Stellantis, purveyor of name brands such as Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Chrysler, has been in the news more than once this year for its cars displaying pop-up ads on their infotainment screens, much to the disdain of owners just trying to, you know, drive their cars without being subject to yet another form of targeted advertising.
As it turns out, Ram 1500s and Chrysler Pacificas aren’t the only cars subject to the dystopian marketing strategy of in-car ads (or as Stellantis calls it, In-Vehicle Message (IVM) technology). Subaru has a pop-up system of its own as well.
I learned this through a post published last week to the Subaru subreddit, which shows a photo of a pop-up ad for a free trial for SiriusXM satellite radio. According to the original publisher, the ad appeared while the car was moving, which is even more of an overreach than the Stellantis pop-ups, which reportedly only appear on startup.
Here We Go Again
According to Reddit user bajungadustin, the pop-up advertisement shown above appeared on the infotainment screen of their 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness while they were driving, leading them to become distracted. Here’s how they described the situation in the post:
I have got this Sirius XM ad a few times over the last couple of years. This last time was the final straw as I almost wrecked because of it. My entire infotainment screen changed which caused me to take my eyes off the road and since I was going 55 mph in winter I swerved a bit and slid and almost went off into a ditch. Something that would not have happened had this ad not popped up.
That seems pretty scary! I messaged them to see if this was, in fact, legit and to find out how many times it’s happened so far.
“I got my 2024 [Crosstrek] in October of 2023,” they told me over direct message. “I have since received about 6 to 8 ads specifically for XM radio in my car over the last two years. Most of them while I was driving, and one of them while I was in an unfamiliar city and using navigation to get around. It blocked navigation just before I was supposed to take an exit, so I could no longer see my exit, which is another issue.”
This Reddit user isn’t alone. Subaru’s been pulling this SiriusXM pop-up move since at least 2022, according to various forum posts, the oldest of which I could find traces back to May of that year on this Subaru Outback forum.
Subaru’s Response
Amazingly, despite pushing these pop-up ads for years, Subaru says it hadn’t directly received any negative comments from customers until now. In addition to asking about the frequency of these messages, I also asked about how to turn them off and whether Subaru was worried about the distraction aspect of it all. It answered only one of those questions. Here’s the company’s full response:
We will discuss those messages in an upcoming meeting and will always consider customer feedback. This is the first we’ve heard of any issue. Those messages happen twice a year: around Memorial Day and around Thanksgiving to alert customers that all channels are available to them for about two weeks.
I followed up regarding whether it was possible to opt out of the pop-ups or not, but I have yet to hear back. I’m especially curious about this because in Stellantis vehicles, you have to actually call its customer service department, which seems incredibly anti-consumer. This should be a one-touch solution. Instead, Stellantis makes you jump through hoops. And that’s not cool. I hope it’s a different story with Subaru.
While some might argue this sort of pop-up is a bit different than those showing up in Stellantis vehicles because the Subaru ad is a free trial offer, while the Stellantis ads are pure marketing slop, the objective is ultimately the same: Get people to spend money, using in-car pop-ups as a medium.
Just to rehash what my colleague Jason Torchinsky has already said about pop-up ads in cars: No one is asking for this, and I feel as if there’s a slim chance anyone actually enjoys receiving ads beamed directly to their car screens. People get enough of that already through all of the other screens in their lives.
Top graphic images: Subaru
The pop up should probably be programmed to only show at start up, but at least this is just telling drivers that there is a free feature now available.
It’s crazy that complain about this when every other driver seems to be on their phone these days. Not to mention cars show phone notifications on the screen now too. Or how about the low fuel notification that pops up, does that cause people to almost crash? What a petty complaint.
Not everyone is on their phone while driving, and if they are that’s a (dumb) choice they’re making, not one their car is forcing on them. Phone notifications on the screen rarely cover up everything else on the screen and they go away after a few seconds, so if you’re using navigation, it’s not that big a deal. Unlike this ad. And a lot of cars now beep when the low fuel indicator comes on so you don’t have to look at anything, and even then, the low fuel notification doesn’t cover up the entire screen—again, unlike this ad.
The point is that this is an unneeded notification. It’s just an ad. If Subaru wants to send you an email or mailer or something, then fine, but the car’s infotainment system should never be hijacked to show an ad. Critical info only, IMO.
