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Automakers Try To Keep Repair Codes Secret
An anonymous reader writes "Can't get the trouble codes out of your car's computer? Congress wants to help. I think it's odd that they think it's your God-given right to reverse-engineer your car, but not your XBox. Why aren't the automakers bashing these third-party code readers over the head with the DMCA while they still can?" This debate has been going on for several years.
Rachel Seymour, a college student from Portland, Oregon, has had her 2002 Kia Spectra serviced 12 times for a Check Engine light problem. Each time, she's forced to take it to a Kia dealership, where a technician hooks her car up to a computer, runs a battery of tests and charges her $120 to diagnose and repair the same problem: a loose gas cap.
Well, no offense to Ms. Seymour, but she's one dumbass motherfucker. Who the fuck in their right mind pays $120 twelve times ($1440 in total) to be told the same fucking thing? After the first time they told me it was a loose gas cap and I knew that I was tightening it down as best as it could be done I would have ignored (or covered/disabled) the light (which she apparently did after her twelvth visit).
I purchased my second new Saturn SL-series in 8/2002. I just had to take it in for a slipping clutch (at 29,900 which is unheard of as far as I am concerned). They offered me a rental car for free, service that would be finished the next day (probably because they were paying for the rental), and it was all under warranty. Now, like I said, it is unlikely that user error caused a slipping clutch at 30k but it is possible. No questions asked. Seems like they weren't trying to place the blame on the user here and just fixed the damn thing. I wonder if they didn't cover the first time or two and then told her to fuck off and started charging her for wasting their time?
I suggest that Ms. Seymour smartens the fuck up about her car company choices or her insistence on bringing the god damn car back to people who are obviously fucking with her...
I don't see how giving these fucking codes to the smalltime mechanics is going to help one fucking bit for a problem of utter stupidity. Ms. Seymour is going to see cause $$$'s in any automechanic's eyes. In fact, I would be more apt to trust a dealership's service department than some independent... YMMV.
I think it's odd that they think it's your God-given right to reverse-engineer your car, but not your XBox
Simple, a badly maintained car can cause death. A badly maintained Xbox will cost you $99 for a new one. Anyone else spotting the difference here? They arent helping YOU, they are helping the independant garages to keep your car in good shape and help prevent a fatality or two.
Congress allowing reverse engineering of repair codes will allow third party diagnostics systems available at prices the independant can truely afford to pay. This makes them better at maintaining vehicles.
Most common use for modchips: pirating games (illegal)
Most common use for car codes: fixing your car (legal - but most likely won't be possible with future cars)
The similarity is that game makers make less money if you pirate a game (instead of buying it). Car dealers/manufacturers make less money if you fix your own car (and down pay for their overpriced service and "genuine rippof parts").
Casual Games/Downloads
First off, when purchasing a "cheap" car, you get what you pay for. Most of the commercials you see on TV for Kia, Hyundai's and offer the 10-year warranty are crap for this exact reason. The car, a 2002 model is still covered under the manufactuers warranty, however, there's some stipulations. In short, it doesn't cover "user error". Here's a college student who has had the car serviced 12 times for the same problem, and each time told the same thing. Depending on where she lives, she may need to check into her state's lemon law.
I help admin a Mazda 6 enthusiast site and have never heard of anything like this before regarding warranty problems. Any check engine light, whether the drivers fault or not is taken care of without a charge. Paying a $120 fee each time it gets services is ridiculous! Again, just another use to show you the hooks and gimmicks of buying "cheaper" cars thinking that a 10-year warranty will keep you safe from any problems. Our group was lucky. With the help of Mazda service mangers around the US, we were able to get a complete list of trouble codes posted. As was stated in the article the AutoXRay is a wonderful tool to help. It is fairly pricey, but if you have no other way of determining the problem, this would really help and saves on having the repair shop diagnose the problem for you. Instead alll it takes is this scanner to read the codes, determine the problem, and have them fix it. From the article...
