Table of Contents.

Serious Crime at Hyundai, Marbella, 2015.


Hyundai, C. José Manuel Vallés, S/N, Marbella.

In November 2015 I bought a brand new Hyundai i20 from Hyundmar, Marbella. They had their store at C. José Manuel Vallés, S/N, Marbella. Unother company is now, in 2023, the owner of this store. After a few weeks I noticed that I was being shadowed by other cars. They could show up when I visited shops, restaurants etc to take a closer look at my car. I examined the car using a bug detector but found nothing suspicious. The shading has continued uninterrupted until today.

On 2022-10-10 I inspected the car at ITV, Malaga. It failed to pass the inspection. According to the inspection report, the reason was that they could not connect to the ODB contact. I then visited a car workshop in Torremolinos. They checked the ODB contact but could not find anything wrong. Shortly afterwards I inspected the car again. It was then approved.

In November 2023 I bought an ODB2 scanner. The purpose was to check the car's Engine Control Unit (ECU). The unit is mounted in the engine compartment behind the car battery. You could say that this unit is the brain of the car's control system. A computer program controls hundreds of functions, such as fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The program contains hundreds of trouble codes. When the ODB2 scans the systems, the EUC will deliver trouble codes if any errors are detected. These codes are called Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTC). The ECU provides explanations for each DTC detected.

 
When I scanned the ECU I got the above menus. For MONITOR STATUS, "DTC's in this EUC" is said
to be 0 (zero). There must be trouble codes in the ECU. If not, the ECU cannot report any faults
present in the car.

After scanning the ECU I realized that something was wrong with this unit. I removed the car battery and could then see that a label was stuck on the ECU:


Label for ECU.

I contacted a company in Torremolinos that is an expert in car electronics. I submitted a copy of the label. After a few hours I was told that the firmware in this ECU could not be updated. I then contacted a Hyundai spare parts sales representative. After these two visits, I got confirmation of what I suspected. The ECU in my car is not a genuine Hyundai part. It is not compatible with my car.

When I bought the car on 2015-11-18, I was told that the car would be "fixed" in the coming days. I picked it up on Saturday 2015-11-21. During these days, someone at Hyundmar replaced the ECU installed by the Hyundai factory. The purpose of this serious crime was as follows:
In Hyundai cars, it is common to install GPS trackers at the factory. They are not activated when the car is delivered to the customer. In this case, a number of GPS trackers were activated by Hyundmar before the car was delivered to me. By replacing the ECU that was installed by Hyundai's factory, they have made it impossible to check the status of the GPS trackers that were in place. When ITV inspected the car on 2022-10-10, the "connector" to the ECU failed. It is the confirmation that the ECU available is not compatible with my car. When I handed the car in for the annual service, I always used one of Hyundai's authorized workshops. I have hired three workshops. They have been located in Fuengirola and Torremolinos. These workshops have not been able to scan the ECU to see if there were possibly activated GPS trackers. Someone or a few within Hyndmar, Marbella, are guilty of serious crime. I propose the following criminal classifications:

1) Theft of the Engine Control Unit (ECU). According to Hyundai, it currently has a market value of around EUR 500.
2) Aiding and abetting illegal surveillance.


You can find more about GPS trackers in my car here: Sixteen (16) GPS Trackers Discovered In My Hyundai i20 In 2021.