The distraction is a secondary issue, the most vocal complaints were directed toward the Stellantis system that *technically* wasn’t a safety hazard because it only appeared when the vehicle is stationary.
It’s like saying, “you complain that the car throwing feces at the owner is unsanitary, but it’s actually a perfectly sterile synthetic feces substitute!”
Yeah, that gets around the “basic safety issue” that people would point to in the process of complaining, but it will not make anyone less angry.
If it has a screen, then it can be cracked 🙂 Speaking in the software sense of course. There’s a huge car hacking scene in China, with people unlocking their (Android-based) infotainment to install Tiktok Wechat and all sorts of Chinese apps. My Mazda 6e shares its infotainment with Deepal, the same Deepal that pushed unskippable ads on 480000 owners to hawk their new cars. So now there’s free tools to jailbreak Deepal screens, block all OTAs, install other map apps, uninstall bloatware and spyware etc. Just today I jailbroke my screen and installed a Bluetooth OBD2 app to read ECU data on the go. Thanks anti-consumerism!
Oh, I’d love this. I want to root mine!
Go for it! As much as I hate large touchscreens in cars, if it’s already there might as well make it useful. I’m making mine display battery temps, range extender RPM and motor power.
I am a subscriber to XM/Serius and I get an occasional message to let my friends/family know that the free trial is available. My son uses Spotify and could not care less about their service or trial period. Maybe I need to take a lesson from him.
xm is the worst way to consume any sort of media known to man. I can’t comprehend anyone wanting it. I live rurally and don’t have radio service, or cell service to stream for most my drive. I literally sit in silence rather than turn that slop on.
I have heard some pretty funny routines on the comedy channels and the laughs help keep my blood pressure down on long drives. The New Wave channel brings a bit of nostalgia. You’re welcome to sit in silence. To each their own.
fair enough! I’ve only ever used it for music, a comedy channel does make sense to me. Keep up your enjoyment and don’t let me kill your buzz!
The weird thing about XM/Sirius is that it sounded like crap in my wife’s ’15 BMW and sounds mostly fine in my ’17 Honda. Obviously the same signal, so that was on BMW.
Hold it you mean if you own a Stellantis you can call customer service and talk to a live person? That is the Holy Grail of customer service. As a show of what bad customer service is when I got to work today there were 2 packages left out for several days outside by FedEx. They weren’t even for us. An attempt to solve the problem got automatic voice that could not even operate 1 for yes 2 for no. I got a message they would call me back but it didn’t happen.
I got a voicemail from a specific person at a health care provider for my mother today, while I was out and taking care of other things, and when I called back, could not reach the person who had left it and got trapped in an endless loop of unhelpful options. And the message when I called back said that they were using AI to make the experience more efficient. Buckle up world.
I hope they let you know “your call is very important to us. ” The only thing customer service does anymore
And also that their voice menu “has recently changed”.
If your car lacks a screen, it can’t display ads. Just sayin’.
There are just soooo damned many nails in the coffin holding my desire to EVER buy another new car.
Other than the legal disclaimer upon startup, my ’17 Honda Accord has a touchscreen, but never presented me with anything more than that. And it doesn’t have a volume knob. The buttons on the steering wheel work adequately. But your point is taken. We just want stuff to do what we want it to do and nothing more.
The automotive UI people need to take a step back and figure out people actually interface with their cars. Or want to.
I would be fine with steering wheel controls if they were simple, intuitive, and every damned car was the SAME. But they never are. They literally re-invent the wheel every time, and I drive about 30 different cars a year. But even then, give me a damned volume knob in the correct place, on the left side of a radio interface. Not in the center, not by the passengers knee, and definitely not some rocker switch or touch/slide/haptic bullshit.
100% Agree! I am now retired, for two years. But it seemed like every rental was different. And at every airport where I picked up a car, I had to spend a couple of minutes to figure out how to do what I want to do.
Mirrors? That was pretty standard. But audio was always, um, interesting. And sometimes HVAC was pretty convoluted. The UIs on a car that you own and drive frequently, you quickly learn or adapt, but when it’s a different car and UI every week, it’s challenging.
And this week I have yet another car where I cannot for the life of me get CarPlay to connect and work. Grumble, grumble, grumble.
I don’t travel for work anymore. To be honest, I never tried to connect my phone with a rental. It just didn’t feel worth the effort.
