A viewer of this channel named Greg bought a 2022 Corvette, took it out to an autocross course in the weekends, and then could not get a single insurance company to cover him. It was not his record. General Motors had already sold his driving data to the insurance industry, and those weekend laps had flagged him as a high-risk driver. He had to put the car in his wife's name just to ensure it.
Another viewer, a Chevy Bolt owner named Brad, pulled his own file from a data broker called LexisNexis, and it came back 300 pages deep. And canceling the subscription does not stop it. The car keeps transmitting after you opt out.
What follows is the full account of how owners of the three brands you asked about most, Toyota, Ford, and General Motors, are shutting these trackers down model by model in their own driveways. Every method here was worked out by real owners on the forums, and we will finish on General Motors, the brand both of those men were driving. This is where the box hides on each one, and what the people who silenced it actually did.
Toyota
Toyota owners had the easiest time of anyone, because every Toyota in the question uses the exact same part. Toyota calls it the data communication module, the DCM, a small cellular box that reports location, speed, and hard braking back to Toyota on its own, whether the owner subscribed to anything or not.
On almost all of them, the kill switch is a single fuse labeled DCM, sometimes printed as DCM Mayday. It is usually a 7 and 1/2 amp fuse, though on a few models it is a 5 amp, which is why the owners doing this go by the label and not the color.
There are three honest catches that run across the whole Toyota lineup. The kind the manufacturer never mentions and the forms always do. Pulling that fuse usually takes the SOS button with it and on many models it also silences the hands-free microphone and the front right speaker because Toyota ran that audio through the same box. On some it sets a check engine light and on a lot of them it kills remote start from the key fob because Toyota tied the remote start to the data module on purpose.
For owners who want the tracker dead but the microphone and speaker alive, a company called Auto Harness House sells plug-in bypass harnesses built for several Toyota models that do exactly that.
Number one is the RAV4, the model the most of you asked about. On the RAV4 the DCM fuse sits in the interior panel in the driver's side footwell and owners on the RAV4 World Forum have been pulling that 7.5 amp slot for years to cut the signal. But the RAV4 carries a specific trap, one that caught a 2024 owner who wrote it up. The newer RAV4, the 2024 and the 2025 Prime, has a backup battery built into the module. So even with the fuse gone his safety connect button still called out and the box still had power. On newer RAV4s the fuse is only half the job and the internal cell has to come out as well. On the older RAV4s the fuse alone does it.
The verdict on the RAV4, the simplest of the bunch as long as the newer ones do not surprise you with a second battery.
Number two is the Tacoma, the best documented truck on the entire list because its owners have done more work on this than any other Toyota community. On the third generation truck, the 2016 through 2023 model years, the DCM sits in the center console just forward of the shifter with its fuse in the panel behind and below the glove box, and the fuse pull works the same as the RAV4. But the Tacoma crowd went further and built the cleaner answer themselves, sold by Auto Harness House as the DCM-77 harness. It sits between the factory connectors and the module and tells the DCM it has no cellular and no GPS signal, which kills the transmission without sending the truck into a panic. On the newer 2025 fourth generation Tacoma, owners on the Tacoma 4G forum reached the same result with three terminated dummy plugs standing in for three factory cables.
The verdict on the Tacoma. If any truck has a turnkey answer, it is this one because the owners built the kit themselves.
Number three is the Tundra running the same DCM with a dedicated how-to thread on tundras.com forum from an owner who spent more than a year getting it right. The location is the catch. On the 2020 Tundra, owners found the DCM is not simply behind the glove box where they expected it, so the job involves some hunting behind the dash with the fuse labeled DCM in the interior panel as the first move. The same three catches apply, SOS, the microphone, and the remote start.
The verdict on the Tundra. The same 5-minute fuse once you know where Toyota tucked the box on your year.
Number four is the Camry, which holds the strange distinction of being the very first Toyota to carry this hardware back in 2018. It is the same DCM sitting behind the head unit in the center console shut off by the same labeled DCM fuse. For owners who would rather not lose the microphone and speaker, the Camry is another model the bypass harness was built for.
The verdict on the Camry. The car that started Toyota's tracking era goes silent the same way the rest of them do.
Number five is the Highlander. Running the identical DCM system as its siblings, so nothing about the method changes. The DCM fuse in the under-dash interior panel. The honest note here is that there is far less Highlander specific write-up on the forums than there is for the RAV4 or the Tacoma. So, a Highlander owner doing this today may be the one documenting it for the next one. The module and the method are the same, and so are the microphone and remote start trade-offs.
