Is it just me, or did your Taycan come with an unrequested, always-on tracking device called StarGard?

[RinOC]

Stargard was super nice, they also came right to my house and removed it when I asked them to. No charge.

I am wondering if you noticed where their device was located in the car? Just curious.

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[TayTaySD]

I am wondering if you noticed where their device was located in the car? Just curious.

It was in the drivers foot well.

 

[RinOC]

It was in the drivers foot well.

Cool. Thanks for that!

 

[ElyseMarie11885]

I came upon this thread while searching for Stargard issues and I thought I would share my experience as I feel I need to vent. I don’t drive a Porsche but in April of 2021 I Leased a 2021 KIA K5 (@ kia of Alhambra in California) I had co-signed everything so fast and got home to realize I was not happy with everything, I should have taken my time, but one thing I had no complaint about I was stargard, I was not given an option and was just told it is in the car in case it is stolen it can be used to recover the vehicle. This was my first time dealing with a dealership and figured better to have a recovery device just in case… I registered with Stargard in July and until 2 nights ago I had no reason to log back in and check on the location of my device because I knew where it was.. But unfortunately on Sat. Feb. 5th 2022 I woke up to an empty space where I parked my car the night before and I instantly felt my whole body shift, I can’t describe it but not something I would want anyone to feel and I cannot shake it… Anyway after calling the police then my insurance company I remembered that Stargard was installed and thought for sure I will get my car back (the reason Stargard was installed) or at least be able to see where the car was last located… it was less than 7 hours from when I parked to when I noticed it gone. I logged into my account on Stargard and for some reason I had NO Info to view it said Last time there was communication with my device was on July 4th at 10:07pm the location is 3 houses away from my apartment. It also says that the last known location was 215 days ago… I did not uninstall the device nor did I ask for it to be turned off or removed in fact the green light was blinking every time I Locked my car (which is what the dealership said was Stargard.) worst part is that I call Stargard to notify them that my car was stolen and find out that I am on the phone with someone from an answering service who receives the calls made to the Stargard 24 hour emergency line, and realize that this person has no knowledge about anything to do with Stargard and was told that they are collecting my information about my problem and sending it to the company for someone to handle when they get to work on Monday morning… SERIOUSLY how is this company claiming to be able to locate your device 24/7 or that you the customer are able to access real time location of your vehicle so that you can keep track of it. I still 2 days later can see NOTHING, no location history from the day I drove it home up to today, under my account it has my info, my vin number is correct and it says that the device has 90% power, but everything I click on to view like places, after hours, speed alert, recovery… All blank pages no info to sort or filter. This company has made this experience so much worse for giving me false hope and a waste of time. If they did find the location of my vehicle today I was not made aware, I did not receive a call back, which I requested and because it is now going on 72 hours since I last saw my car this stupid device has probably already been removed by the thief. My alarm did not go off that night and my neighbors did not hear anything plus my key fob was in my apartment so I’m not sure how they were able to bypass and drive away as it is a push start… Anyway I just wanted to share how ridiculous this company is and that I can’t believe any dealership would have a contract with them. It gives you a false sense of security in my eyes. The person who started this post is very smart for questioning this device from the beginning. I feel like the only hope I had was with this company and instead they made a horrible experience worse than I ever imagined it could be.

 

[Toodal00]

this device is like the bird scooter trackers, nothing more then piece of junk. The cars gps tracker is better. another way for dealerships to screw their customers. leave any dealer that pushes you this bullsht a negative review. dont let them get away

 

[ithinkmac]

My dealer said the same thing, that StarGuard is already installed. I said, I don't need it/want it. they said nothing, and didn't bill me for it, but I didn't notice them removing it either. So I should go check. But if I didn't get billed for it, I don't care at this point.

So opting out is definitely an option, not sure why OP was was given the option. Shady dealer.

-ThinkMac-

 

[ElyseMarie11885]

Stargard is a complete waste of money I finally spoke to someone who works for the company and she tried to tell me that the thief most likely removed it from my vehicle since they cannot contact the device and because it is no longer attached to the vehicle the history is unavailable or whatever I argued that it doesn’t make sense because for 8 months I have no data to view and it should have been saved somewhere like in my account online or something she then told me that because I did not periodically log in and look at my account it ended up going offline I said ok then why is there no data before it decided to go offline because I was not checking my history regularly? She said it is a glitch in the technology, she said that it is not saved anywhere in their system either… she did offer my money back if my car is not recovered, but I’m so upset with this company and now feel like it’s my fault they couldn’t locate it because I did not log in on a regular basis which caused it to be offline when it was taken, yet I had no knowledge it would not work properly if I didn’t…

 

[XB7-GTS]

OMG, I'm found the same thing in my sales paperwork and so glad someone brought it up. Notice the address of Stargard, and google it up, it is some warehouse in middle of homes, with a fancy website. I think it is shady. I'm disputing it w/ the dealership.