I give it a shot. This one is annoying me because it’s a new luxury SUV with a giant screen, but nowhere good to place my phone. And it keeps asking if I want to enable CarPlay, but it won’t actually do it. Extra frustrating, but not atypical and why I just don’t care if a car has it or not – but if it has it, it damned well should just work.
For XM, I have to wonder if disconnecting the XM antenna would prevent these from coming through. If you’re not a subscriber anyway, might as well.
Consumer behavior is a funny thing. We will tolerate a lot from brands if we feel like they align with our values or image, but will turn on them if they inconvenience us or undermine the way we perceive ourselves.
Subarus and Jeeps are nice vehicles, but a lot of their ability to sell cars is based on image and perception. Being force fed ads is the opposite of what these brands say they represent, and they should be cautious about burning that perception for some ad revenue.
To bad our “betters” in congress probably don’t drive themselves much at all. If this happened to one of them, we might have a chance of some action being taken.
Agreed. This seems like something that would get somebody some additional votes if they looked out for consumers here.
Not defending the satellite radio company, but if a popup ad causes a driver to almost crash, said driver should consider getting a bus pass.
What are you talking about? It’s the car doing an entirely unexpected behavior that was not anticipated or intended by the driver. That’s precisely something that would understandably get one’s attention.
I’ll be in the minority and agree with you. If a pop up ad is enough to cause you to almost crash, God forbid what would happen if a real crisis appeared.
Driving is a process of making constant minor decisions and judgement calls based on a huge amount of information feedback. It’s why the extra second or milliseconds it might take for a vehicle with brake-colored turn signals to register as “turning” instead of “slowing” could be dangerous.
Adding *useless and insulting* things to that network of feedback is irresponsible, and not calling it out will result in further overreach by automakers that will be more dangerous than one popup ad.
I kind of think the popup isn’t that bad if they’re just informing you that you get free sirius for two weeks. But there should be a third button on the popup: “Don’t message me again.” and that choice should be respected.
Not while the vehicle is in motion, though.
The fact ads like this never come with “don’t message me again” says a lot in itself.
I am old and therefore wear reading glasses (long-sighted) – but am OK with most things on the dashboard/centre screen, and use Siri a lot. Daily is a 2019 Amarok with no beeps or bongs or electronic nannies.
So, rented an Outback recently, and was pleasantly surprised for the most part. Worked out how to turn ‘driver aids’ off – but a pain to do every time you started.
A random message kept popping up between the tacho and speedo though – witch was too small to read. Kept bugging me, but I kept missing is – even though had my glasses handy. Eventually caught it: “ Keep your eyes on the road’.
Let me see if I have this right.
Automakers are being summoned to appear before a Senate committee in January and explain why prices are so high and now is when they decide it’s a good time to throw in pop-up ads in their infotainment screen?
Everyone knows why the prices are high, that’s just theatre.
I sincerely hope that they show up without wearing a suit.
I hope they send Dee Snider as their rep.
Too bad John Denver isn’t alive to join him in the fight.
Not defending Subaru, but SiriusXM is a shit company with predatory practices. I’d bet these ads are generated by them though their interface with the infotainment system. It tracks with the hell I went through trying to cancel my service. It’s a lot like scraping a squishy dog turd off a running shoe. That doesn’t mean Subaru and other manufacturers couldn’t make it stop. They have more clout than Sirius’s paying customers.
It probably is Sirius, but ultimately, Subaru has to have the final say on what gets displayed onscreen. They need to cut that shit out.
“No one is asking for this”
To be fair, no one asked for, or wanted, any of the advertising we’re subjected to at every single waking moment.
Did you ask the advertising executives?
I spent seven years at an ad agency. They don’t just think you want ads. They think you need them.
How will I know what will make my life whole if they don’t tell me?
I mean, I’m pretty sure advertisements are the foundational layer of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…
They may not have asked, but they didn’t mail a letter to the address hidden in the terms of service to opt-out, so they must want the ads!
So are we getting these cars for free in exchange for being advertised to? Because last time I checked, that’s how you get Youtube for free. Fuck these guys. I’m sticking with my cars pre 2016.
I’d add to that TV’s got way cheaper once they started selling our data. Cars have not.
I don’t think TV becoming more affordable was consumers benefiting from data sales “subsidizing” their usage.
Had this pop a few times on my 2024 Impreza last week. Annoying.
We live in hell
We have been Uploaded.
If this is a simulation I should be having a better time.
Buy the “Fun Times” subscription and you will!
