How to remove a GPS or Tracking device

I have a Mitsubishi Endeavor XLS 2004 and it has a GPS or some kind of tracking device on the passager front side. It came that way and the deal acts like they cannot find it. From time to time it will make a loud beeping sound. I have looked in all the magazines to see what it looks like and still I cannot find it. I took it to several car places and they don’t know what to look for. I bought the car in Savannah, GA .

Thanks,
Speedaway

Did you buy the car at one of those buy-here-pay-here places? Some of them add a device to remotely disable the car when payments are missed.

I second lion9car if this is one of those BHPH lots and you’re making payments to them instead of a bank.

Best thing to do would to be cover the vehicle in tinfoil for a few weeks, and so they can’t read your thoughts you better fashion a tinfoil liner for your hat. The reason the dealer is no help is because they are in on it, they are part of the conspiracy. Be careful…

tee-he tee-hehe

Most, if not all, cellphones can easily be tracked. If you are nervous about being tracked…leave your cell phone at home. I think the device is probably from a BHPH lot if it exists at all.

There was a gadget installed on my Corolla when I purchased it new, presumably by the Toyota dealer. Not a tracking device, but some kind of connector-keyed-inter-lock that prevented cranking. Installed on the lower dash panel, right above the driver’s knee. Pretty much invisible unless you knew where to look. Which I didn’t. Probably used to prevent car-theft from their lot. They removed part of it after purchase, but left part installed, which I knew nothing about. And the part they left caused me grief a few years later, as I apparently hit it with my knee one time and cracked it, and then my car wouldn’t crank intermittently. I finally found it by tracing out the wiring, comparing to the shop manual wiring diagram, until I found that some gadget was wired in the cranking circuit that didn’t appear in the shop manual.

So I concur with the OP, good idea to remove it.

First thing you have to do is find it. It makes a beeping sound you say? That’s generous of them to provide a covert devise with a beeping sound. So when it does beeps, pull over, and see if you can find where it is by sonic-location. Then, to get some advice how to remove it, take some photos of it and how it is wired up, and post them here.

Mr. GeorgeSanJose, Long story short police report filed we cannot get into deals and our knowledge of the wiring system is limited, so we are in need of someone who knows what to look for and how to remove it, the local car shops don’t know what to look for either. We were told that the beeping sound was to get our attention. The bank has nothing to do with this. It is on the passager front side under the dash. The issue with our car are serious, all jokes aside. We are really looking for some help.

Thank You,
Speedaway

Could it be lojack? Find someone who installs lojack to see if he can help you.

Here are a couple generalities. Unless you can give us the name of the device, no one can give you specifics, but if you could tell us the name, you wouldn’t have needed to post here.

Any device like you are asking about needs a clear path to an external antenna. The metal car body would block that path so it would be located high in the area under the dash. The easiest way to access this location would be to remove the glove box.

You probably have an airbag in this location so it gets tricky. It could be located behind the airbag, taped to the underside of the dash cover.

It also needs power so there would be some loose wiring. Most wiring is bundles and terminates in a connector of some type. The airbag wiring should be inside a yellow jacket. You would be looking for a single wire, maybe two individual wires just draped over the top of the HVAC system. They could be hard to find.

You mention beeping so the power could come from a wire tapped off the blower motor. The device would have to have a battery as you don’t always supply power to the blower motor. The beeping could be the device signaling that the battery is low.

If you have a FOB, the device might just be the FOB receiver in the car.

Speedaway,

I think a lot of people here are hesitant to help because this post sounds like somebody who purchased a car at a “buy here pay here” place, fell behind on payments, and now wants to avoid having the car repo’d. While the BHPH shops are often ethically slimy, nobody wants to be party to criminal behavior.

If you could give a plausible and legal/ethical backstory, I bet the quality of answers would go up.

^

+1 !

Most of those added on devices are put…ANYWHERE at all, at the installer’s descretion.
To find it you’re going to have to listen and look while it’s beeping. Otherwise you could be looking right at it and not know it.
Our used car dept adds a gps tracker, but it’s not an ignition imobilizer, and where they put it is changing constantly.

The bank and the car lot may be one and the same as far as finances go…

If it’s a tracking device and/or immobilizer, both would have a mutual vested interest in making sure that device remains on board.

It seems that the OP is either really Paranoid and needs help, or they are trying to defraud a BHPH lot. I mean they said they went to the police, this is getting silly. They have medicine for this sort of thing.

The police thing is a bit much; especially when someone is not wanting to provide details.

If the device is a tracker, they’ve been known to beep when someone is late with a payment…

Not saying that’s the case here; just a statement of fact.

To address the OP’s desire to find someone to help remove the device: Most any auto-electric specialty shop would have the skill to find it and remove it. Ask your regular mechanic who they use for auto-electric diagnostics and repairs. But an auto-electric shop is a licensed business, and they’d help if doing so were legal.

BTW, this is the first time I’ve heard of buying a car which has a device the lien holder can control and if payments are not made, turn the car off. That seems semi-illegal to me. The owner owns the car, not the lien holder. The lien holder on a house can’t turn off the electricity if the owner doesn’t pay the house payment. Repossess, yes, but not disable the functions of the house. So I wonder why it is legal for a lien-holder to disable a car? Just curious is all.

Keith, we will get back with you, we were told about the wiring system before but because of our lack of knowledge of the wiring system we are now learning about it and have come up with a plan.
Thank You for your help. Speedaway

Well, that was an interesting thread.

What was suspect became even more suspect …

The owner owns the car, not the lien holder.

WRONG. You don’t own it if you’re paying off a loan of any kind.

The problem with your electricity analogy is that it is not a function of the house, it is a service INTO the house. Following your analogy they can’t turn off your Sirius XM in your car either. But they can effect repossession by disabling something they own the rights to until it’s paid off.

Also big distinction between throwing someone out in the street by foreclosure vs making them take the bus to get somewhere.