August 28, 2025 at 4:48 am

Driver Tried To Update The Software In His Car, And Somehow It Traveled Back In Time While He Wasn’t Looking

by Ben Auxier

A vehicle console updating

TikTok/tastewithtrav

If you weren’t around for the big Y2K scare, here’s a summary of what happened.

Back when computer systems were first being programmed, the date and time systems weren’t really set up to go past 1999 as a year.

As computers took over all of our most important systems, that became a problem. 1999 would soon come and go, and hitting that next number could cause huge errors that could crash, well, just about everything.

So, in a rare instance of human responsibility and cooperation, we got to work patching the bug out, and by the time Jan 1 2000 hit, the damage was extremely minimal.

I suspect that some similar date glitch is at play in the software of this weirdly new truck in the video from TikTok user @tastewithtrav:

A vehicle console updating

TikTok/tastewithtrav

“When your car was built in 2019…”

A vehicle console updating

TikTok/tastewithtrav

“…but the last checked update was 1970.”

A vehicle console updating

TikTok/tastewithtrav

“That don’t add up, sunshine.”

@tastewithtrav

Something just don’t add up here 😂 #tiktokshop #chevyequinox #chevygang #chevy #equinox #car #carproblems #updates #tiktokpartner #fyp #foryoupage #foryoupage #trending

♬ original sound – Trav Hodges

Heh, nice!

Screenshot 1 874208 Driver Tried To Update The Software In His Car, And Somehow It Traveled Back In Time While He Wasnt Looking

It’s a common thing, apparently.

Screenshot 2 7e88bc Driver Tried To Update The Software In His Car, And Somehow It Traveled Back In Time While He Wasnt Looking

A unix thing, more specifically.

Screenshot 3 dada64 Driver Tried To Update The Software In His Car, And Somehow It Traveled Back In Time While He Wasnt Looking

Or else Doc and Marty have been at it again.

Screenshot 4 2f2e95 Driver Tried To Update The Software In His Car, And Somehow It Traveled Back In Time While He Wasnt Looking

As far as I understand, it’s running on a system for which “1970” is the earliest date encoded, so if you’ve NEVER updated before, it defaults to saying that the last update was at the beginning of time, essentially.

Time travel sounds more fun, though.

If you liked that story, check out this video about a mom who reveals the inappropriate healthcare questionnaire her 13-year-old daughter got at school.