Government General Motors never wants me to buy their cars
First, I (and you) foot the bill for their mismanagement and union kowtowing. Now, this:
Automakers are supporting provisions in copyright law that could prohibit home mechanics and car enthusiasts from repairing and modifying their own vehicles.
In comments filed with a federal agency that will determine whether tinkering with a car constitutes a copyright violation, OEMs and their main lobbying organization say cars have become too complex and dangerous for consumers and third parties to handle.
April 20th, 2015 at 9:18 pm
I wonder if there would be any recourse under the Magnuson-Moss Act if the owner/end user was forced to return to only the manufacturer for any service.
April 20th, 2015 at 9:24 pm
No one will be forced to return to the dealer. What you will have to do is “choose” which authorized service center you want to have your vehicle repaired at. Each location will of course have to be certified by the manufacturer to perform said repairs. Certification will cost $$$$ that will go directly into the pockets of the manufacturer driving up repair costs to insane levels. No certification, no repair shop.
So they can’t stay profitable by producing decent vehicles so they are going to destroy the aftermarket and make it their new income stream. Unfuckingbelievable.
April 20th, 2015 at 9:53 pm
Why does EVERYONE not notice FORD is doing it too?
“Last September, Ford took steps toward consolidating such control, filing a lawsuit against Autel US Inc., a diagnostic-equipment manufacturer based in Huntington, New York.”
There isn’t a clean company to buy from, period.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:00 pm
Dammit. And I just got a ford.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:08 pm
Right around the GM bankruptcy and bailout, I was at a conference at a hotel in a mall parking lot in Dearborn, and Bob Lutz came to speak to a bunch of auto guys with all their peons in tow. Lutz lectured everyone on how GM’s alternate fuels were the future and how gasoline powered vehicles would lose market share to electrics (cough). He actually bragged about how awesome the then-secret Volt was going to be (cough). EVERY. SINGLE. THING. He said was boneheadedly, almost intentionally wrong, but what really impressed on me was this…
The auto guys all brought their mistresses. To a public meeting. All of them were pudgy middle aged guys with absolutely stacked 20 year-olds in tow, like they were in a competition. Their companies were ALL falling down around their ears (along with the rest of the economy), and they were spending their days chasing tail and jerking around at phony-baloney conferences. And they were so insulated that they didn’t understand how bad this looked to the rest of the world.
The U.S. auto industry is led by a bunch of morons, and if they survive long term, it will be despite, not because of, these “leaders.”
April 20th, 2015 at 11:00 pm
Like my smartphone, my F-150 might be just a big rat-fink storing and reporting every move I make (with tech that is the main reason that they are correct in saying new vehicles are too complex for proles to putter with), but at least Ford didn’t go on the dole and do it to me with my own dollars.
April 21st, 2015 at 1:35 am
If it’s a digital copyright issue, is there any reason somebody can’t write an open source replacement for what the factory puts in the car? I imagine that in theory Microsoft could try to get a court to force me to not try to alter Windows on a computer that I own, but I’m pretty sure they can’t stop me from replacing Windows with Linux. Is there some reason that what the car manufacturers are trying to do would be any different?
April 21st, 2015 at 4:09 am
Well, if Ford, GM and Chrysler (is Chrysler even still in business?) want to play this game, there are always imports, including pickups. The manufacturers of which, for reasons I do not comprehend, have completely failed to understand the need for extended cabs with 8 foot beds and 3000-4000 lb payload capacity. I realize most buyers want “city trucks” with tiny beds, but there are still some of us who use trucks to perform actual work.
April 21st, 2015 at 8:15 am
AndyN, my guess is that without the official GM or Ford computer diagnostic, the car would be considered out of warranty. That’s the leverage they’ll use to keep everyone in compliance.
April 21st, 2015 at 8:24 am
Typical comments here.
Only maybe one person understands this isn’t a GM issue. It’s not even really copyright. It’s just kind of how things go.
