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.
Welp every manufacturer that shows this should go down immediately upon first offense.
Not even kidding, this should be corporate suicide.
Dodge and Jeep are (well Jeep already was tbh) both firmly on the “actively speak out against” list. If I was in a place of hugely inflated power, I would dismantle the entire company, and sell it to whoever that company likes the least.
This should honestly be a brand ending scenario in less than 5 seconds after the first ad. CEO should be in the bread line TODAY from getting hit with this.
ABSOLUTE zero tolerance. There are no valid arguments against this and I will die on this hill.
Jeep and Dodge are both owned by Stellantis :) It’s one shit-circus out of France.
On the good news front, the market is beating them like a rented mule. Dodge alone is down 29% in sales year-over-year.
Dodge alone is down 29% in sales year-over-year.
“Clearly we need to add more AI, internet of shit, microtransactions and advertising on the cars to compensate!” - Stellantis CEO
This should be punishable by firing squad.
Or better yet, the masterminds behind this will lose someone due to distracted driving over an ad.
But I’m still not allowed to touch my cellphone while behind the wheel because the screen is too distracting, right?
If you do you must buy something
As long as your purchase is over $10,000, you have immunity from prosecution for vehicular manslaughter during the transaction.
This law brought to you by Carls Jr.
This what I don’t get, those huge “infotainment” screens are perfectly acceptable, but you can’t answer a phone.
Edit; missed the letter “a”.
You’re usually not supposed to interact with the screen either when driving, and it’s easier to put your hand back on the wheel when the screen is mounded instead of dropping your phone… but I get what you mean.
We dun fucked up when we made tarring and feathering CEOs illegal.
I’ll accept this when the car comes for free.
They’d be showing ads on the windshield and windows for that
I know right? I would totally get an ad supported free car. Who knows, someone might make an ad block for it.
Stop buying new cars until they remove this bullshit. We can go 40 years with existing cars without buying a single new one.
The cost of used cars isn’t much better assuming you don’t want a piece of crap. After almost being killed by 2 used cars I’d prefer to not risk it anymore.
I was very lucky in that I can repair most cars. It’s a lot harder now. Before I had a real job, all my vehicles cost less than 3k. If you learn what to look for and to stay safe (brakes, tires) you shouldn’t really be in danger with a used car. Now in an accident, some ass in a 30 foot tall dodge truck will kill you, but that’s kind of unavoidable even if you’re on the sidewalk
Subaru has great safety ratings and the “used Subaru tax” (as in, a used Subaru tends to be more expensive) is because they are very good cars. They have some of the best safety ratings on the market.
You mean the “oopsie poopsie it’s just a glitch nothing to see here” thing that was happening to jeeps a little while ago?
Color me shocked
We need to tally up all the accidents and pedestrian hit-and-runs that occur involving cars with this “feature.” It would likely be enough of an increase you could reasonably make a class action lawsuit. I have no sympathy whatsoever for a car manufacturer that can’t get it through their heads that distracted driving is a major cause of accidents, and could easily happen by their own features.
That’s the grim truth, isn’t it
This is why I’d rather rebuild my 30 year old civic’s engine then buy a new car.
I drove 80’s and pre 92’ VW’s up until 2019 and now I’m exclusively driving pre 04 VW’s . They are futuristic to me , heated sats , heat , AC its crazy .
I’ve amassed enough maintenance parts and transmissions to keep me going indefinitely…or until some jackass makes them illegal then I guess I’ll just ride a bike
Good that you have an older Civic. The newer ones are lemons - Honda cheaped out on the air condenser from 2017-2021, so no AC! The electrical shit in the dash is all kinds of fucked up too.
That seems like a lot of hassle if you’re then going to buy a new car anyway.
Why would i be buying a new car anyways? I don’t want one, the newest car I’m even interested in purchasing in the future is over a decade old. I just drive my wife’s car when I work on mine.
“Then” means that you will be doing something subsequently. “Than” means that you will be doing something instead of something else. Normally this is a grammatical nitpick, but it actually changes the meaning of your sentence by using the wrong word.
He was making fun of a light grammatical error in your post.
