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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.
I know that many cars already come with OBD II compliant ports (http://www.obdii.com/) and there are interfaces out there to hook your laptop to the OBD port and check the engine management software. Indeed there are tools to remap the engine software that use the same OBD port (I've installed this on my BMW)
Given that this type of standardized interface exists, and that tools for "exploiting" it are readily available and fairly cheap, I don't see how it would be possible to keep this information (error codes and the like) secret.
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It was before the lemon laws. The problem was that the car would just quit, right in the middle of driving down the interstate or wherever. After a few minutes you could restart it. After the third trip to the dealership failed to find the problem, I "revoked my acceptance" of the product, just like it was a bad hair drier I took back to Walmart. The dealer sputtered and argued for a while, but I got my money back and took it down the road and bought a different brand. It didn't take me 12 tries.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Gentlemen, there is absolutely nothing to prevent the car ompanies from leasing you the software to run your cars, providing it under license, and requiring a continuing monthly fee to have it updated to the latest, most correct version. It is going to happen in just a couple years, believe me.
... initially.
The Jim Jones Kool-Aid they mix it with will be (1) "safety for soccer moms and soccer kiddies" for soccer mom minivans, (2) "continually improved emission controls" for the tree-huggers. and (3) "hot performance item that only rich guys have" for the young dude crowd.
After all, would you want your wife driving an "unsafe car"? Do you want to pollute when there are easy upgrades to bring teh pollution down? Don't you want the hottest performing Mustang? Why aren't you willing to pay that "little extra" necessary to keep the system software up to date?
When the dealers hear the idea they will love it, since it locks you into their system and guarantees the dealers a continuing income stream.
The warranties will be revised to say "we are only valid as long as you operate your car with the latest vesion of software".
California will require continuing software updates and will not permit you to register your car unless your engine software is up to date. Why? Because the car companies will swear they are constantly refining the pollution controls and can guarantee continually reduced emissions (as long as everyone pays the monthly fee and goes into their dealer every couple months!).
No, guys, its going to happen and happen soon. Don't think that everyone from toaster manufacturers to wristwatch manufacturers to car manufacturers are not slavering at the idea of a continuing income stream for constant upgrades.
All they have to do is wait for the other corporations, like the record business and Microsoft, to mentally turn us all into pay-per-view, pay-per-ride, pay-per-smell, pay-per-look, pay-per-sip, pay-per-breath people.
So let me tell you how it is going to start. First, a new high performance car/engine is going to come out, bought by young guys. They are going to make some special "super-cool" program in which the young guys come in to the shop every couple months to get a revised OS downloaded to their cars. Free coffee, key chains, watches, all the suckie trinkets that young guys fall for who are out hustling women and like to believe they are playas. Hell, it may even be free
Every cool hip young white dude is going to want the latest "performance" versions for his new engine, won't he? After all, he always checks out the latest drivers for his video card, doesn't he? His hot car (like a Harley) is just a big penis extension anyway.
Aw, the car companies will start talking advance curves, valve timings, omega factors, brake horsepower curves, improved shift curves, gamma cutoffs and other hokey nonsense and he will fall right over for it. I can see it now: fancy web site discussing the data, how they gathered it and evaluated it, and how they have revised the softare, all done in black and gun metal colors. Brief bios on the engineers developing the improved software make him feel like some NASA astronaut! Man! he'll feel like some kind of fancy pilot/engineer/astronaut/cool dude at the cutting edge, a regular "early adopter"!
And once the young guy is hooked on new car software as a high ticket, high status performance item (that gets him oodles of babes, of course), everyone else will fall into line.
Selah.
This isn't as simple as you seem to think. There is one light, which lights up, and stays lit after any fault condition. The fault conditions can be for something as simple and trivial as a loose gas cap to something which will cause the engine to leap out and land in your lap. You have no way of knowing without going along to your local friendly dealer to have them tell you what the problem is (was) and to re-set the warning light. My Jeep Grand Cherokee had 27,000 miles on it when my warning light lit up. I took it along to the local Jeep shop, who connected the computer and diagnosed --- a loose gas cap. Now living in Oregon, you don't get to play with your own gas cap. In Oregon they really do believe those dire warnings that California churn out, that gasoline is a substance that can cause a multitude of serious health problems, and is a potential terrorist weapon, so you can't fill your own tank if you want to. Anyway, I really thought it was improbable, but took them at their word - they tightened the gas cap and reset the light. The next day, it came back on. Back to the Jeep merchant ... loose gas cap. So I reminded them that they said the same thing yesterday, and tightened the gas cap themselves, and it hadn't been touched since.
The "cleaned" the gas cap and re-set the light.
Two days later the light came on ...
"loose gas-cap" they said.... "Screw that" I said, "its something else - fix it under my bumper to bumper warranty."
They took the car in the next day, and called me late in the afternoon having done all the Jeep tests without any result. But they did mention that there were some tests that were only run by the on-board computer when the engine was cold, and hadn't run for several hours, and it was this one which was tripping the warning. They kept the car overnight.
Next day, it dutifully turned on the warning light for them.
With nothing left to check, they fitted a new gas-cap and sent me home (I am certain I saw them holding their fingers crossed behind their backs as I drove away...).
That fixed it. But it was interesting that there was no apparent way to test the system short of change a component, wait a day and try it. I just shudder to think how much this would have ended up costing me if it had happened out of warranty.