I’m an automotive engineer. If you think you can handle repairing or tinkering of even the simplest systems now you need to STFU on any further comments. You just can’t. In terms of complexity, it goes Spaceship, military / high performance aircraft, cars, airplanes, boats, bicycles; even the best of which are far less complex than the average PC. Cars are JUST getting to the point of high speed interconnected subsystems, these are broadcasting states every 10ms around the entire vehicle on a proprietary network. You can’t “tinker” with anything now, and this is before they start adding security in the coming years for things like Self Driving Vehicles.
If you want to “blame” anyone, you can blame mfgs for not progressing on vehicle technology faster; bringing this absolutely inevitable outcome up sooner.
I do enjoy how “journalism” is tossed around, and often agree with the shotty reporting on gun stuff you find. However the blind but still extremely one sided and very judgmental opinions about things you CLEARLY have no idea about… Not a good look.
Truth is, GM pretty much had to get bailed out or Detroit would be gone. Toyota would have been massively hit hard in the states. Johnson Controls and about 1000 businesses all over the country that are direct or indirect suppliers would have gone under. The actual issue extended FAR beyond GM and Cheylser, but those two made for great headlines, so here you are years later complaining about something that pretty much had to happen the way it did. “Opinions”.
April 21st, 2015 at 8:50 am
How an article mostly keying off a lawsuit by Ford against Autel that doesn’t even mention GM until near the end (after John Deere!) has turned into a discussion of GM is… hell if I know.
April 21st, 2015 at 9:26 am
GM and Chrysler should have went bankrupt. Some deep pockets investment entity with their fat cat Wall Street brethren would have came in and jump started those companies again for profit.
It happens everyday. Maybe not on the same scale as those auto conglomerates, but nonetheless it happens.
The difference with the aforementioned entities is that unions with politicians in their pockets didn’t want to envision the day when a U.S. made car didn’t have the $2,500.00 add on for union pensions.
Screw both of ’em. I might, might, consider buying one of their products if and when the union relinquishes their last stock certificate. But I doubt it.
It appears the value of older cars and trucks will rise daily…
April 21st, 2015 at 9:27 am
Well, between 5 Million recalls in 2014 and building their trucks in Mexico why would you buy a GM anyway? Don’t forget all the deaths over the last decade from the key disconnect debacle that they covered up. They sound like the Obama Administration.
As for limiting who can play with their toys, do you really think that manufacturers have to create proprietary tools to make so many modifications to the cars? While it doesn’t make it right, you pretty well are going to have some form of this with every maker, unfortunately.
April 21st, 2015 at 9:35 am
I like how Other-Steve puts cars above airplanes in terms of complexity.
Good to know that’s how he sees the propulsion systems of an airliner versus a bus.
And of course *no one* tinkers with their PC’s. Those are far, far too complex. And no one tinkers with things like smart-phones, game systems, or other locked devices. They have security features!
Bless his heart.
In fairness he is right that it’s not really a GM issue (as Tam also pointed out as well).
April 21st, 2015 at 10:37 am
I’ll keep fixing up my shitty old Ford.
April 21st, 2015 at 10:53 am
One of the things that stops you from replacing, at least on an older car, is EPA regs. You cannot futz with an emissions setup, even if you are eliminating things that are now known to not function well and contribute to higher pollutant levels.
But, I work mainly with older vehicles and bikes. And there are aftermarket control systems for those. I guess, if you want something private, you kinda got to go with a local motors type setup, where you help build the car, so its now a kit car and doesnt need to pass as many regs.
April 21st, 2015 at 11:30 am
GM is to auto biz as O-Care is to med; h8n on gov inserting itself, whether into cars, cardiac, or our asses, is -always- wrong and -always- unwelcome to a certain subset, even though industry, medicine, and ourselves are all perfectly capable of fucking things up without their assistance.
April 21st, 2015 at 12:15 pm
Other Steve please explain to me how I couldn’t have built my own ECU, wired my own car, and how I can’t use a CAN setup because it is proprietary. You sound like you only pretend to know what you’re talking about so my guess is you have never actually worked on any of these systems… maybe an MBA-holding administrator or perhpas marketing?
