Who Owns Your Car?
Posted by freedomforall 1 week, 1 day ago to Business
Excerpt:
"You may have heard about what are styled right to repair laws. The term is a measure of just how owned we’ve become.
You buy a car, but the data stream you have to have in order to be able to diagnose what’s wrong with it – in order to be able to repair it – is not owned by you. At least, that is the position taken by the vehicle manufacturers, collectively. They insist that while they are ok with you being allowed to physically possess the vehicle, they get to decide who gets to repair it – by restricting who can access the data stream necessary to diagnose what’s wrong with it.
They have asserted this right control repair by asserting that only they – via their proprietary diagnostic equipment – may access the data stored in and transmitted by what they implicitly consider to be their vehicle. They have asserted this by preventing the owner – or should it by styled the possessor – from having access to the data generated by the vehicle. This effectively forces you to come to them – to their authorized dealers – when the vehicle they allow you to possess (and to pay for) needs fixing.
Even independent mechanics cannot diagnose – and so are unable to fix – certain makes/models that are “sealed” to them, too – because they do not have the authorized proprietary equipment to to open them up. They can raise the hood of course – but only to look.
They might as well just leave it down."
"You may have heard about what are styled right to repair laws. The term is a measure of just how owned we’ve become.
You buy a car, but the data stream you have to have in order to be able to diagnose what’s wrong with it – in order to be able to repair it – is not owned by you. At least, that is the position taken by the vehicle manufacturers, collectively. They insist that while they are ok with you being allowed to physically possess the vehicle, they get to decide who gets to repair it – by restricting who can access the data stream necessary to diagnose what’s wrong with it.
They have asserted this right control repair by asserting that only they – via their proprietary diagnostic equipment – may access the data stored in and transmitted by what they implicitly consider to be their vehicle. They have asserted this by preventing the owner – or should it by styled the possessor – from having access to the data generated by the vehicle. This effectively forces you to come to them – to their authorized dealers – when the vehicle they allow you to possess (and to pay for) needs fixing.
Even independent mechanics cannot diagnose – and so are unable to fix – certain makes/models that are “sealed” to them, too – because they do not have the authorized proprietary equipment to to open them up. They can raise the hood of course – but only to look.
They might as well just leave it down."
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- 2Posted by $ jbrenner 1 week agoI own my car. My car is still old enough not to have the ability to diagnose it disabled.| Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink
- 1Posted by freedomforall 1 week agoMine, too, at 26 years old, but unfortunately the car 'industry' isn't building those cars now. I'd rather buy a turn of the century car than a new one at this time.| Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink
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- 1Posted by mccannon01 1 week agoIt all began with government busy body control freaks and now this crap. The dreaded "check engine" light scam comes to mind where you have to take the vehicle and pay to find out what it means and usually it's some government mandated add-on that has nothing to do with actually running the vehicle. Even the most rudimentary character display on a dashboard can articulate the "problem" in plain language, but Noooooo it's all a big mystery you have to pay to decrypt. Now this latest ....| Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink
- 1Posted by $ Olduglycarl 1 week agoWow, glad I kept my ole truck, I get to fix or not . . .| Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink
