VW Connected - dongle ?

[Wish]

It seems I’ve been caught napping having owned many new VW’s over the years. My last being a 7.5 R last September.  My dealer called me today advising my GTI will arrive shortly and they will be preparing the car and adding VW CONNECT to the car.

Apparently the connect allows the dealer to be notified about servicing, issues and problems but also give me benefits of “finding my car” speeds, fuel consumption etc etc.

I told the. It’s not something I want fitted to the car. Am I being paranoid ? Has anyone here had it fitted by the dealer ?

[Guzzle]

This?

http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=280990.0

[fredgroves]

Only will connect to anything if you install the app on your phone.

Easily removed anyway, its in the OBD port, just pull it out.

I have one that was given to me by my dealer, I've never used it.

All its going to do is to give VW marketing information, allowing them to bombard you with rubbish. Or its at least that... they also effectively track your vehicle with it...

[WD-40]

I've had it installed in my car for 6 months and VW have bombarded me with... precisely nothing!

I have occasionally used it to track economy but it does require a little effort to input data from your fill-up, so I generally don't bother. It also allows you to monitor journey details and locate your car when parked - not things I regularly need but just occasionally it may be useful, so to me the minor big brother concerns are (marginally) outweighed by the moderate usefulness.

[falconmick]

As already stated, it's a waste of time. I had one on my new 7.5 and app installed, it does virtually nothing useful for owners, but I suspect it's very useful for VW hence dealers being so keen to push it.

[fredgroves]

I'm personally not keen on quite frankly amateur VW software engineers maintaining the security of the database this all gets fed into.

Sooner or later, someone is going to dump that lot and show the world how you can track Fred Groves' every damned movement.

I know my phone already does that but I have more faith in Vodafone and Google than I do in VW infosec...

[BristolBob]

I was given one of these by the VW salesman when I picked up my car in January.

I left it connected for about an hour and ever since it's been back in its box in the rear passenger door pocket. I have no plans to ever use it again.

[Vwjap]

When I picked up my car my dealer said “we have to ask you if you want one of these dongle things but they don’t really do anything for you, and nobody wants or uses them anyway, but VWUK insist we ask” so I took it as I don’t want it 😂