"Bryan Hanks, who has taken his 2002 Toyota Prius to his local Houston dealership four times since a single sensor malfunctioned and the Check Engine signal prevented him from using the car's electronic display, said automakers should incorporate USB ports in dashboards to allow consumers to download error messages to a laptop."
Any legitimate scanner will allow you to also download a freeze frame and trouble codes to your laptop or monitor real-time data that may not be available to you through dashboard guages.
IMHO, if after 12 times, I think common sense has to play a big part in the determination process of what's going on. With the advent of cars having tons of microprocessors and computers on-board to control everything from real-time air/fuel ratios to your cabin temperature settings it's no wonder why CEL codes will light up for inane reasons, the gas cap one being the most common. When the reason shows up on the diagnostic computer it most likely shows a fuel leak (depending on car manufactuer). Out of perspective, it seems like a pretty serious problem. However, once all of the fuel lines have been pressure checked and show no leaks, the only problem could be with a loose gas cap. This can go 2 ways.. either she is taking it to the dumbest dealership service department or she is a complete twit herself.
Hmmm.
The car companies make money doing service on your car (unless its under full warrenty), or commisioning other companies to fix your car. Its about lost profits.
Me? If I see a check engine light in my car, I want to know what it is before I shell out $150 to get the "problem", if there is one, repaired.
They are creating competition... If more service shops have these "codes" they are able to offer a better price than the dealership. This gives the consumer the choice of taking it there, having to pay less but also have less-experience machanics (for that particular model perhaps) work, or pay a slightly higher price and have the dealership do it. It creates a choice for the consumer rather than telling them they MUST go to the dealership to get it fixed.
Hmmm.
So in a sense people are already buying cars with their hoods welded shut.
This does provide an opportunity to educate Congress by showing them that the needs of both professions with respect the DMCA (and other horrors) are basically very similar at heart.
This is a little bit off-topic, but one reason why young folks buy Kia's and Hyundais is because of the extra-long warranty period, 10 years, I think. A quote from the article helps me to realize that Kia's warranty is probably fraught with small-print and legalese that helps them to cover their butts with their decade-long warranty.
"Instead of explaining anything to me they just pull out a warranty sheet with a highlighted portion indicating that they don't cover Check Engine light problems."
They don't cover check engine light problems? I can see, on one hand, why they wouldn't do this (money-wise), but on the other, it's not very nice to offer someone what is evidentally perceived to be a blanket warranty for the whole car and then charge for small repairs. I think that Kia and other similar, low-cost automakers should be more forthcoming in their commercials about their warranties.
The problem is that the greybeards in Congress remember when they could work on their own cars, before all the computerization and emission-control crap was added. So they sympathize with owners who "want to be able to fix their own cars, but the newfangled ones are too '1337."
This contrasts with computers and technology, because the members of Congress never knew how it worked, so of course there's no reason to open the hood, to extend the metaphor. "Computers? Well, them's crazy things, you better ask my 9 year old nephew... take it apart? Why, you'll probably break it anyway!"
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Simple, a badly maintained car can cause death. A badly maintained Xbox will cost you $99
It probably has more to do with the number of Congressmen who own a car versus the number who own an XBox.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
If Lexmark's ink cartridges are protected by a security system (and thus, the DMCA) how long do you think it will be before your car's diagnostic system is? Or radio, filters, and tires for that matter? Can't have you using unauthorized third party equipment on that car when the dealership can sell you the same thing for twice the price...
Finkployd
Computers, on the other hand, are Magic Boxes. They don't know how a computer works, are possibly afraid to learn, and hate it that 14 year old boys know more about it than they do and can cause so much trouble with one. They see the results and power of these fine general problem-solving tools but don't know how to harness it for themselves which frightens them, so they think it's better to regulate it until they do (or so that they don't have to worry about it anymore).
I grant that this is a pretty broad generalization and there are certainly counter examples of my characterization of these men (for instance Al Gore or maybe Jay Inslee) but never underestimate the pride and ego of an old man. It's practically a force of nature.