Whatever.
April 21st, 2015 at 1:15 pm
If GM really believes we’re so incapable of tuning, why do they sell crate versions of most of their engines? Gearheads have been tuning their own engines for years and it hasn’t gotten harder because of the whole computerization thing. If anything, it makes it a million times easier to make power.
IMO, most of the handwringing over car modding is driven by two things:
1) from the car manufacturer standpoint, it’s driven by fears of having to support modding features and warranty issues increasing due to modding. And lawsuits when people mod their cars and something bad happens, either because the user is an idiot or the manufacturer didn’t design some component to take 2x stock power. I don’t think these are intractable or really dangerous issues, but the bean counters probably don’t even want to go there.
2) from the state/fed regulatory level, it’s driven by stuff like CARB and the federal standards that forbid tinkering with emissions gear. And since almost everything under the hood affects emissions, it’s almost impossible to let the user tinker without enabling them to break the rules. When you can just tell your car “ignore both of the factory O2 sensors and instead read this voltage signal from my wideband” you’re also telling it “ignore the fact that I’m removing my catalytic converter and replacing it with a downpipe.”
IMO, car manufacturers could make this work and I think there is a decently large market for no-warranty stripped cars for modders and racers, sold at a reduced price.
April 21st, 2015 at 2:23 pm
I suspect that one of the targets the auto makers are, or want to, move toward is a lease only market system. No personal ownership, no outside vendor repairs or mods, just factory controlled, sealed systems. Vehicle gets returned to a factory setup for recycling.
The major problem with any of the avenues that the makers might want to travel down is that the auto business in all it’s many flavors is a HUGE part of the economy. I don’t know the current numbers, but 30-40 years ago, around 75% of all jobs were directly or indirectly auto related. Probably less now, but still a huge number.
One of the ways that is used to restrict mods and repairs is what CA is doing with their CARB system. A few years ago, they took over the replacement catalytic converter business. There are now only TWO manufacturers of them certified to sell here, and what they are selling is not the equivalent of the factory equipment. Plus, the price is 2-3x the cost of a 49 state model. They work, but you won’t like the way your vehicle runs with it. Gas mileage drops, and throttle response/power sucks. The higher performance your car, the more noticeable it will be.
Expect this sort of thing to be expanded to other important systems, and for other states to follow their lead.
April 21st, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Other Steve:
Screw you and the horse you rode in on. Government meddling is why we have horribly complex systems in vehicles.
Here is a Wyoming street legal vehicle:
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/590125513026314240
I can’t wait for a chance to coal your government-mobile.
April 21st, 2015 at 2:40 pm
Frankly, fuck off.
Sounds to me like you’re more interested in job security than anything else, and, as such, your opinion is completely meaningless and can be safely ignored.
People can, and will, tinker with products they buy, because they own them. As soon as you tell me that I can’t tinker with something, you’re telling me that I don’t own it, and given that you and I just entered into what was portrayed as a change-of-ownership contract, well then… we have a serious problem.
Sure, people are going to break their toys. That’s how they learn. And they’ll either figure out how to fix them, or they’ll come back to the manufacturers, who’ll be able to charge an arm and a leg to unscrew them. But making it preemptively illegal to tinker? Yeah, no, thanks though.
April 21st, 2015 at 5:12 pm
Terrible excerpt writing.
“Tinkering or repairing” there really means “reprogramming the ECU and other electronics”, which has 99% of nothing to do with actual “repairing”.
When they have to rewrite the facts to make it seem like carmakers don’t want you to be able to do normal repairs and maintenance, I lose respect.
It’s the same boring EFF blather as every other time EFF opens their mouths.
(I mean, I sympathize. But their hyperbole and dogma turn me off, every time.
I ought to be on their side, from natural sympathies, but their ruin it by talking.
I think the law has no real business in this fight – but I also don’t think I care if every carmaker locks down their ECU programming behind public key crypto.
