Adafruit: From Ultimate Driving Machine to Ultimate Rent-Seeking Machine: The BMW Logo Screw Patent.
If you haven’t already heard, BMW’s R&D teams have been busy “innovating.” Unfortunately, they aren’t focusing on the things that actually matter—like stellar engine performance or the legendary driving dynamics that gearheads love. Instead, the C-suite execs decided that the best use of their engineering budget was to design a proprietary security screw specifically intended to prevent BMW drivers from fixing their own cars.
I’m sure they will but that requires owners to go out and buy a kit of specialty tools for that one job, which may be too much investment. And many people are just not savvy enough to do that, they see “specialty tools” and throw up their hands.
It’s a special bit, that’s it. Do you have any idea how many bits/sockets/adapters I already own that only fit one vehicle? TONS. That’s just the nature of vehicles and maintenance. And I’m pretty sure if you own a BMW, you can afford a $5 bit. This is a nothing burger. It’s just people jumping on the BMW hate, which if you were smart, there’s plenty of actual things they overcharge up the ass for. This isn’t one of them. You might as well complain about locking lug nuts as a whole because that’s really all this is.
More likely it’s a whole set of bits. Why do you think they’re doing this? Apple invented a new screw. Why do you think they did that? None of it is intended to slow down professional repair businesses, it’s to stop DIYers.
LOL locking lugnuts prevent theft. Do you think that’s what the purpose of this is?