Wayne shares a cool Chevy/On-Star/Verizon billing hack that reduces his monthly bills:
I just bought a new Chevy Trailblazer which came equipped with On-Star and hands-free phone service. The hands-free service was provided through a pre-paid plan with Verizon Wireless. I called Verizon and they actually put my Chevy onto my already existing Family Plan for $9.99 a month. Now, my car is a giant cell phone with all the same calling features of a regular phone ( Verizon to Verizon for free, free evenings and weekends, etc… ).
Sweet deal, no doubt it would work for any other car prequipped with On-Star. Anyone else hack their car’s hands-free service in a similar way?
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It’s a cool idea, but why pay an extra $10 a month to use your car as a cellphone when you can use your cellphone in your car for not an extra $10 a month?
If it’s just for the hands free, there are a number of ways to do that without paying $10 a month.
And because of this article, they will now exclude autos in their terms of service.
This isn’t a hack or remotely special. It’s a service between GM and Verizon that has been available for at least a year.
Beware though, Verizon only offers this service on current plans. Meaning that if you have a two year old plan that is no longer being sold to new customers, then you must upgrade to a new plan to add the line.
Does that mean you get a new one every two years?
It’s a Chevy, you have no choice but to get a new one every two years…
Why not just buy a bluetooth headset for $60 instead? Not to mention what happens to your cell phone bill when your car gets stolen. It’s interesting but wholly unpractical and unnecessary IMHO.
verizon… what if i want to go to Europe? no fair…
I don’t understand – it has hands free, but not bluetooth? Why wouldnt you just connect your existing phone through bluetooth?
Who wants an electronic contraption stuck to their ear?
I would think for most people a hands free kit would be better but this is still a nice option to have. Would be good if a car is sharred between a few family members.
@remusrm: I wouldn’t worry about going to Europe; there’s a puddle between us and them that even a Trailblazer cannot master…
With this, whoever is driving the car can be reached. Plus if your battery is dead on your cell phone this will work instead.
This is not a hack or new twist…It has been offered for quite a while as an option to using OnStar’s calling plan.
Onstar and Saab left me to twist in the wind with my 03 Saab 9-3. They knew at the time I bought my car, that the system in my car would not function just 4 years from when I purchased it. They had an obligation to mention that little fact, as the OnStar system was a prime factor in buying the car. The took an active role in fraud, but not telling me that a major componant of my car would cease to function.
I was an active and paid subscriber from day one.
There is no upgrade kit available for the analog OnStar and I recieved NO offers from GM or OnStar, just warning notices that it would stop working and those I got this summer.
I would NEVER buy another OnStar equipped vehicle because I could not trust the company.
@jollymonjeff: I think you are confusing a representative at a dealership (a privately owned company with an agreement to sell new Saab vehicles) with Saab and OnStar. I’m sure neither corporation were consulted when you made your purchase, just a salesman who wouldn’t know what service would or wouldn’t be available in 4 years.
Sorry you had a bad experience, but I don’t think fraud is the right word.
This does seem silly. Usually the “hands-free” in a car functions like a giant bluetooth headset.
When you get in your car, it syncs with your existing cell-phone over bluetooth, and calls are automatically placed/received through the car’s hands free system.
No pre-paid or family plan required. Of course, this is far more common in European car companies, as bluetooth penetration there is much higher than here in the states.
Well I know Toyota offers Bluetooth pairing in many of it’s vehicles. But I have had several customers who were trading in OnStar equipped vehicles and they used them as their on the road cell phone.
I always wondered how much hassle they had to go through to turn off that line without an ETF or someone running up the bill on them.
Yes, hardly a hack – it a well-advertised feature of OnStar and Verizon :
[www.vzwshop.com]
[www.onstar.com]
It’s pain to carry the thing on a belt clip
Onstar sucks. I really can’t trust a service that has the ability lock/unlock your doors remotely, locate/track your vehicle, and eavesdrop on your conversations.
@MDSasquatch: Bluetooth hands-free in a car could also mean a small speakerphone device clipped to the visor, such as the Motorola unit I own and move between two vehicles. Simple, was cheap to buy, and it works well.
It is kind of a hack because if you use the service through OnStar that sell you blocks of 100 minutes at some outrageous price more than $10. So that fact that he is sharing his minutes is saving him money!
midwestkel: Yeah, but they know they can get away with it because the kind of person that’s OK with a call center monitoring and having control over his car probably thinks it’s a good deal.
Just don’t say anything bad about Indians, they’ll remotely cut power to your engine.
As others have noted, this isn’t new nor really a hack (in the traditional sense). OnStar and Verizon have been offering this for a while. All you need to do is have your OnStar account tied to your Verizon account.
What’s *really* fun is actually hacking into the OnStar module to tap its GPS signal for a homebrew GPS navigation solution without paying for the $1k+ OEM nav head-unit. Or maybe injecting the signal from your iPods line-out into the OEM XM feed complete with control signals.
Those that don’t trust OnStar to track you can even disable or even remove the control unit entirely.
*THOSE* are hacks. The Verizon thing is actually a feature.
pretty cool idea. I do see the guys point of why when you can take your phone in your car, but for 10 bucks i think it is worth it just for novilty sake