I know you do) you should at least be worried about the 50lbs dumbbell flying around the cabin in your next crash.
What? This is a thing?
Wake up sheeple!
Well don't worry your brand new Dodge will last about 5-7 years max. So you won't be seeing those ads too long.
They're truly horrible horrible machines. GMC is about the only American brand worth anything and even they suck now.
Honda and Toyota is the way to go anything else and you're just wasting money.
Sucks they don't have super duty trucks for people that need those like hot shotters though.
As a Toyota truck owner, can confirm.
Good. I've seen those RAM vehicles, they're all american "tiny penis wagons" as I like to call them. Ridiculously pointlessly gigantic vehicles, all the better for running down children and guzzling petrol.
The tossers who drive those don't deserve good things.
I mean yeah but yeah nah. I'm all for blaming the meatbags who buy this shit for fun but there are still enough people who buy entry-level RAMs as work trucks (might even be a good choice for all I know).
Besides, if Stellantis is continuing to get away with it other brand might catch on... I can totally see VW or BMW pull this crap.
I find it realy hard to tow 20,000 pounds of hay or horses with a ford edge, so I have a 2500 6.7 and drive it only when towing. just because people dont live the same lifestyle as you and need the same gear as you does not invalidate their needs.
Huh it's funny my 2011 3500 ram 6.7l fully loaded bed get about the same if not better fuel economy as my 2023 toyota highlander with a 2.4l 4cylinder. I think you just formed your opinion without much experience of shit that goes on around you and are just regurgitating things you have read online.
I don't live in the US but the last time I rented a car there the UI was festooned with functionality for Sirius XM that couldn't be removed or hidden. Not small icons, but big fucking chunks of the screen. I find this kind of thing intolerable. It's one thing to plug a service but if people don't want it, then hide it away and don't nag them about it ever again.
I've driven many makes of vehicles and never seen this. Sure the buttons are there but just like the AM)FM. Or you don't want them their at all it's just an audio source and purchase a vehicle without satellite radio they still exist.
I think the issues is that you can't pick and choose exactly what you want in your new vehicle. You can't say, get just a simple AM/FM radio and get bluetooth. You buy a package of accessories.
So if you want just that simple radio, not only don't you get the bluetooth, but you have to give up the power seats and windows too. It's an all or nothing choice.
There was a time you would order your new car with individual accessories and then a couple of months to get it. I'm pulling for Slate to be successful and bring that freedom of choice back.
I think the issues is that you can’t pick and choose exactly what you want in your new vehicle. You can’t say, get just a simple AM/FM radio and get bluetooth. You buy a package of accessories.
This was a Toyota RAV 4 IIRC and despite the vehicle having no subscription to this thing, it occupied the right hand side of the infotainment system and was prominent in the menus too. I had the car for nearly a month and I played around in the settings but saw no way of getting rid of it.
@KayLeadfoot "You're either the customer or the product."
Ford: "Let's not be hasty..."
My 2025 ram has never done this… not saying it won’t ever but… we’ve heard the same stories about all the manufacturers.
2024 Ford, you can disable all the remote connectivity in the head unit. If you don't trust that disable it in firmware with an ODB cable and some pirated software.
Modern problems require modern solutions
I mean, it works until it doesn't. I'm trying to imagine sitting on a six-figure car note, trying to DIY a solution for the annoying pop-up you can't manually disable, and accidentally bricking your car.
Seems pretty stupid to drop six-figures on a utility vehicle
Remote connectivity can be disabled in the head unit using the normal interfaces. If you aren't comfortable modifying your vehicle you don't have to.
If you want to go the extra mile. Deactivate the radios in firmware.
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I remember a while ago when this started appearing in chargers and they tried to act like it was an accident.
save