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.
No biggie. In less than a week we’ll have thousands of Chinese Amazon sellers providing these tools to everyone for lose to.
“specifically intended to prevent BMW drivers from fixing their own cars.”
Give me a break.
I hate to break it to people but every manufacturer has a lot of brand specific tools. You need a special socket for Toyota head bolts, 10 point sockets for Honda suspensions, a special multipoint socket for Audis, a special socket for Mercedes lug nuts and it’s good to have a 21.5mm for Fords. 5 point security torx are starting to pop up on GMs.
That’s just an example of a few sockets, the deeper you go into a car, the higher the possibility that you need a $400 special tool or kit for a specific manufacturer, or even specific year or engine.
I also highly doubt this screw is made with intention to keep users out of repairing their cars. I guarantee they are dress ups for engine bay/ interior. Having the bmw logo along panel screws looks far more puff than a bunch of torx screws. Every car requires either special tools or special software to work on, NO exceptions in modern vehicles. You cannot truly clear error codes from a Chrysler without a subscription to their gateway and internet access. You can go in limp mode where there’s no service and ur 3k autel scanner won’t help you without wifi as it cannot connect to the gateway. I don’t give a crap about special fasteners that’s the name of the game, my gripes are what they do on the computer side of things to lock you out. Right to repair just means you have the right to pay dealer networks thousands a year for the privilege of accessing your own modules on ur car with your scanner. What a fucking racket.
If you didn’t already know bmw had lost their design edge, you clearly haven’t seen the XM or their ugly ass plastic grills on electric vehicles that don’t even need grills.
I guess though I could see these being a novelty security feature for hubcaps that you don’t want to be removed too easily. Beyond that it’s just hostile and or dumb.
Idgaf about car design in general, but I definitely noticed when beamers started to look like Angry Birds pigs, they look sooo stupid.
BMW pinned so much of their visual identity on their kidney grilles. Literally decades of variations on the theme, mainly just getting bigger and bigger. And now grilles are completely redundant with ev’s and BMW hasn’t got a clue what to do about it. The lack of foresight and imagination is stunning.
I wouldn’t even mind if the fake grills looked decent, but they are just ugly. They seem to be thrashing around with what to do trying all sorts of ugly things.
a novelty security feature for hubcaps that you don’t want to be removed too easily
If this picks up, the people you’d want to not be able to remove these too easily will be the first to have the adequate tools to remove them easily.
As a bmw owner, it is complete horseshit that they don’t let you change your own tires. I had to pay $400 to change the tire after getting a flat.
Huh, how do they prevent you changing your own tire? Is this just that thing where they went with run flats and say you can’t patch them and need to buy a whole new expensive tire or something else?
Yeah they’re run flats.
Have they actually used it anywhere or just have the patent? Because I expect they won’t actually use it anywhere, like with Sony’s (IIRC) patent where you have to shout “McDonald’s!” after watching an ad. Though I wouldn’t be too surprised if they actually use it
That’s what’s often missing from stories about patents: big companies churn out patents in case they ever need to use them in patent warfare against competitors. For the sole reason that the competitors are doing the same thing.
However, I doubt it that BMW would ever have a chance to use this particular patent on a competitor.
Most of these employera pay employees a couple thousand dollar bonus for any patw t they get out there successfully, with zero limitations on actually implementing the patent.
Because this head prioritizes branding over utility, neither the bit nor the screw head can withstand the torque of a standard Torx or Hex fastener. The result? Broken bits, stripped screws, and more time spent on what would otherwise be a simple task.
Ugh.
That was my first thought as well. I love torx bolts. I worked on BMWs professionally for a few years and never in all that time did I ever strip a torx bolt. Not even 1.
Of course, the engine bolts themselves snapped frequently without even touching them due to galvanic reaction to the magnesium block, and the much weaker in general aluminum bolts, but that’s a different problem.
If BMW truly wants to innovate, they should work on fixing their turn signals. They must always be in a state of disrepair, because I rarely see a BMW driver use them…
BMW turn signals are only decals.
Apparently it’s by subscription only…
If you can afford a BMW in the first place, you can afford the blinker fluid subscription…
BMW drivers use blinkers to signal other brands to clear the left lane of the Autobahn for them.
This is what happens when leadership now chase stock price over value to customer.
This has been true with BMW and all German car companies since the 90s. Service costs are now ingrained in the business plan. But douches gotta douche…
$1.49 on temu
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As soon as the rollout for BMW dealers starts, Chinese toolmakers will churn out compatible bits and screwdrivers. They might even be on the market before the BMW dealers have them in the mail.
Unless im missing something about the design, theres a fairly common bit already on the market that works for this, and Id assume most auto shops already have laying around. My dewalt 50 piece came with one…
Bit looks like ( https://share.google/KHdg0HfO6zC9bab9O)That one of those 2 pin spanner wrencheswith one on an arm that swings to adjust size, as far as asshole design security screws go, im not too mad at this… accomplishes what it needs to (keeping some rando with a screwdriver in his pocket from just deciding to undo some exposed screws for ‘fun’, or stealing your car trim) without being so proprietary pwople who arent preppared can’t undo it with tools at hand (like the apple Pentalobe screws, and various triangle and tritip Philips variants, really anything with an odd number of contact points is immediatly more of a pita)
Ouch with that google share link
Every dollar store has a variety pack of “security screw” drivers
You could almost manufacture it based on this image, granted that’s a 1/4" impact bit. All it would take is one bolt being smuggled to their factory or one photograph of a spec sheet.
that’s not the only issue, it’s also just a plainly worse design that will likely lead to lots of broken screws and bits.
Torqued to spec AND properly aligned.
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.
It’s a special bit, that’s it.
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.
You might as well complain about locking lug nuts as a whole because that’s really all this is.
LOL locking lugnuts prevent theft. Do you think that’s what the purpose of this is?
Innovation under capitalism will always benefit capital. Any benefit to consumers is incidental.
I mean, yeah, it does look kinda cool. Not sure why they think that all I do all day is stare at screws, but that’s just me.
“Hey mate, got a new car today”
“Wow, that’s awesome. How does it drive?”
“Dunno, I just bought it to look at the screws. Look, they’re shaped like the BMW logo!”
BMW driver’s can’t even change a tire in my experience.
I see they’re taking notes from Apple.
That’s shitty.
Not to defend BMW here but it’s likely a very specific part that this screw is used for and 99% of home mechanics probably are never going to encounter it. Most likely having something to do with the high-voltage system which you shouldn’t be messing with anyway.
It’s not their right to decide if I get to work on my own property.
If you cant figure out how to get past this screw you shouldn’t be working on things. Mechanics have a million speciality tools, what’s one more little bit, doesn’t affect us the slightest.
Well, they don’t in this case either - they just add an extra step to it. You can buy a bit like that off eBay.
It’s more nuanced. If even 1 of these screws is used for something that might ever need repairing, BMW mechanics will need to get the tool to be able to provide full support. It might even be possible that official BMW mechanics will be required to use the proprietary tool and are not allowed to use knock offs.
