End of the shade tree mechanic? Digital Millennium Copyright act once again...

[farscott]

I am not supporting the proposed law; I am trying to explain why it got proposed. And there are "anti-tamper" features in the electronics, but those end up costing all customers money. There are multiple ways the OEMs are trying to resolve these issues.

[Tamara]

I'm sorry but a manufacturer's reluctance to enforce their own policy is no reason to pass a new law.

I don't believe any new laws are being proposed. This is a bureaucratic/regulatory action determining how existing law should be applied.

[luckyman]

I don't believe any new laws are being proposed. This is a bureaucratic/regulatory action determining how existing law should be applied.

Oh duh yeah, I actually originally knew that. That just makes this particular subject even more frustrating though; trying to bend current laws to mean things so apparently far from their original intent.

[pangloss]

I contend that the modification of one's vehicle is an exercise of self-expression and thereby protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

[olstyn]

The thing is, it's not just street racers and extreme modders that will get hit by this.

+1 to this. It's people who want to make small mods to their cars, too. For example, Audi/VW tends to leave a lot of power on the table with their factory tunes, especially on their turbocharged cars. My '02 A4 1.8T makes ~170 HP from the factory. There are a multitude of highly refined and reliable aftermarket tunes available for it that, with no hardware changes, will give an additional +30-40 HP while retaining factory-like fuel economy, idle characteristics, etc. This really wakes the car up, making it into what many feel it should have been from the factory. That's not making the car into a street racer, or doing anything extreme; it's just improving on what you bought.

A world where things like that are not possible would sadden me greatly.

[JRB]

So you admit to street racing yourself, and don't see a problem with people making unwise decisions driving modified vehicles ?

Glad we established that point.

I'll bow out now and leave you to your 'murica!' cult session. Drive safely!

Quite a disappointing reply.

JRB,

Excellent post with great examples of some of the interactions that remapping ECM parameters like fuel tables can have on the vehicle. It is obvious that you understand the "how" and the "why", but you are the minority, not the majority. There is an even smaller minority, like Bubba, a 1911, and a Dremel, change things and then try to get free parts when things go south. They ruin it for the rest of us. One that has stuck with me, though I was not directly involved, was a car that needed a new catalytic converter after less than 3,000 miles. It was found after it failed an emissions test. Since the OEM emissions warranty goes beyond the standard 36/36,000 and has additional requirements per federal law, the cat was replaced under warranty. That is a costly repair, and a repair that is only needed due to abuse. The OEM could have denied the claim, but there are ramifications, including PR and government regulations, to doing so. In any event, the vehicle needs to be compliant with emissions regulations.

If we start wandering down the road of "If everyone were completely honest, how much money would industry XYZ save?" we'll be here for a long time and discussing almost every industry that exists - and I only say almost because I can't think of an exception at the moment.

The bottom line is that is *bubba's* 1911. He OWNS it. He can and should dremel it, slather it in Krylon, or feed it to a band saw if he so chooses. The maker of that 1911, in return, has no obligation to fix that guy's mistakes or idiocy.
If corporate policy is such that they'd rather kowtow to angry cleeti's unreasonable demands vs face a twitter-storm of angry bubba rage at a lack of warranty coverage, that's a failing of the corporate policy and a failing of society at large.
Trying to manipulate the very nature of ownership and property law in order to have an exit-stage-left sneak away from covering willful damage or alteration under a warranty claim is dishonest, underhanded, lame, and a whole bunch of other things I can't express verbatim on this forum.

If the warranty policy is damaging the company's bottom line in an unacceptable manner, the best bet is to change the warranty policy and set corporate policy to not be such a bunch of spineless whiners that are unwilling to tell Bubba that he was an idiot for taking a broomstick to his catalytic converters and that such idiocy isn't covered under warranty just because his car failed an emissions test.

On a broader note, the whole reason we're seeing more and more unreasonable idiots in this world is because corporate policies keep rewarding that behavior out of some neurotic fear of being ostracized on social media. Which, ironically, is almost literally manufacturing the problem.

The thing is, it's not just street racers and extreme modders that will get hit by this. It me, the regular mechanic, the guy who'd rather repair his own car hisself, and not pay the usual exorbitant dealer fees for a simple brake pad change, alternator swap, rad flush or straight up sensor replacement. I'm even competent enough to service an A/C system or swap out a timing belt.

Yes, Cleetus does dumb, derpy things to his car. You cannot stop Cleetus from doing dumb, derpy things.

A point I wanted to emphatically highlight in my post, but somehow wandered from - thank you for bringing that forward and doing so in such a succinct manner.

[fixer]

Which customers? I ask as most "normal" car buyers could care less.
.

I can't disagree more. I don't know of any car buyer that dislikes having a car that is easy to work on (or modify). That is actually illogical. I briefly worked for a domestic OEM. I worked for decades as a technician. At no time therein did I come across a customer that said "crap, things would be so much better if (insert basic repair) cost more money and took more time because of (various obstacles)"

I have been a part of a design team that actually recommended scrapping a project because the vehicle was so absurdly difficult to do basic repairs to, that we concluded the end user would be irate.

My point is there is more effort than most think put into making cars user friendly for the end user, you know, the customer. I never once heard, or could infer, that the people I worked with were dreaming up ways to make cars a pain in the ass for customers. It was completely anathema to what we were trying to accomplish.

The issues surrounding this new article and topic I think, quite frankly, are dreamed up in corporate legal departments. I can assure you that the folks designing and manufacturing these things, by and large, are all substantially in the customer's corner.

[orionz06]

+1 to this. It's people who want to make small mods to their cars, too. For example, Audi/VW tends to leave a lot of power on the table with their factory tunes, especially on their turbocharged cars. My '02 A4 1.8T makes ~170 HP from the factory. There are a multitude of highly refined and reliable aftermarket tunes available for it that, with no hardware changes, will give an additional +30-40 HP while retaining factory-like fuel economy, idle characteristics, etc. This really wakes the car up, making it into what many feel it should have been from the factory. That's not making the car into a street racer, or doing anything extreme; it's just improving on what you bought.

A world where things like that are not possible would sadden me greatly.

And VW/Audi is very reasonable when it comes to warranty repair for software tuned cars too. They may be on the list of companies that want their customers to burn in hell but past actions have even had them working with software tuners on their special projects that they trucked around.

[Mr_White]

I'm buying their products and once they belong to me I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want with them.

It's pretty screwed up to think that a company can control a product they don't own.

Definitely agree.

This is the kind of thing that is prone to convince people simply ignore the various rules of society.

If you make 10,000 regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

[RevolverRob]

This is the kind of thing that is prone to convince people simply ignore the various rules of society.

So true - my first thought was, "Well, I wanted to only own cars built before 1975 anyways." But now that I think about it...maybe I need a 2020 Mustang which isn't an NHRA Outlaw-class car, but is a true Outlaw in the strictest sense of the word. I think I'd get a custom plate for it "CME@MEBro" and do donuts in the parking lot of the Ford corporate offices.

-Rob