Normally I reserve the above epithet for people who have their phones surgically attached to their hands, or bosses who insist that employees Stay.In.Touch.At.All.Times., yeah even unto night time, weekends, and vacations. (Just because you’re attending your sister’s wedding or mother’s funeral — requiring use of paid time off [PTO] instead of compassionate leave, FFS — doesn’t mean that your boss shouldn’t be able to demand your time to attend to That Pressing Corporate Need.)
No, the connectivity assholes I refer to here are “services” like GM’s OnStar, Hyundai’s Blue Link, NissanConnect, AcuraLink and Toyota Connect. Via Insty, I see the following is happening (from the annals of Corporate Automotive Bastardy):
Connected services is a catch-all term for everything your car can send and receive over the internet. It includes features such as automatic 911 call-outs after an accident, roadside assistance after a breakdown, over-the-air (OTA) software updates, vehicle health reports which can be sent to your dealer, wi-fi hot spots in the vehicle, and phone apps that allow you to connect to and even control some of your car’s functions.
They’re also big business. Most connected services require a paid subscription once the free trail (usually three months to a year) runs out. As more and more of them are added to your dashboard, automakers hope to make billions of dollars annually just on subscriptions. That doesn’t mean older vehicles will be supported forever, though.
Anyone who’s ever touched a device with a computer chip in it knows that device will eventually be obsolete. Cellphones, even if they still work fine, will eventually stop receiving software updates. Right or wrong, this is the way of the world. The average American, though, keeps their car for much longer than they keep their phone, and the average age of a vehicle in America is nearly 13 years old. Meaning, a lot of people could potentially be affected if other automakers follow Acura’s lead in cutting off cars newer than the average. And that’s not to mention those who own used examples of older models.
While it’s arguably bad customer service, there’s no law or contractual obligation requiring automakers like Acura to continue supporting older models with outdated hardware and software. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Yeah, click HERE to accept the (300 pages of) Terms & Conditions Of Service. (Wait; you all do read those before clicking, right?)
Somebody tell me how many times I’ve ranted on these pages about people handing over their privacy and freedom of action in the name of “conveeeeenience”, because I can’t be bothered to look it up.
This is why, in all my lottery dreams, I am convinced that I would never buy a modern car, but would pay a premium (in service / maintenance costs etc.) just to own a car that is completely and utterly under my personal control. I have actually come to the point where I would buy any car — in reasonable working condition — that has an ordinary key to start it, whose operating system contains not a single chip and does not send my usage data to just anyone who wants to see it, for whatever reason — which includes insurance companies, the police, the State, the advertising industry and all the other forms of bureaucratic bastardy that have infested our personal lives like some creeping fucking cancer.
A pox on all of them.
It’s not just the updates that will stop. All the features that you have to pay for via a subscription will stop as well. Suddenly, your car will become a lot less than what you are used to driving. Presumably the car won’t cease to function, but as the F-150 Oregon truck example demonstrates, that isn’t an impossibility.
[Gamers have seen this happen multiple times with older games]
and then the resale value will plummet so you’ll have to take out another loan for your new batmobile
At some point convenience becomes inconvenient.
My 34 year old truck has roll up windows that have never had a problem and work well still.
My more recent Blazer has electric windows that have been majorly problematic twice, and now.
I’m not looking for MORE problems in my life.
I’m looking for ways to eliminate problems.
NOT buying a new ride sounds like the latter.
When you purchase a device – any device – that has a chip in it, you become a member of the vendor’s Quality Control staff.
Never buy new.
.
You probably won’t be able to get very good insurance for that car you are dreaming of. Just ask all the Hyundai/Kia owners who have key start cars with no immobilizer built in and can thus be easily stolen with a screwdriver.
Supposedly car manufacturers are required to maintain spare parts for vehicles up to ten years, at which point I guess either the secondary market takes over or you’re stuck with junk. Ten years at normal mileage will net you 120,000 to 150,000 miles on the odometer. In years past the car was junk but today for a lot of vehicles that’s only getting started. I’m driving a 13 year old truck with 140,000 on the dash and it should easily run another ten years, IF the electronics don’t shit the bed.
I have already had to replace the touch screen display years back, thankfully under warranty. It took them two months to find a replacement. That’s on a fairly new truck. The odds of finding a second one now are slim to known without resorting to junkyard parts. Whatever part that drives the navigation system has already shit the bed but since I never use it, I don’t miss it. My phone does the navigating for me if I absolutely need it. I also have an aftermarket device for controlling the trailer brakes (not factory original) and for reading/clearing computer codes. Comes in handy.
As for those subscription services they sell you, well the car already has all the required hardware. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t get someone to hack the system, upgrade the vehicle, then lock it from contacting the “mother network” to prevent it from being re-set. Maybe that’ll be a neat little side business once I retire, if I can figger out how to jimmy that thing.
Volkswagen will only support their cars for twenty years. after that, it’s a search far and wide to find the parts to keep your car running. No more Volkswagens (Stupid spellcheck what’s acceptable with one Volkswagen but not correct with more than one?) running for seventy or eighty years. It’s twenty and out. Crooks.
My car was only seven years old and one of the mounting points for the gasoline tank cracked. The car would reek of gasoline for about the first thirty miles after a fill up. After a friend told me I was taking my life in my hands ignoring that. I took it to my mechanic who finally — FINALLY — found a replacement gas tank in Canada. Happily that was only three weeks into the whole sordid tale, but that was also only seven years into the car.
I had a twenty year old truck with a (gasp) plastic gas tank that cracked. Couldn’t fill more than half way or else gas would spill out. Drove for most of a year that way before dropping the tank, taking a soldering gun and some junk plastic and welding it back up (with the tank still holding gas in it). Slapped a quick fiberglass patch over the shoddy weld and to my knowledge that truck is still out there, somewhere, probably still running.