 

[PDACPA]

OMG, I'm found the same thing in my sales paperwork and so glad someone brought it up. Notice the address of Stargard, and google it up, it is some warehouse in middle of homes, with a fancy website. I think it is shady. I'm disputing it w/ the dealership.

It is crazy the stuff dealers just add to invoices. Someone on the FB group had a bunch of extra's added and was too excited about getting the car and just signed and left and saw it afterwards.

 

[SCD]

If that was an ordered car, I would've walked. Then again, if it wasn't I would've walked too.

I'm guessing not many Porsche dealers in your area?

This is the problem. There are only 2 Porsche dealers in the San Diego area, and they are 2 of the worst car dealerships of any brand that I have ever seen.

 

[bluesky]

Is this just a San Diego thing because StarGard is located there?

Anybody who found this on their car should be posting exactly which dealership did that to them. Except for the last few posts, where this is happening is not being made clear.

 

[tashi10]

Every vehicle from Porsche Marin has this spyware installed as well.

Hi Chris, Did Porsche Marin allow you to take the Stargard off? I have a similar situation and when the total came I had these options added.

 

[j.w.s]

Still exploring every nook and cranny of this wonderful new Taycan! Today I want to learn about StarGard.

Before driving off the lot, at my dealership anyway, you sit down with a friendly lady who helps you finalize all the paperwork. She also offers you some "add-ons." Most of them are pretty useless but I did bite on one of them which was essentially an insurance plan for the wheels and tires.

One of the so called add-ons was called StarGard. It's $1,000. It's basically a theft protection system, kind of like LoJack. I said I didn't want it. But she said it was already installed and there's no way to opt out of it. There was no way to complete the deal without it so I conceded.

Couple days later I got an email from StarGard where they redirected me to a tracking site at StarGardGPS.com. When I logged on, I can see that this one company is keeping a log of every place my car has ever driven. Here's a snapshot of the kind of stuff they're collecting (doesn't show my home address or anything confidential):

I'm not a privacy nut or anything. My life is pretty much an open book. But it does seem odd to me that there's this expensive, unrequested, non-optional, dealer add-on device attached to my car that's logging every place I visit.

Doesn't look like there's any mention of StarGard on this forum so figured I'd create this post to facilitate discussion.

The things I'm wondering about are:

(1) At what time was this thing installed? It definitely didn't come from Germany. It must have been done at the dealer. But if so, I'm not sure when. I literally took delivery right after it arrived.

(2) Where is this device located? It certainly doesn't appear to be visible within the car. There's also no way to control or deactivate it through the PCM interface.

(3) How long is the data retained? Keeping data for a rolling five to ten days might make sense in a theft prevention scenario, but this company seems to be keeping all data from delivery forward -- permanently.

(4) I can't find anything on the StarGard site that indicates if the data is encrypted in any form. If the data could only be decrypted by the vehicle owner using a PIN or passphrase in the event of a theft, that wouldn't be so bad -- but I haven't seen anything to indicate that that's the case.

Again, this isn't a "I think the KGB is spying on me" issue. I guess the main concern here is that anyone who knows your email address can, if they guess your password, gain access to every place you've ever been in your car. And when/if this company gets hacked (and they will -- let's just say their site wasn't designed with security in mind), there's going to be a treasure trove of information on tons of people.

If I chose to install this thing [which I guess I ultimately did by acquiescing] then so be it, but the fact that it was stuck in there without asking kind of sticks in my craw. That's just an expression.

My dealer, also in the US, tried to add this extra cost at the last minute, and also insisted that it was already installed and implied that it was not optional. But of course it is optional, since it's added by the dealer, not Porsche. I responded that I didn't ask for it, didn't want it, would not pay for it. Then I shut up until the agreed to do so. My car does not have StarGard.

 

[W1NGE]

Still exploring every nook and cranny of this wonderful new Taycan! Today I want to learn about StarGard.

Before driving off the lot, at my dealership anyway, you sit down with a friendly lady who helps you finalize all the paperwork. She also offers you some "add-ons." Most of them are pretty useless but I did bite on one of them which was essentially an insurance plan for the wheels and tires.

