That's treating people as Humans. But in our capitalist hellscape, we aren't people, we're Consumers. We exist to provide money to companies, and they're ever interested in finding more ways to make us give them money.
It's not enough that you buy a TV, the manufacturer needs to have ads in it. They need the telemetry on what you watch, when you watch it, and for how long so they can make the ads more relevant. We can't have you replacing your phone battery, so we'll make it an internal component so when it goes bad you're more likely to just get a new phone.
But we can't pay people more, because that's an expense.
The National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF) is a 501 C6 not-for-profit organization established in 2000 by Automakers and the independent aftermarket to identify and resolve gaps in Service information, Tool Information and Training.
Chrysler, jeep, dodge, ram, fiat all have a SGW- a secure gateway that doesnt let any un-authorised diagnostic tool to connect to the car and delete faults or do any repairs, you can still see faults but cant do anything more. If you want to do more you have to buy theyr tool for 15000$ and 1000$ a year, or to bypass the SGW and do the repair ilegaly.
Renault, nissan, infiniti all have a SGW that cant be bypassed normaly so you have to pay about 10€ for a 24h connection for one VIN code. There is no free way to connect to these cars.
Mercedes just introduced a new SGW that i dont know anything much but you can pay to bypass it. The price i got was for 800€ for 50 connections.
VW group is working on a new platfrom with Rivian that is sayed to be 100% not bypassible in any means. Onley a dealer would be able to do anything.
BMW is letting connect and do anything but its made harder by locking every part to a VIN so that you cant use used parts. Rumor is that next generation bmw will not be able to use used parts. Some cars dont let you do it now but there are ways to make it work.
Looks like I'm gonna run my Mercedes 300D until it literally collapses into a heap. The engine is supposed to be good for a million miles, after that I guess I can change bearing journals, valves and seats, bore it out and do oversize pistons like they did back in the day.
I'm appreciating more and more owning a car that only has an electrical system for the lights and radio
There is a screwdriver that you can get at the hardware store for this type of screw. You shouldn’t have to, I definitely agree. But fuck ‘em, repair your shit with the $5 screwdriver.
I've been advocating right to repair and have been trying to raise the alarm bells to stuff like this. Unfortunately people have been blind to it and keep putting up with this crap.
"Oh I have to go to the ram dealership instead of an independent and pay $10,000 more? Sounds good to me!"
"Oh they track everywhere I drive, the speed I'm driving and also sell it to my insurance so they can increase rates, and advertisers to stalk me? If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear!".
How do you find energy to keep going? I got too tired and burned out from trying to explain to people why the right to repair is important, but it seems like they already got too used to thinking replacing stuff all the time and tossing them away because of simple things is normal. When I try to talk about it, I am portrayed as the weird one, who thinks we should be using stuff manufactured more than a couple of years ago.
I've advocate by doing. I work at a computer repair shop with honest rates, and transparent practices. I volunteer at repair cafés sharpening tools for free. This way you demonstrate directly towards them what you're doing and what companies are doing.
I can show customers that apple's ribbon cables are thinner than tissue paper, all of the freaking glue holding it together, the serialized components, the convoluted design, etc.
Whenever I speak about it outside of the repair shop people think I'm some conspiracy nut, but people will listen with the evidence right in front of them.
hahahahahaha, about three years ago now, I bought a hunting knife from Amazon that came with a sheath which had a belt clip that was held on by one of these fucking screws.
at the time, i couldn't figure for the life of me what it was or if there was a tool for this so I went to Home Depot, bought a .99 cent flathead our of their bargain tubs, took it to their tool rental department where they also will cut metal for you if you ask nicely. had them make a notch in the top of the flathead, brought it home and after some filing got it to get in there and loosen up this devil screw top.
now i know it's called a U or H type screwdriver. my way was cheaper, but nice to know the real solution now.
That belt clip is there to make the knife technically legal in some areas. A 3"+ blade can't be concealed by putting it in your pocket, so the workaround is to have the clip showing on the outside of your pocket, making it visible. That's why they use screws like that. At least that is my understanding - I could be wrong.
you will live in a box made of ticky tacky, you will drive a subscription tank, you will eat a "hamburger" maed out of 40% sawdust, you will spend 10% of your life mowing your lawn, and you will think you like it
Just a basic security screw. It's so kids (and people who don't know enough about repairing appliances to know about security screws) don't disassemble the dangerous machine.
I have a set of these that was part of a larger set of precision bits I was buying anyway. I've only ever used one of the security bits in like a decade of having them. I wouldn't have bought the security bits alone.
Grinding a notch into a flathead screwdriver is annoying but it'll still work fine as a flathead even afterwards. I would probably just grind the bulge out of the screw though.
The reason is more likely that they want to avoid people enabling all the software features they disabled because you didn't take the super-premium-customer-comfort pack for 15$/month.
How do you expect car manufacturers to survive you anticapitalist swines! /s
You can't really do that with diagnostic tools, but you can change the vehicle mileage. I see a lot of cars coming from shady car lots with under 100k miles that look like they have over 300k on them.
This right here. I bought their security bit set and, true, I've only ever opened the case three times in the few years I've had it, but in those three times nothing else would have worked without a more destructive solution
Here’s the link, it’s helped me out a bunch of times in the 6-8 years I’ve had it.
2 notes though
these are hard cheese grade metal. Don’t plan on removing any high torque, Rusty or partly stripped screws with them, they’ll either break or round off.
if the screw is too recesses down a narrow hole, these won’t help. The bit holders are too wide to fit in. I have a Honeywell Air Purifier with one security Torx that is 3-4” down a hole that this set failed me on.
Just to add to your comment, the sell a smaller set for a few dollars less and also a "precision" screwdriver set that has some similar bits not but the full set. Both are very handy to keep around for this exact thing.
It's called an "H-type" head. I found some tools for that on eBay but was reluctant to spend any money on something I'd probably never need again, ever. But this video shows a hack using scissors.
I didn't have a pair laying around that worked but the video inspired me to MacGyver my way to remove that aberration against all that's good in humanity.
The auto industry is full of POS bullies. Everytime one for them goes into another industry they are totally turds and mess everything up then leave cause no one likes them and they pissed off vendors.
So what I take from this is… don’t buy a new car. Well, since I’ve never owned a car newer than 10 years old, I guess I’m ahead of the game for once. #winning
thus the actual answer is "move to a place where you don't need a car to live", you don't need to worry about the repairability of public transport vehicles and bikes are trivial to repair.
lol. fuck cities. i will take my old car and live on my compound as far away from all of you as i possibly can. i see what yall have done with the world.
The lack of independent repair hurts the used car market before the cars get that old anyway. Lack of repairability reduces the number of cars that make it into the used market in working condition and keeps prices higher.
My 17 year old truck has all the features I need from a vehicle. If I can just keep it running I have no desire to upgrade it in the foreseeable future. Even if I had infinite money I'd probably just get one with lower mileage and upgrade it with offroad accessories and stuff. I have basically zero interest in new cars.
Buy a security bitset! It is surprisingly handly to have around. Sometimes, I've needed a certain screw size that they don't have in imperial, but they do have in metric at the hardware store. But it's a security bit only.
They also work on regular, non security bits in a pinch.
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