The verdict on the Highlander. Same box, same fuse, just less company while it gets done.
Number six is the 4Runner, one of the cleaner ones. Owners report that the DCM fuse in the under-dash fuse box is all it takes, and the car goes quiet with no drama. It is the same DCM as the rest of the lineup with the same audio trade-offs because the microphone runs through it. The older 4Runners are simpler still because the early ones predate this hardware entirely.
The verdict on the 4Runner. A single fuse under the dash, and it is finished.
That is the whole Toyota lineup, and the pattern is plain. One box, one labeled fuse, one easy afternoon.
Before Ford, one quick thing. If this is saving you the hours of digging it took to put together, subscribe. So, the next time one of these companies gets caught selling driver data, you get the real numbers here before the press releases clean them up.
Ford
Now, Ford. Ford works differently from Toyota, so there is no DCM to look for. Ford calls it the telematics control unit, the TCU, mounted on most Ford trucks behind the rear seat, or behind the glove box, and tied into the Ford Pass system. The fix is just as real by fuse or by unplugging the unit, but the fuse number is not the same from truck to truck. And that is the one detail that matters most on a Ford. A number that worked for someone else's truck online is not necessarily yours. So, the owners who get it right read the fuse diagram for their own model year and trim, >> [music] >> and find the slot marked for the telematics unit.
Number one is the F-150. Its TCU sits behind the rear seat, and owners on the F-150 forums mapped how the fuse shifts by year. On a 2020 truck, fuse number 10 in the passenger compartment is the one, and pulling it stops all GPS and server traffic cold. On a 2022, the workshop manual points instead to a 5-amp fuse, number eight, in the body control module. The old hands on Bob is the oil guy skipped the guessing entirely and reached the unit behind the rear seat, where three connectors, two for the antennas and one for power and data, come unplugged to kill the modem outright. And there is a piece of Ford specific luck worth checking first, because during the chip shortage, some 2022 F-150s [snorts] shipped with no telematics unit at all.
The verdict on the F-150. The off switch is real. It just hides behind a different fuse number on every truck.
Number two is the F-250 and the rest of the Super Duty where the box lives behind the right rear seat back behind the carpeted panel and the Ford Super Duty forum holds the canonical thread on it. On those trucks the modem fuse owners point to is fuse number nine. One 2022 F-250 Lariat owner did the smarter version wiring in a two-prong switched fuse so he could flip the modem back on for a moment if the truck were ever stolen then flip it right back off and he unplugged the inputs and outputs at the TCU on top of that. For the software inclined that same forum documents doing it through forscan in the APIM and the TCU fully reversible.
The verdict on the F-250 a fuse or a switch wired in so the choice stays with the owner.
Number three is the Maverick the cleanest Ford of the three. Owners on the Maverick Truck Club pull fuse number 11 in the passenger floorboard panel and they report it takes out the telematics modem and nothing else no warning lights no side effects. Two things stand out. Ford left the modem out of many Maverick builds from 2022 through 2024 so many are already silent. And the opt-out toggle Ford advertises in the app only works for owners in California which is the whole reason fuse number 11 exists as the workaround.
The verdict on the Maverick. One fuse in the floorboard and the little truck goes quiet.
That is Ford. A different box a different fuse on every model. The same 5-minute result.
General Motors
Which brings us to the brand this whole video has been building toward. General Motors is last for a reason and it is not because it is the hardest. It is because it is the worst. What happened here is worse than a comment section makes it sound.
Starting in 2016, General Motors ran a feature inside OnStar called Smart Driver. It logged hard braking, speed, and precise location. And on some vehicles, it sampled that data as often as every 3 seconds. Then General Motors sold it to two data brokers, LexisNexis and Verisk, who packaged it into risk reports and sold those to the insurance industry. Millions of drivers had their insurance profiles rewritten by their own cars, and most of them never knew. That is Greg, priced out of his own Corvette over a few weekend laps. That is Brad and his 300-page LexisNexis file.
And the part that should make anyone angry is in the federal record now. People were enrolled without ever agreeing to it. According to the government's own complaint, on some vehicles, simply downloading an app, like the MyCadillac app, switched on the data sharing with the owner never taking a single step to opt in. One driver in Florida named in the lawsuit was turned down by seven different insurance companies before he learned his own car had been informing on him.
A third viewer, a man named Geo, pointed to a story that sounds absurd until the system makes sense of it. A driver's premium jumped, and his data came back full of hard braking events flagged as reckless driving. Every one of them in his own driveway. At the same hour, because his cat ran out to greet him each afternoon, and he braked so he would not run it over. The car logged a man carefully avoiding his cat as aggressive driving, because the car has no idea why anyone brakes, it only knows that they did.
