'Uh Oh:' Woman Sits In Her Volkswagen. Then She Sees It’s Made 164 Vehicle Reports for Her
"My car does not like me."
In a short TikTok video, a woman, who goes by Casey Jay (@caseyjaywalsh), moves her manicured fingers along the dashboard screen of her Volkswagen. She shows off something most people would find fairly unwelcome—a warning about “164 vehicle reports.”
But what does that mean for a Volkswagen driver exactly?
Understanding Vehicle Reports in Volkswagen Cars
Volkswagen's connected services typically work through what the German carmaker calls its “Car-Net system,” which is also integrated into the myVW app. The program is designed to inform drivers about a vehicle's health and performance.
The service issues monthly “Vehicle Health Reports,” which the car eventually sends to the driver’s email inbox. The idea here is that the car will flag potential hazards on the horizon, so you can be proactive in seeking repairs, potentially getting out in front of peril for your Volkswagen.
Motor1 reached out to Casey Jay about her video over TikTok’s direct messaging service, and she didn’t immediately respond, so it’s hard to gauge how long she has owned her Volkswagen. It could be a factor in her video, because Car-Net could have pulled those notifications up over a long stretch of time. If Casey Jay had bought her car in 2012 and hadn’t addressed alerts, she could have been looking at over twelve years of notifications at one time.
Car-Net will typically alert the driver about events that all drivers experience, like oil changes, checking the tire pressure, and routine service checks. And, depending on her age, the car might be snooping on her in ways that are unwelcome to everyone but her parents.
The Car-Net features can alert parents to their children’s driving habits through something called “Family Guardian Alerts.” Driving too fast can trigger an alert through this mode. Leaving a geographic boundary can trigger an alert through this mode. Car-Net will even snitch on a teen for driving past curfew.
While this may not be Casey Jay’s problem, critics have focused on Volkswagen for their issues around privacy as it relates to Car-Net. It seems the car is collecting a little too much data on drivers for some people’s tastes. The German news outlet Spiegel reported at the end of 2024 that the data of 800,000 cars had been exposed, giving specific GPS coordinates and owner information to potential hackers.
Commenters on TikTok had some fun with Casey Jay’s discovery, as you’d expect. One person, going by “Progress0nly,” singled out the make of her vehicle.
“Just vw things,” they wrote.
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