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Become? They already are. My neighbor has a brand new Audi e-tron. Something was borked with the system and it wouldn’t interface with any of the remote servic

Become? They already are. My neighbor has a brand new Audi e-tron. Something was borked with the system and it wouldn’t interface with any of the remote services. The dealer couldn’t even get into the thing to do anything about it. The solution was allowing it to sit, plugged in, for 72 hours so the system would restart itself and update from the mythical cloud. Tesla’s have a similar reputation for being unrepairable by the shade tree mechanic. Check out Rich Rebuilds on YouTube. His entire channel is about fighting Tesla to get access to the tooling and information necessary to ‘own’ the second hand Tesla he bought from a salvage yard. Another friend has a BMW that will literally refuse to drive if he doesn’t have it serviced at the specified intervals at the dealer. These are all anecdotes about high end cars but it’s trickling down to everything. The walled gardens are already upon us.

BoorishBears 6y ago
> Another friend has a BMW that will literally refuse to drive if he doesn’t have it serviced at the specified intervals at the dealer. On one hand this is a great solution to people ruining lease vehicles by not using the free maintenance they include... But I'd love to know what model is doing this, sounds kind of absurd. The furthest I've seen them go is letting the dealer know your service interval is coming so they can call you and schedule an appointment, but you can turn that off, and their intervals are extremely long (like 15k, almost triple what one would expect for most of their engines)
- bronco21016 6y ago
  2021 BMW 330. It is under lease and that is the idea but my understanding is that it continues even if or after the vehicle is purchased outright.
  - taepper 6y ago
    How did you come to that conclusion?
    - bronco21016 6y ago
      This is what I was told by the friend who drives it. He could be wrong. I didn’t research it on my own.
  - hazmazlaz 6y ago
    I own a used BMW that was previously a leased vehicle and I can confirm from direct experience that I was able to ignore the scheduled service notification and continue happily driving for thousands of miles with no issues. The car did nag me with a notification every time I started it up until I eventually brought it in, but I was fine with that.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    It definitely won't by default, after the lease most Connected Drive features are disabled pending reactivation by the next owner I still feel like something is missing though. The truth is BMW stretches their service interval insanely long because they're giving "free" maintenance with leases So if you drive any significant amount of time longer after the interval, there's a real chance of damaging the engine But the liability issues of disabling a car remotely outside of asset recovery seem like something BMW would not want to mess with Maybe it was an initial service? Some engines require an initial service immediately after break-in or suffer catastrophic damage, I could maybe see an exception in that case Edit: I did find someone saying if you go 5k over the service limit, the car will not start immediately, flashing Service Required, but still allow starting normally from there No one should be going 5k over a 15k interval when maintenance is free
jkepler 6y ago
Walled gardens? Sounds more like a prison cell with wheels.
techrat 6y ago
Bear in mind, all of this is still possible, and an issue, on ICE based vehicles. Even my older (pre in dash screen) Mini will throw up fake check engine and engine failure warnings if you don't take it into an authorized dealer for service. All the warnings go away the moment you punch in the service code. Why didn't I take it in for scheduled service? Oh, the engine had to be replaced cause it split open. Figured since I was only 6,000 miles short of my 50k service check before I had the entire engine replaced that I could skip it as the mechanic already checked everything else out... I should also point out that I can't even replace the CD Player/Stock Radio unit in the car with a more modern aftermarket part because the car's diagnostic system is built into it. Yes. You read right. Without the stock radio, there is no longer anything to read the sensors. Worrying about electrical cars being walled gardens is missing the forest for the slightly different trees.

BoorishBears 6y ago

> Another friend has a BMW that will literally refuse to drive if he doesn’t have it serviced at the specified intervals at the dealer. On one hand this is a great solution to people ruining lease vehicles by not using the free maintenance they include... But I'd love to know what model is doing this, sounds kind of absurd. The furthest I've seen them go is letting the dealer know your service interval is coming so they can call you and schedule an appointment, but you can turn that off, and their intervals are extremely long (like 15k, almost triple what one would expect for most of their engines)

bronco21016 6y ago
2021 BMW 330. It is under lease and that is the idea but my understanding is that it continues even if or after the vehicle is purchased outright.
- taepper 6y ago
  How did you come to that conclusion?
  - bronco21016 6y ago
    This is what I was told by the friend who drives it. He could be wrong. I didn’t research it on my own.
- hazmazlaz 6y ago
  I own a used BMW that was previously a leased vehicle and I can confirm from direct experience that I was able to ignore the scheduled service notification and continue happily driving for thousands of miles with no issues. The car did nag me with a notification every time I started it up until I eventually brought it in, but I was fine with that.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  It definitely won't by default, after the lease most Connected Drive features are disabled pending reactivation by the next owner I still feel like something is missing though. The truth is BMW stretches their service interval insanely long because they're giving "free" maintenance with leases So if you drive any significant amount of time longer after the interval, there's a real chance of damaging the engine But the liability issues of disabling a car remotely outside of asset recovery seem like something BMW would not want to mess with Maybe it was an initial service? Some engines require an initial service immediately after break-in or suffer catastrophic damage, I could maybe see an exception in that case Edit: I did find someone saying if you go 5k over the service limit, the car will not start immediately, flashing Service Required, but still allow starting normally from there No one should be going 5k over a 15k interval when maintenance is free

jkepler 6y ago

Walled gardens? Sounds more like a prison cell with wheels.

techrat 6y ago

Bear in mind, all of this is still possible, and an issue, on ICE based vehicles. Even my older (pre in dash screen) Mini will throw up fake check engine and engine failure warnings if you don't take it into an authorized dealer for service. All the warnings go away the moment you punch in the service code. Why didn't I take it in for scheduled service? Oh, the engine had to be replaced cause it split open. Figured since I was only 6,000 miles short of my 50k service check before I had the entire engine replaced that I could skip it as the mechanic already checked everything else out... I should also point out that I can't even replace the CD Player/Stock Radio unit in the car with a more modern aftermarket part because the car's diagnostic system is built into it. Yes. You read right. Without the stock radio, there is no longer anything to read the sensors. Worrying about electrical cars being walled gardens is missing the forest for the slightly different trees.