Hasn't technology evolved to a point where we don't need to extract and look up arcane codes to determine what is wrong with our hardware (computers or cars)? I understand that there was a time when storing the text for error codes used up precious RAM/ROM, but come on!
I mean, how hard would it be to fit a car with an LED/LCD readout that says "Your gas cap is loose or missing." It doesn't have to be a fancy voice like in luxury cars. Just a little readout on or under the dash that tells you exactly what is wrong (as far as the car's sensors can tell, anyway). Maybe a nice message that tells you, "Your transmission has exploded. Seek professional help."
Geez.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I think it's odd that they think it's your God-given right to reverse-engineer your car, but not your XBox.
It's simple. They understand cars enough to know what the danger is. They don't understand computers enough to see the same dangers there. (Your XBox example doesn't really highlight the problem, since it is just a game after all - a better example is things like voting machine code and proprietary device drivers.)
Really, that's all there is to it. It's simple familiarity. Screw with people's ability to fix their own cars and you impact a lot of people the congrescritters know personally - they grok what's going on because everyone's got cars, everyone's opened hood on them, and everyone either knows how to fix minor things on them or is just one relationship hop away from someone who does. Now, how many congressmen know the first thing about how computer software is made? How many of them realize just how artificial the line is between software design and software fixing? It's not nearly as clearly cut as the line between designing a car and fixing a car.
Secondly, a congresscritter would never accept that it's okay for someone to get free access to the blueprints from a car manufacturer for how to make the car, but they understand that people should have access to the diagnostic tools. What they don't understand is that that distinction doesn't exist in computer software. The "user-servicable" part of a software program is...the whole thing. And only a programmer can really understand how true that is.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Here in good 'ol New Joisey, any 'newer' car (I believe '96 or newer) gets a computer test instead of the rod-up-the-tailpipe test. If your check-engine light is on, you automatically fail the test -- they won't even plug into the computer.
That's because the 'check engine light' indicates an emissions problem, 99% of the time. Therefore if it is turned on, your emissions system is not performing to spec and you will not even be tested until the problem is resolved.
Now, do you smell a racket here or what?
No?
Isn't it in your mechanic's interest to conveniently have that irritating-yet-not-telling-you-anything check engine light go on, so you have to bring it back to be inspected for $75?
Why are you blaming the automotive technician for a problem with your car?
Grr... just another screw-job.
I am totally missing your point. If you don't trust your auto tech, find a good one. There are directories available on the net of certified technicians that are honest. One is called iTAN I think, check google.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
>leave it unlocked and someone will come along and remove the radio
They'll leave the radio, because it's a POS they can't sell, but they'll take your airbag, your seats, rims, your dog, and the herb in the glove box, and then key your paint just so you know where it's at.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
You know those balls you put on your antenna to find your car in the parking lot? Everybody should have those!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I think it's odd that they think it's your God-given right to reverse-engineer your car, but not your XBox.
Because, you fucktard, the DMCA applies to copyright enforcement devices and nothing else. No copyrighted content, no DMCA case.
I'm just so sick of people (particularly on slashdot) bitching about the DMCA, copyright law, trademark law, and just about everything else IP without having any clue what the laws actualy say.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
What dealership do you go to?? All the VW dealers I know of charge 79.99 just to hook your car up to the computer, and that's pretty much standard these days.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
There are different standards applied to your car and your computer, hence different application of things like the DMCA.
1. The owner of a car has a duty to keep that car in safe operating condition (if it is going to be used on the roads) If the law burdens a man with a responsibility, it must also provide him the means to carry it out. This generally precludes the law from tying him to a single vendor. (Think insurance, you can pay for it or post bond and insure yourself. You can pay for auto service or
buy tools and do it yourself.)
2. The law does not presently burden the owner of a computer to keep it in operating condition (if it is to be used on the internet.) Thus the DMCA may be enforced without creating a conflict.
3. It might be beneficial to require the same standard of care for your computer that we require for your car, but don't hold your breath. Car accidents LOOK a lot more damaging than unsecure computers.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.