What can actually be done about it depends, more than with any other brand on this list, on which General Motors vehicle is sitting in the driveway.
Number one is the Corvette, the car that started the whole story, and it splits in two. The older C7, the 2014 through 2019 Corvette, is the lucky case. Its OnStar sits in the headliner just above the rearview mirror, and owners on the Corvette forums disconnect it and loop the network wiring back so the car does not protest, which cuts OnStar off.
The C8, the 2020 and newer Corvette, the one Greg was driving, is the opposite story, and it is worth being blunt about. There is no clean way to do it. On the C8, OnStar is woven directly into the car's electronics, with no separate fuse, and a General Motors engineer in the telematics group admitted on a Corvette forum that there is no practical way to fully shut it down without breaking other parts of the car because the navigation, the radio, and even the front lift memory all route through the same unit. Removing it breaks the car.
The verdict on the Corvette, the C7 owner can still win. The C8 owner cannot because General Motors built it that way, and that is exactly how Greg got trapped.
Number two is the Sierra, the good news General Motors does not advertise. Unlike the Corvette, the Sierra truck and the Silverado it shares parts with both, give the module up by hand. On the 2022 through 2024 trucks, owners on the Silverado Sierra forum located the OnStar module made by LG under the dash on the driver side right between the brake pedal and the accelerator. Two antenna plugs run into it, usually one purple and one brown alongside a single wiring connector. Once those plugs are disconnected and the two small Torx screws between them are removed, the whole module lifts away in one hand. The OnStar buttons go dead and the truck has no path left to phone home.
The owners who did it pass along one honest caveat. The module rides on the truck's high-speed data line. So, on some trucks it can set a code and at least one owner found his dashboard clock stop keeping accurate time afterward. For anyone who wants to keep Bluetooth and satellite radio, there is a more careful version that opens the module and removes only the cellular board.
The verdict on the Sierra. The truck General Motors tracks the same way as the Corvette is, ironically the one that gives up its tracker for two screws.
Number three is the Acadia, which comes down almost entirely to its age. The older Acadia, around 2012, is genuinely easy. There is a single OnStar fuse and the module, the CIM, sits under the carpet within reach where three connectors marked J1, J2, and J3 and a pair of antenna leads come apart by hand.
The newer Acadia, 2017 and up, is where General Motors made it harder. The communications box moved behind the parking brake lever into a hard plastic cradle that requires special tools to free and owners report that on the 2020 model fully unplugging it can disable the vehicle. So, the realistic move on the newer ones is the partial one. Unplugging the maroon OnStar connector that sits next to a brown one and disconnecting the antenna lead, which stops the box calling out even while it stays in place.
The verdict on the Acadia. [music] The old ones come apart in minutes. The new ones only give up their antenna and their voice.
Conclusion
And that is the whole list. Stand back and look at what these owners worked out brand by brand. On a Toyota, it is one labeled fuse. On a Ford, it is one hidden fuse. On a Sierra, it is the whole module lifted out on two screws. And on the C8 Corvette that started this entire story, [music] it is nothing at all because General Motors made certain of it.
Because under every one of these brands is a single truth. Almost every new car is a connected car now. And the off switch the app promises is theater. Canceling the subscription does not stop the collection. Opting out in most states does not stop the collection. The only thing that has ever reliably stopped it is a hand, a screwdriver, and a fuse.
And a word of care here because this is not a story about paranoia. Nobody is saying to throw a phone in a lake or live in the woods. Phones track us. Banks track us. The cameras at the intersection track us. And one fuse does not make anyone a ghost. But there is a difference between the world tracking you and the car you paid $40,000 for selling your Saturday morning to a company that turns it into an insurance denial. One of those is in your own driveway. And one of those is in your own hands. You own the car. You should own its silence, too.
For 100 years, the thing bought in a driveway was yours. And the only one who knew where it went was the person behind the wheel. That arrangement is over unless the owner ends it. One fuse at a time.
And this fight is not finished. That federal case in Georgia, the one with Greg and Brad and the Florida driver who was turned down seven times, survived General Motors' attempt to throw it out this past April, and the core wiretapping claims are still standing. The next rounds play out over the rest of this year, and when there are real numbers and a real ruling, I will be right here with them.
So, tell me down in the comments which car you are thinking about silencing this weekend, and which brand I should cover next because Nissan, Mazda, and the rest are already on my list. Subscribe and you will have the next one before the lawyers are done arguing about the last one.