Comment by monomial
7 hours ago
Modern cars are such enshittified garbage. I was in a modern Toyota recently and every time you start it, the screen shows a "Guest mode activated" that you need to explicitly dismiss. The only way to disable this is to install some stupid Toyota app which I would never install. Then you dismiss the popup and the home screen is "Experience Drive Connect" which is some stupid Toyota subscription which I would never subscribe to. What a piece of garbage. I'd probably just disconnect the whole screen entirely.
Tell the dealer you won't buy unless they disable all that garbage. They may say they can't, and if they let you walk out maybe they really can't. Then ask them for a discount so you can replace the head unit with one that doesn't spy on you.
This is actually mostly impossible these days, there is no "head unit" like cars had a couple decades ago, and the infotainment systems are integrated with all the other computer systems in the car. Disabling anything is difficult and will affect the car's functionality.
> if they let you walk out maybe they really can't
Toyota's have such a backlog of orders that they're marking cars up above MSRP