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Volkswagen should be able to make their cars as difficult to repair or modify as they want. There are so many other options for cars out there, if I care about

by Dig1t 6y ago

Volkswagen should be able to make their cars as difficult to repair or modify as they want. There are so many other options for cars out there, if I care about modifying my car why would I buy a Volkswagen in the first place? I'll just go buy a different car that is more friendly for what I want to do.

Chernobog 6y ago
I'm not sure they should. One thing is the environmental aspect, we want to avoid unnecessary waste and resource usage since that is one of the things destroying our planet. But another thing is, what happens when the market shifts heavily in a direction that is bad for the consumer? Sure, you have a lot of good car choices today, but at some point it might be hard to find a car that has your other desirable specs in addition to being repair and modification friendly. If everyone who bought a car was a well informed with at least a minimum of knowledge of cars, in addition to being able to calculate how repair costs will affect them over the time they own it, then sure. Let the market sort itself out. Since many aren't, let's keep regulations in place to ensure desirable properties. Heck, imagine what safety features cars would lack if they weren't government mandated requirements...
gambiting 6y ago
Yes, they should be able to, of course. But it's enshrined in law, both EU and US, that other manufactuers can make compatible replacement parts for cars. A manufactuer doesn't get to say what parts you can put in your car after you bought it. You don't have to buy genuiene OEM volkswagen brake pads or clutches - you can buy and install 3rd party ones, and legally Volkswagen cannot forbid you from doing so, and neither can they forbid anyone from manufacturing those replacement parts.
- enos_feedler 6y ago
  Well it sounds like this law is outdated and needs to align with the times. It should be the same as current smartphone laws.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Uh, no thanks man. The fact things have gotten worse in some aspects of our lives doesn't mean we need to regress the things that are actually working so well you didn't even know it was an issue. If anything this is an argument for the opposite of what you're suggesting. What I don't get is why you're advocating for your own freedoms to be taken away. Don't carry water for the car companies, if they want more freedoms they can use their money and lobby for it. You don't need to do their job pro bono, leave that up to Citizens United.
    - enos_feedler 6y ago
      Freedom will come from market choice. I fight for the freedom of car companies to make their own choices on how their products can be used. Let them apply their own restrictions. Thats freedom
      - gambiting 6y ago
        Like.....that's an incredibly twisted logic. How is it freedom, when a corporation gets to dictate how you use their product after its bought and paid for?? That's not freedom, not in any sense of the word. Corporations should be free to manufacture any car in any way they like. But they shouldn't be able to tell us what to do with our property, don't you see or appreciate having a freedom to do whatever and however you please with items that you have bought? It's like arguing that you should be able to enter an employment contract that stipulates physical punishment for making mistakes at work - surely, being able to enter such contract is freedom! If you don't like it, go somewhere else, market forces will sort it out! And yet, we as society have decided that no, physical punishment is not acceptable and you cannot waive your right to be free of it. That's freedom. Not what you are saying.
        enos_feedler 6y ago
        I feel like I _can_ do whatever I please with items I bought. I see the iPhone as an integrated product. There is no boundary between semiconductor, system board, operating system, application runtime, and the 3rd party app ecosystem. It is all one product. Being able to split this apart so I can tinker at the interfaces is not something I demand from something I pay for. Whatever I try to do outside of their expected use of the product is sort of a crapshoot. It says nothing about freedom. Physical punishment is just a terrible comparison.
donmcronald 6y ago
Except you'll have the Volkswagon silo, the Ford silo, the GM silo, etc. and they'll all start engaging in monopolistic behavior for servicing because they have a monopoly over repairing your specific brand of car. Call it a tacit collusion monopoly and throw in the sunk cost of a car to make it even worse. If everyone in the market behaves the same, there's no benefit to selling your car and getting another because the service costs won't change. The best example of this that demonstrates what you'd end up with is the cost of key fob programming. The actual cost of the hardware is trivial but a dealership will charge you $250-500 to program a new one because they have a monopoly on programming the fobs for their brand. Those things should cost $50 max IMO. The scary thing is the vehicle industry is moving this way for everything and if nothing changes it's eventually going to become extremely difficult / expensive to own a vehicle that's not under warranty. I wouldn't be surprised if they start serializing parts and then sell service plans that increase in price as your car ages. You'll pay forever.
- stonedartist 6y ago
  Several modern cars are actually moving in the direction of gaining more and more central control competitively. Last year we had to remove the fuse in the car battery for maintenance, and also because the battery needed a little cleaning - while we were in a remote village with no access to proper internet connection. Little did we know that after re-inserting the same fuse back to the battery, the media system would stop working. The media LCD screen started showing a "Enter the pin to unlock the media system" screen! And we do not have the pin, we were never given a pin. Hence we lost access to the car GPS and media system altogether in an unknown territory. We somehow got back to home and had to book an appointment with the car dealership for the technician to unlock our car media system! He plugged his device and generated the pin that's signed/paired with our specific car and then used it to unlock the media system. It is indeed scary that even car manufacturers are moving towards central control of every little thing in your car. The last thing I want to see with all these tech companies following Apple's footsteps in a lot of things, is to see the auto industry becoming like Apple.
  - gambiting 6y ago

