Removing Spireon Lojack GPS Tracker
This past winter, I noticed there were some wires sticking out near the OBD-II port that would sometimes hit my left foot when it was resting on the dead pedal. I didn’t think much of it and just pushed them up into the dash.
But it happened again last week. I’m not as spry as I used to be, but I decided that I’d stick my head under there to see what was going on. Upon inspection, I noticed that there appeared to be a wiring harness that was attached to the factory OBD-II connector, a Manx/ManxU Harness according to its sticker.
A quick Google search pointed out that such a harness is often used to extract power for a GPS tracker by daisy-chaining to the ODB-II connector. I went back and looked at it again, but didn’t notice anything connected to it. I tried to remove the harness, but I could not get its OBD-II socket out of the Polestar 2 bracket mount. So I again just stuffed things up into the dash and let it be.
But it kept nagging at me, so I did more research and found some tips on the Polestar forum for how to remove the socket from the bracket. The trick: although it looks like there is a small tab that you have to push in to disconnect the socket you actually have to pry the socket up and away from that tab while sliding it to the right.
While playing around with that I followed one of the extra wires on the harness and I found that it was connected to a GPS tracker that was tucked behind the plastic of the footwell! Sneaky!
I probably should have noticed this on first inspection, but it is very awkward and uncomfortable to lie back and look up into that corner. I kept hitting my head on the brake pedal and my back was screaming at me!
I eventually was able to finagle the socket with a small flathead screwdriver and got the entire harness disconnected.
With it disconnected, I then unplugged it from the OEM ODB-II socket and slid the OEM socket back into the bracket.
Things look much better now and there are no more extra wires getting in my way.
When I bought the car, I specifically had this Lojack add-on removed from the price sheet so I certainly did not pay for it. I do find it somewhat surprising that the dealer didn’t bother to remove (or at least disconnect) the tracker.
I suppose it also means they perhaps could have used it to track the location of my Polestar, but I don’t think they would have bothered with that.
It does look like I could perhaps get $10-$20 for it on eBay, though!
By the way, other than the bracket issue, none of this is really Polestar-specific. The harness can be connected to any vehicle in the exact same way.
I hope others find this information helpful.