One of the so called add-ons was called StarGard. It's $1,000. It's basically a theft protection system, kind of like LoJack. I said I didn't want it. But she said it was already installed and there's no way to opt out of it. There was no way to complete the deal without it so I conceded.

Couple days later I got an email from StarGard where they redirected me to a tracking site at StarGardGPS.com. When I logged on, I can see that this one company is keeping a log of every place my car has ever driven. Here's a snapshot of the kind of stuff they're collecting (doesn't show my home address or anything confidential):

I'm not a privacy nut or anything. My life is pretty much an open book. But it does seem odd to me that there's this expensive, unrequested, non-optional, dealer add-on device attached to my car that's logging every place I visit.

Doesn't look like there's any mention of StarGard on this forum so figured I'd create this post to facilitate discussion.

The things I'm wondering about are:

(1) At what time was this thing installed? It definitely didn't come from Germany. It must have been done at the dealer. But if so, I'm not sure when. I literally took delivery right after it arrived.

(2) Where is this device located? It certainly doesn't appear to be visible within the car. There's also no way to control or deactivate it through the PCM interface.

(3) How long is the data retained? Keeping data for a rolling five to ten days might make sense in a theft prevention scenario, but this company seems to be keeping all data from delivery forward -- permanently.

(4) I can't find anything on the StarGard site that indicates if the data is encrypted in any form. If the data could only be decrypted by the vehicle owner using a PIN or passphrase in the event of a theft, that wouldn't be so bad -- but I haven't seen anything to indicate that that's the case.

Again, this isn't a "I think the KGB is spying on me" issue. I guess the main concern here is that anyone who knows your email address can, if they guess your password, gain access to every place you've ever been in your car. And when/if this company gets hacked (and they will -- let's just say their site wasn't designed with security in mind), there's going to be a treasure trove of information on tons of people.

If I chose to install this thing [which I guess I ultimately did by acquiescing] then so be it, but the fact that it was stuck in there without asking kind of sticks in my craw. That's just an expression.

Sounds like a 'scam' to me. Porsche offer their Porsche Vehicle Tracking System (PVTS+) on a subscription basis and each car whether it has the subscription or not comes with two tracker fobs which require activation if you intend to use the service. The service can help with reducing insurance premiums and has a couple of useful features but if you don't want it you don't want it.

StarGard will have no integration with the PCM and is likely to be similar to the legacy tracker fitted to a car independent of the PCM (PVTS+ is largely integrated).

I would ask Porsche NA for their position on this as it seems a little forced / unwarranted to me.

 

[whitex]

Hi Chris, Did Porsche Marin allow you to take the Stargard off? I have a similar situation and when the total came I had these options added.

OMG! They are still pulling this shit? COVID is over, supply chains are not constrained to the point where dealers literally have not a single Taycan on their lot! This is a dealer profit ($15 device similar to this, which they sell you for thousands). Do you really want some backyard operation tracking your car? Here is the picture of their "headquarters" from google maps:

If a dealer tried pulling something like this on me, I would not only no pay for it, I would have them take it out and give me something in writing that any damage that might have been caused by them adding and them removing this third party tracking device will be covered forever by the dealership should Porsche refuse to cover it (maybe 12V battery died, their shit might have caused it since it was connected to it). Otherwise I'd walk away, or maybe consider additional discount/compensation in lieu of the warranty against damage caused by them. If this was a custom order, I'd argue I never ordered this option so the car was not delivered as ordered, ready to walk away - it's not like Taycans are flying off the lots today. I would not accept such 3rd party forced option for free by the way, as I wouldn't want this in my car period. Side note, I did have one such experience with a Lexus dealer, went through all these steps, they even offered to give me $100 to keep the forced option, which I still refused, took a day for them to remove it. I was willing to walk away and they got it. The only forced options I ever accepted, for free, was some stupid laser engraving of a "special anti-theft tracking number" a Toyota dealer tried selling me for $799. "but we already paid to engrave it" was the argument, my answer "that's your problem, I'm only willing to take it for free because it's in a door jam so I don't have to look at it".

If you really want your car tracked to protect against theft, buy Porsche security package (AFAIK you can buy it after the sale on MyPorsche too - keep the dealer's commission out of it for even trying to pull this shit on you).

PS> Given this, I would be extra vigilant checking for other hidden fees and profiteering on their end when signing any contracts. Some dealers are super sleazy. I always try to find the honest ones and keep taking by business there, even if it's a farther drive.

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