by Dig1t 6y ago

Chernobog 6y ago

I'm not sure they should. One thing is the environmental aspect, we want to avoid unnecessary waste and resource usage since that is one of the things destroying our planet. But another thing is, what happens when the market shifts heavily in a direction that is bad for the consumer? Sure, you have a lot of good car choices today, but at some point it might be hard to find a car that has your other desirable specs in addition to being repair and modification friendly. If everyone who bought a car was a well informed with at least a minimum of knowledge of cars, in addition to being able to calculate how repair costs will affect them over the time they own it, then sure. Let the market sort itself out. Since many aren't, let's keep regulations in place to ensure desirable properties. Heck, imagine what safety features cars would lack if they weren't government mandated requirements...

gambiting 6y ago

Yes, they should be able to, of course. But it's enshrined in law, both EU and US, that other manufactuers can make compatible replacement parts for cars. A manufactuer doesn't get to say what parts you can put in your car after you bought it. You don't have to buy genuiene OEM volkswagen brake pads or clutches - you can buy and install 3rd party ones, and legally Volkswagen cannot forbid you from doing so, and neither can they forbid anyone from manufacturing those replacement parts.

enos_feedler 6y ago
Well it sounds like this law is outdated and needs to align with the times. It should be the same as current smartphone laws.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Uh, no thanks man. The fact things have gotten worse in some aspects of our lives doesn't mean we need to regress the things that are actually working so well you didn't even know it was an issue. If anything this is an argument for the opposite of what you're suggesting. What I don't get is why you're advocating for your own freedoms to be taken away. Don't carry water for the car companies, if they want more freedoms they can use their money and lobby for it. You don't need to do their job pro bono, leave that up to Citizens United.
  - enos_feedler 6y ago
    Freedom will come from market choice. I fight for the freedom of car companies to make their own choices on how their products can be used. Let them apply their own restrictions. Thats freedom
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Like.....that's an incredibly twisted logic. How is it freedom, when a corporation gets to dictate how you use their product after its bought and paid for?? That's not freedom, not in any sense of the word. Corporations should be free to manufacture any car in any way they like. But they shouldn't be able to tell us what to do with our property, don't you see or appreciate having a freedom to do whatever and however you please with items that you have bought? It's like arguing that you should be able to enter an employment contract that stipulates physical punishment for making mistakes at work - surely, being able to enter such contract is freedom! If you don't like it, go somewhere else, market forces will sort it out! And yet, we as society have decided that no, physical punishment is not acceptable and you cannot waive your right to be free of it. That's freedom. Not what you are saying.
      - enos_feedler 6y ago
        I feel like I _can_ do whatever I please with items I bought. I see the iPhone as an integrated product. There is no boundary between semiconductor, system board, operating system, application runtime, and the 3rd party app ecosystem. It is all one product. Being able to split this apart so I can tinker at the interfaces is not something I demand from something I pay for. Whatever I try to do outside of their expected use of the product is sort of a crapshoot. It says nothing about freedom. Physical punishment is just a terrible comparison.

donmcronald 6y ago

Except you'll have the Volkswagon silo, the Ford silo, the GM silo, etc. and they'll all start engaging in monopolistic behavior for servicing because they have a monopoly over repairing your specific brand of car. Call it a tacit collusion monopoly and throw in the sunk cost of a car to make it even worse. If everyone in the market behaves the same, there's no benefit to selling your car and getting another because the service costs won't change. The best example of this that demonstrates what you'd end up with is the cost of key fob programming. The actual cost of the hardware is trivial but a dealership will charge you $250-500 to program a new one because they have a monopoly on programming the fobs for their brand. Those things should cost $50 max IMO. The scary thing is the vehicle industry is moving this way for everything and if nothing changes it's eventually going to become extremely difficult / expensive to own a vehicle that's not under warranty. I wouldn't be surprised if they start serializing parts and then sell service plans that increase in price as your car ages. You'll pay forever.

stonedartist 6y ago
Several modern cars are actually moving in the direction of gaining more and more central control competitively. Last year we had to remove the fuse in the car battery for maintenance, and also because the battery needed a little cleaning - while we were in a remote village with no access to proper internet connection. Little did we know that after re-inserting the same fuse back to the battery, the media system would stop working. The media LCD screen started showing a "Enter the pin to unlock the media system" screen! And we do not have the pin, we were never given a pin. Hence we lost access to the car GPS and media system altogether in an unknown territory. We somehow got back to home and had to book an appointment with the car dealership for the technician to unlock our car media system! He plugged his device and generated the pin that's signed/paired with our specific car and then used it to unlock the media system. It is indeed scary that even car manufacturers are moving towards central control of every little thing in your car. The last thing I want to see with all these tech companies following Apple's footsteps in a lot of things, is to see the auto industry becoming like Apple.
- gambiting 6y ago