Hardware and software upgrades are available for some vehicles.The automaker sent out update reminders to owners of affected vehicles-both via mail and directly to the vehicles’ infotainment screens-before the cutoff date. 22, 2022 may have to pay upward of $900 for a hardware upgrade or lose certain features. Owners of some Hondas who didn’t download new software before Feb.
There are no announced plans for a connectivity upgrade, even though some of the cars that will permanently lose services are as new as the 2019 model year. Owners of vehicles from Nissan, Infiniti, Toyota, and Lexus are out of luck so far.The best advice is to ask your dealer if and when the connected services on your car are set to expire.
Some vehicles just need a software or hardware upgrade, but others-including vehicles from Chrysler, Dodge, Hyundai, Jeep, Lexus, Nissan, Ram, and Toyota-are losing their connections permanently.Īutomakers have known this for years, but as recently as 2019 they were putting 3G technology into new vehicles, knowing that customers would be left in the lurch without access to some of these services.Ĭonsumer Reports went to owner’s manuals and look at engineering documents to find out what features were impacted. And by the end of this year, all of the major cellular carriers will shut down their 3G networks. And that can be used for safety features, like being able to automatically call for help in a crash, or for convenience, like being able to start the car remotely or check to see if the doors are locked or unlocked.īut for millions of cars on the road today, that technology relies on an aging 3G wireless network. But, as wireless carriers begin shutting down those old 3G networks, millions of connected cars may lose important safety features.Īlmost every car these days has an internet connection built in. (CBS46) - Chances are you haven’t thought much about older 3G cellular networks because all the talk today is about 5G, the super-fast new network for smartphones and other wireless devices.