Remember earlier this year when people with Jeeps and other Stellantis products were complaining about how they were getting pop-up ads on their center stack infotainment screens, like filthy animals? And they were having trouble opting out of these miserable ads? Then a Stellantis representative told me that the lack of ability to opt out was just a glitch! It’ll get taken care of! But you know what wasn’t a glitch? The ads themselves.
Here’s the thing about getting pop-up ads on your car’s dashboard: nobody wants them. In fact, I can’t think of anything that might unite humanity more in these wildly divided times than the notion that not getting pop-up ads on your car’s infotainment screen is better, vastly, richly better, than getting stupid ads on there.
Nobody wants these. Pop-up ads on your car’s dashboard are about as appreciated as small, runny piles of feces are on your car’s dashboard. If there is someone out there who genuinely, honestly enjoys and appreciates getting pop-up ads on their car’s infotainment screen then I hope they’re somewhere safe, because there must be an army of scientists just itching to strap this hypothetical person down to an operating table and cut them open just to figure out what the fuck is wrong with them.
And yet, somehow, Stellantis is still trying to make this happen. Here’s a recent tweet from some poor afflicted Stellantis owner, showing a recent pop-up ad on a Ram 1500:
This is a real photo from a friend pic.twitter.com/PU8xcd1qt2
— A GMN Ape (@AGMNApe) November 17, 2025
The ad is euphemistically titled “Marketing Notification,” which just somehow makes this even worse, picking some other inane words that just mean “ad.” It’s like calling stubbing your toe a “extremity nerve testing opportunity.” It’s not helping.
And what is this ad for, even? $1,500 in “bonus cash” if you own a Stellantis car and want to buy a new Jeep? Is this working for anyone? Just seeing this miserable ad pop up would be enough for me to cross Jeep of my list, even if I was, say, a Fiat driver who wanted a new car. I’d love to know the numbers for how well this ad actually performs, because it is so far beyond my ability to imagine anyone seeing this and squealing in delight before poking that OK button with gusto. And I can imagine a lot of things, not all of them depraved, even.
Chrysler too pic.twitter.com/A3Yn1Obj8c
— The Net Guy Reviews (@TheNetGuyDotCom) November 18, 2025
Other people have replied showing the ad appearing on other Stellantis brands, like this Chrysler, which uses a much smaller typeface and you can see the strange choice to center-justify everything even more clearly.
I reached out to Stellantis to try and get some understanding of what is happening here; is this normal? Is this another odd glitch, or is this just part of owning a Stellantis product now? Here’s the response I got:
The In-Vehicle Message (IVM) technology in the Uconnect system is an important link that helps Stellantis stay in contact with our owners at critical points in their ownership. We use IVM to alert them to important messages, such as exclusive sales offers, vehicle recalls and vehicle health monitor alerts.
Recently, a select group of owners received a special marketing notification in their vehicle and we tailored this special offer to minimize any intrusions:
We acknowledge that not every owner is interested in special offers. Owners can always permanently opt out of in-vehicle marketing messages by calling Customer Care at 800-777-3600.
“Our goal is to deliver the best vehicle experience for our customers. As a result of these efforts, we have seen our customers take advantage of this offer.”
…and I guess I’ll take Stellantis at their word here, but these two bits are pretty hard to swallow.
The really important part is that if you just want to never get stupid ads like these again, you have to actually call their Customer Care department, which feels like how a gym makes you come in to cancel a membership. Stellantis very likely could have made this easy, a little button right on the screen to opt out, but it seems they chose not to, because it would be better for them if they made this process a little bit more difficult.
It’s maddening.
Here’s the opt-out number again, in case you missed it:
800-777-3600
I just don’t get Stellantis’ thinking here. It’s not like they’re doing so great as it is; you would think that any chance they have to not alienate customers would be an opportunity they’d take. Nobody wants pop-up ads on their dash. No one is asking for this. Seeing these ads just makes the world feel like a worse place, a miserable dystopia of commerce and avarice, and our cars should be havens from this kind of horseshit.
Do we already not get enough spam in our emails, our text messages, via phone calls, and in our physical mail? Have you no empathy? Do we really need to debase our own cars with this? Is it so much to ask to just not do this?
I’d encourage Stellantis to take a moment and really consider their actions here. Is this who you want to be? Are whatever short-term gains made with these ads really worth making your customers feel like driving their cars into lakes?
I don’t think so. At the very least, let people opt out on-screen. No one wants to call Customer Care and wait on hold and go through all that hassle. Come on. Be human.
Top graphic images: Stellantis; SPAM
If they said “you are literally a captive audience when you get in your car, and we want to exploit that for profit”, I’d kinda respect them. But this “Our goal is to deliver the best vehicle experience” horseshit is just maddening
The absurd gaslighting companies do on stuff like this is maddening.