I think this question has been asked in this forum, and until now, OnStar did not have this capability.
http://www.freep.com/article/2009072...022/1002/rss02
A car thief on Monday morning in West Bloomfield was one of the first to discover OnStar’s newest trick: Remote Ignition Block. The capability, which was announced today, went into effect late Friday and allows a General Motors’ OnStar adviser to prevent a subscriber’s stolen vehicle from restarting once the ignition is turned off.
“This capability will not only help authorities recover stolen vehicles, but can also prevent dangerous high speed pursuits from starting,” GM said in a statement.
Chet Huber, OnStar president, told the Free Press this morning that the company has already used the service seven times since late Friday.
“We can reach – from the wireless connection we have with the car — into it and disable the ignition system,” he said. “So far, we’re seven for seven.”
The first time was for a vehicle in New Jersey. One of those seven times included a vehicle stolen in West Bloomfield, he said.
The West Bloomfield call came around 8:45 a.m. Monday.
“They did recover the car,” Huber said. “It was a 2009 Buick Enclave.”
The capability comes as an evolution of services previously offered by OnStar. The subscriber service already allows for pinpointing stolen vehicles’ locations and remotely slowing a stolen vehicle to idle speed.
OnStar receives about 600 requests a month for help with stolen vehicles from subscribers and has helped in more than 28,000 requests over the past decade, the company said.
The new Remote Ignition Block is available on more than 2 million select 2009 and 2010 model year GM vehicles in the United States and Canada, the company said.
“This is the next logical step,” Huber said.
The process for using the remote block includes subscribers reporting the vehicle stolen to law enforcement officials and requesting assistance from OnStar. The police provide confirmation to OnStar that the vehicle is stolen. The block can be reversed once it is confirmed the vehicle has been recovered.
“What we’ve found is that nothing gets better with time in these stolen vehicle situations. The sooner you can intervene … the more likely you are going to be to recover the vehicle,” Huber said.