Connected Services and Toyota Selling Your Telemetry

Other things come to mind. When I disconnected the DCM, I did not disconnect the battery. I did have the key away from the car. Maybe if all else fails, reconnect the DCM, see if that restores the compass, then shut down the car and disconnect the DCM again and see if it sticks?

 

My harness is arriving Monday. After driving for a few days the only issue I see is that sometimes apple maps/google maps/waze does not track properly but then it will suddenly snap into place. IF the phone is connected via USBC then it works perfectly every time. I guess it tries to use the car GPS first if it is wireless carplay. I am not going back to connecting the DCM. It is worth it to just plug the usb cable in for me... Especially after seeing the LexisNexus stuff.

My hope is that this thread serves as future reference for anyone looking to do this. It will have the howto, the pros and the cons.

Here is the letter I received from LexisNexus today. Minimal redactions where it makes sense. I looked into their site using the provided password to download the 62 pages of information they had on me!

 

Got the harness early. Everything back together. Bluetooth speaker works. My compass still aligns, not sure if that will ever change but I never use the compass. "my map is my compass!!" - - wireless car play map syncing could be questionable, no issues when plugged in which is how I intend to run it. LexusNexus data provided, delete request being processed, do not sell request complete and connected services disconnected. The DCM is still in the car just not plugged in. If I ever go to sell, it is simple enough to restore as per my instructions. I would say the mission is accomplished at this point.

 

Continuing to log the process. I noticed that even with the phone plugged in, Apple\Google maps\Waze tried to use the car GPS by default. After driving for a few minutes it will suddenly snap to the right location and there will be no issues tracking from that point onward. I suspect it is defaulting to car GPS.

I am also wondering about that DCM. I have a theory but I do not know how to test it because the whole problem is that you just dont know what the car is transmitting. There are 3 FAKRA antenna connections that connect to the DCM and then out to the white singular connector that goes off somewhere deep into the car (these are coaxial connections so probably to antennas buried somewhere). The connectors are labeled on the DCM WBG and in turn, the colors of the connectors are White, Blue and Gray.

Because I cannot leave well-enough alone, I decided to mess around some more. The rigged DCM on the center console



Through some trial and error I isolated the GRAY FAKRA cable to be what is interfacing with the GNSS.





The setup is to have only the gray FAKRA cable connected to the DCM, leave the white and blue FAKRA cables disconnected. The black square plug, white square plug and long flat gray plug are also connected to the DCM. The 3 FAKRA cables come together into the singular white connector (part number 86101-4E060). and that connector I have plugged into the antenna connectors (but only the gray one is making it through the pigtail to the DCM).





So now I am wondering if the gray FAKRA is exclusively to receive GNSS data and if the white and blue cables are to wifi\cellular antenna and if disabling the car phoning home is only a matter of disconnecting the white and blue cables.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I cannot find any documentation on the connections. If the GNSS antenna is not able to transmit telemetry then this is way grogu. This is the way.

 

Oh, and I noticed, when you disconnect the connectors under the console and reconnect them, the car will ALWAYS throw an error the Parking brake is malfunctioning for 2 starts and then it will go away.

 

AI overlords

 

Yes this is the exact reason I am trying to find a way around the DCM sending your data regardless of what you want. Insurance companies are not going to care about who is driving, they are going to look at the telemetry of the car - as that is the risk they are insuring against - and irrespective of who is driving, they are going to determine the owner's rates based on how the car is being driven. The last time I renewed my policy with Geico, I had to delcare all the drivers that lived in the location the vehicle as housed, and I had to specify explicitly if they were allowed to operate my vehicle. Now once that happens, then I guess it is really free game to just look at how the car is being driven and determine rates without it mattering who was behind the wheel.