This is why I’m sticking with Dubya-era cars from here on out.
wise thinking. I might too.
Can someone help me find an affordable Eisenhower-era car? I’m looking to avoid ECUs, too.
I have a friend who is like that. No cell phone, no internet at his house, no cable TV. And no cars with any kind of “computer”, which pretty much puts him pre-1975, although he has a few from the 80’s. He has about a dozen cars.
I don’t mind computers that make my car work better. But I really hate computers that make my car work worse.
I have a co-worker almost like that, but she is also focused on cash-only transactions. She takes the “Customer as data product” thing very seriously, and I can’t really fault her for that.
Oh he’s 100% cash, and mails checks for all of his bills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGgTy5YJ-g
The hard sell, it’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru; well that and bizarrely shaped black plastic cladding along the sides.
I thought what made a Subaru a Subaru were crankshaft position sensor faults?!
Blown head gaskets and rampant rust, I thought?
Don’t forget the creaking and rattling.
My Chevy Tracker has ads on the dash too. It keeps popping up with “Service Engine Soon”. Nice try Mr. Dealership, nice try.
Hmm, I’ve never seen that one on any of my Toyotas.
So electrical tape then?
I have!
must own pre-22 then. The new ones are trash.
At least on the early trackers, you had an advertisement removal switch behind the dash — hit it and it’ll remove the CEL. Not joking, it was set to mileage intervals so folks would bring their cars in for service. I have it on my 93 Geo.
I’ve had both a 1st and 2nd Gen tracker. 2nd Gen is all OBDII, so the Service Engine Soon is just a typical CEL. My first gen was OBDI, but the CEL still flashed codes when triggered.
Ha! Mine has just had the brake light on almost constantly since I got the car, but I can’t figure out why.
Mine did that too, if I pushed the lever down a little harder it would go out. Think two thing can trigger the light: Low fluid in the reservoir, and the handbrake being applied. Check your fluid, and see if the switch attached to the handbrake has any adjustment potential.
Thanks! I’m pretty sure it’s not the handbrake; during its rare periods of not being on by default (usually after killing the battery), the light does work as expected with the handbrake. It did remain on after refilling brake fluid when I tried changing the fluid soon after getting the car, though.
The brakes have been really spongy and require a lot of travel before they bite, pretty much ever since I’ve owned the car. I probably ought to do a really thorough fluid change at some point, but I’m not really sure how the car would know that. There also doesn’t seem to be any kind of ABS working, but as I understand it there should only be rear ABS, and possibly that was just a fancy name for a proportioning valve?
Hmm, they typically have pretty good brakes, I’d bleed all 4 corners and make sure there isn’t air in the system. Chances are it doesn’t have any ABS, I don’t think I’ve seen a 1st gen with it, apart from really fancy ones. My 2nd gen (base base base model) doesn’t have ABS.
Yeah, I really should get to that sometime…
I’ve tried bleeding the system twice already, but I think I just not have been thorough enough?
bleeding sucks. When I do it, i give myself lots of time, crack one at a time and let it gravity bleed for a good long while, then conventionally bleed with a partner. Just keep an eye on the reservoir.
If consumers don’t stand up to this bullshit now, these goddamn companies will turn our infotainment screens into something out of Cyberpunk 2077.
We all know the US (at least currently) is way too pro-business to do anything about this.
The EU might. They are clearly far more pro-consumer. Especially if it is framed as a distracted-driver issue.
But we have to nip this in the bud now before companies automatically expect to feed us ads 24/7.
Welcome to City 17…
Just wait until bots invade all comment sections and randomly share how a cold crisp Dr. Pepper® would hit the spot right now.
That hasn’t happened already? I mean, I never have a second cup of coffee at home. It must be the Taster’s Choice here at the office!
I hope this results in a NHTSA safety investigation and a very costly recall, even though it should only be a simple software update to get rid of this BS.
Call your Representative! Call your Senator! Get this practice banned by law! Or at least make them wait until startup to display it instead of in traffic at highway speeds…
I mean, if they’re a Democrat, urge the total ban. If they’re Republican, urge the startup limitation. They’ll still ignore you anyway, but you’ll *feel* like you did something.
I’m pretty sure one of those groups is gonna side with the automakers.
The “take money from lobbyist group” or…wait a minute…
Knowing how slow and shitty Subaru’s infotainment systems are, you’ll likely get to your destination before it registers that you pushed the “X” button.