Car makers want to make it illegal for car owners to work on their own car!

[69Z28-RS]

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/gm-ford-others-want-working-own-car-illegal-160000229.html

[ZLP955]

Although that story only relates to the on-board computer, that is a concerning development.
Last new GM car we bought, the sales manager who did the 'new car handover' when my wife collected it from the dealership lifted the hood, indicated the dipstick, oil and water fill caps and said to her "you're only allowed to touch those, but even then I recommend you never look under here, just bring it back for scheduled services".........
Suffice to say when she told me that, I vowed to never take the car back, and worked on it myself.
No wonder when I have to get my work-supplied vehicle serviced, there's never an old-school mechanic with oil on his hands in sight, just young kids who are labelled 'technicians' and carry a laptop and OBD plug......

[69Z28-RS]

I'm an engineer, and believe that real technological advances are great, but when we try to 'take the man out of the loop', it generally fails!  Technology is intended to aid/assist man, not replace him!   Our government today wants everything (and the citizens) to be 'plug n play'!   (pretty sad)...

[X33RS]

Just another reason why I have no real interest in owning new cars.  Not on the market for one and haven't bought a new car in a dozen years or so.  I prefer to keep driving my classics, thankfully my wife is the same way.  Nothing wrong with the KISS principle.   I like to say technoligy peaked for me in  about 1975, lol.  In a sense that's true for me, but I still tune the LS engines with my laptop and enjoy fuel injection for what it's capable of.  In the end though if forced to make a choice, I'll ditch it all for the classics with carbs and points,  I'm perfectly happy driving those, that's what you'll find me in 99% of the time anyway.

[jdv69z]

I'm an engineer, and believe that real technological advances are great, but when we try to 'take the man out of the loop', it generally fails!  Technology is intended to aid/assist man, not replace him!   Our government today wants everything (and the citizens) to be 'plug n play'!   (pretty sad)...

Cars and today's technology are fairly recent history, but the government thing is as old as man himself.

[JKZ27]

The title of that article was written in a negative context to get our attention and it worked. What I took from the article was they're trying to make it illegal to MODIFY your vehicle rather than prohibit maintenance or repair. The cost of tools and specific equipment will take care of that. Not to mention 99.9% of consumers don't care about working on their car, much less modifying them and that's who the automakers are selling to.
BTY I've fixed many cars with my laptop and OBD thing.

[69Z28-RS]

You are correct, JK...   but the article is warning that many car manufacturers wanted to make it so 'NO ONE' outside the manufacturer's shop could modify those things, by declaring that we were only 'renting' the software for our cars.  (A company I worked for tried that - or some of the execs wanted to - to try to prevent the customers that had paid $100-300K for a system from modifying/updating their software outside of paying us for maintenance.  I argued against that approach, as being 'illegal' in that they paid for the system, they OWNED it..  they could do anything they wanted to to that system)...  That would be my position in any such 'ownership rights' argument.

[JKZ27]

Yeah Gary, I agree. If you buy a car you should own the rights to the software for that car (VIN) and should not have to buy the program should a module fail. Unfortunately, the interface for programming isn't cheap.

[firstgenaddict]

You may agree... however all the packaging equipment for packaging softdrinks in the case pack style is copyrighted, and is owned by Riverwood or MEAD Westvaco. The paper supplied to run on the machines is also supplied by the papermills and they along with MANY packaging companies force you to lease the equipment and use their paper.