You said ‘I’d rather rebuild the engine then buy a new car’
What you meant was ‘I’d rather rebuild the engine than buy a new car.’
So… um… will the buyer get money from Dodge to drive this shit then?
I’d quit my job and start running the campaign for anyone who’s willing to run on outlawing this shit. I’d work 75 hour weeks handing out fliers about distracted driving.
Starting price is now $58,000.
They ditched selling the accessible models for the luxury market and they do the most cheap and trashy thing possible.
It’s incredible how stupid millionaire CEOs can be.
What? That’s about double the price of a Camry which is probably a better car all around
It seems like every US brand under Stellantis has completely lost their minds.
Jeep has become all around terrible while becoming more expensive at the same time and it looks like the same thing is happening to Dodge.
It does appear… pretty bootleg.
Starting price on a new Dodge Charger is $61,590, get on that inflation train, boss!
If you’ve bought any Stellantis Fiat Chrysler Dodge Jeep etc. product in the last 20 years then you deserve this. Absolute junk.
My 2006 dodge says I do not deserve this.
I bought a Pacifica plug in hybrid because I wanted electric and needed a minivan for my 3 kids. Worst decision ever.
Did you know John Deere tractors have a dedicated piracy scene? Because the tractors require authorized technicians to service them and doesn’t allow farmers to service them themselves, spoofed firmware has appeared and is fairly frequently used to bypass this.
My point is, if you can jailbreak a tractor you can jailbreak a car. Just a matter of time.
Hell yes I do.
When that old antipiracy ad was like “you wouldn’t download a car,” turns out they were vastly overestimating your average American tractor owner or car driver’s respect for the corporate arcology.
Arcology: architectural ecology, a city intended to be contained in a single structure.
Thanks boss, I used the word and I’m like “I’m maybe 10% sure this is a word and most that confidence is coming from SimCity 2000” but then I went full send, I might not be the best journalist.
You know, I meant the corporate hierarchy. They’re increasingly living in Spacex company towns or other arcologies and such. The gated communities, whatever the corpo version of the Ivory Tower is. In a word, that one building from SimCity 2000.
Pretty much everyone asked for this with their actions and choices as consumers. Lucky us, we can still choose not to buy a Dodge Charger or a Swasticar.
It’s def gonna spread tho. This is just one model one make. For now. In 2, 5, 10 years? CP77 without any of the fun shit.
Unless everybody now says “I’ll never buy anything from dodge”. If it doesn’t impact sales it really will become the new norm.
You’d really need to boycott anything made by the Stellantis group, which includes
- Abarth
- Alfa Romeo
- Chrysler
- Citroen
- Dodge
- DS
- Fiat
- Jeep
- Lancia
- Maserati
- Opel
- Peugot
- RAM Trucks
- Vauxhall
Because the exact same thing was reported by Jeep drivers a few weeks ago. Maybe the behavior stays contained to just the American brands under the Stellantis umbrella, but better to be safe than sorry.
Lancia is as good as dead. They only make (made?) one car, and only in the Italian market, and it was a slightly larger Fiat 500. Stellantis is struggling enough with the brands that are still making cars. I’d be shocked if Lancia comes back.
I have a Kia, likely going Toyota or Honda when it’s time. So help me if they do this shit…
Lancia
Sad to see that name here, but they’re nothing like they were in the Group B days. At least my ultimate dream car will never have ads, even if I’ll never be able to afford the car itself 🥲
VW FTW
This
Brand new 2024 vehicle: I disabled all connectivity. No software updates, no remote start through their app, nothing; it will never connect to the internet. These greedy car and ad companies have lost the benefit of the doubt. Literally no amount of money will ever be enough for these giant corporations…
It must be annoying to remove their mobile antennas though? It seems like most new cars have built-in connectivity.
To be completely honest, I haven’t gone that extreme yet. I know where the antenna is and could disconnect it fairly easily, but for this particular model it doesn’t seem necessary. I’ve disabled all wireless connectivity (similar to airplane mode) and so far it persists through battery changes. No nags after the first one and no attempts to connect or re-enable wireless functionality, but I’m keeping an eye on it…
Any particular trick? Pulling a fuse or antenna or just declining requests to go online?