- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
The products covered by the obligation to repair currently include:
- washing machines and washer-dryers
- dishwashers
- refrigerators
- electronic displays
- welding equipment
- servers and data storage products
- mobile phones, cordless phones and tablets
- tumble dryers
- e-bikes and e-scooters batteries (from 18 February 2027)
- local space heaters
So I saw that my car offered up all sorts of useful diagnostic information for self diagnosing stuff. Was very excited and went to look at it for a generic fault without having to get software to tell me what the fault is. I thought "it’s stupid it has fully functional computer display yet tells me basically “contact a dealer, but it’s safe to drive” instead of what the problem is. Then I find out that because I’m in the USA, the company keeps it to themselves…
So if they see value in treating regions differently, they will absolutely go out of their way to screw over the regions that will let them.
Okay, but the economics of doing that are different between software and hardware. It’s much more expensive to have a full second hardware design compared to just turning a software feature off in certain markets.
Car manufacturers screwed over consumers the last 10-15 years big time! Cars used to be the big thing many could fix a lot on by themselves and were proud to do so. Then they basically just said incrementally to the DIY’ers “it’s all computers now, not your cup of tea”, purposely made cars less and less self repairable and got away with it! It’s infuriating.
Computers could make cars a lot more reliable and moddable. It’s proprietary/locked-down software and hardware that’s the problem.
Do you seriously think they computerized cars to make them less repairable? That’s some tin foil hat stuff there.
They started computerizing cars to make them more efficient, reliable (ironically), safer, etc. The problem is that beyond OBDII there is no standard for diagnostics, and makers keep these proprietary.
They didn’t have to keep it proprietary, and I think in many “computer problems” the certified dealers will just replace 1 circuitboard by a new one, but it’s a part which private customers are not able to order and replace themselves
They didn’t do it for that purpose, I am saying they used the opportunity of cars becoming more digital to make them less repairable outside of “certified dealers”
Exactly, repairing your car was even a very common trope in Home Improvement, which kind of catched the average American household of that time pretty well, or so at least to TVs best abilities to generalize
Yeah, I get the impression newer cars are designed to fail just outside warranty because the car companies make more on the dealerships repairs then they do on the sale of the car.