I’d say “don’t buy one if you care”, but in practice you won’t have a choice. And nobody will care except the people selling aftermarket performance chips.
I think Jim W’s comments above are the most insightful … and definitely better than Autoblog’s blathering.)
April 21st, 2015 at 5:18 pm
(Clarification: I mean the writing in the excerpt is terrible; Uncle got snookered by their pushing of “It’s GM!”, but that’s understandable.)
April 21st, 2015 at 11:27 pm
@Sigivald,
How are you going to repair your own car’s non-powertrain systems in the future, if the OEM’s make it illegal for anyone to sell you a diagnostic tool that can read the trouble codes for all the networked components? No, you’ll have to go to the dealer or an OEM-certified repair shop and have *them* fix it for you…or at least pay them megabucks to give you a printout of the trouble codes, if the OEM lets them.
Personally, I think *all* trouble codes should be user accessible like the OBDII engine and emissions code set are. Since most car repairs are straightforward remove-and-replace operations, allowing the car to tell the user what component(s) are malfunctioning seems to me to be a no-brainer.
(Also, for a car that might see track use on W-rated tires, it’d be stupid not to be able to alter a speed limiter set for H-rated OEM tires, or to be able to piggyback/alter the ECU engine mapping for track days. Does GM/Ford really want to be in the business of race tuning ECU’s?)
@Other Steve,
Quote: “If you think you can handle repairing or tinkering of even the simplest systems now you need to STFU on any further comments. You just can’t.”
Really? My Acura TL’s nav system wears custom wallpaper, displays instant fuel mileage (a function coded, but not enabled, by the OEM), and has various functional improvements, thanks to the thriving Acura enthusiast community. I’ll probably get a crate engine someday and may mod it a little, too.
I also see that enthusiasts are already modding the ridiculous “artificial engine sounds” software in some new cars to make TIE fighter sounds instead, that sort of thing (or even better, to disable it entirely). Why is that so bad?
BTW, why *wouldn’t* you want tech geeks being fascinated with the inner workings of your brand’s cars? In large part, it’s that type of DIY-ness that drives enthusiast brand loyalty, something the OEM’s apparently don’t understand.
April 22nd, 2015 at 8:59 am
“…there is a decently large market for no-warranty stripped cars for modders and racers, sold at a reduced price.
By the established auto industry? Never happen, CEO’s, CPA’s, ESQ’s and GOV will make sure of it.
But if only a wildcat mfg could buy up old tooling and replicate old-school drivetrains?…I’ll take a ’67 Mustang 390 fastback, plz.
April 22nd, 2015 at 9:31 am
I fail to see how this a gm issue, they prerelease the pcm files for companies like efi live to build off of. Frankly the concern should be with John deere, their systems are completely proprietary down the electrical connections.
April 22nd, 2015 at 4:23 pm
As the Autel suit indicates, this is NOT a tuner issue.
This is someone who isn’t the OEM being able to diagnose problems and make repairs.
It’s not a tinkering issue but being able to access the diagnostics to learn that the CRM114 isn’t working so we can buy and install a new one.
It’s not tinkering to want third parties to be able to make replacement CRM114’s when our dearly beloved OEM stops making them.
Ask anyone with a 4th generation Corvette with active suspension and/or tire pressure monitoring about where they get replacement parts.
April 23rd, 2015 at 1:32 am
That’s odd, to imply that me a non-engineer could some how work on my own car. Because I have ripped out the stock computer and most of its poorly run and known faulty wiring harnesses out of my 2009 Mustang, and put in a bigStuff3, a pair of turbos on the front, and push 15psi down it intake all the damn time.
I do all most all of my own maintenance, I don’t do transmissions, but other then that, I have done almost all of the work my self. But keep thinking that only certified UAW engineers could every turn a wrench on a car.
April 23rd, 2015 at 10:41 am
If you really dig into it, you’ll discover that pretty much *every* car manufacturer is behind/for this idea.
If you want to boycott everyone that likes this idea, I hope you like walking.
April 26th, 2015 at 1:46 pm
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