Even if we ignore the fact that this is just a different way of doing something that's been going on for a very long time. A lot of people these days do just treat their car as a monthly paid for commodity that gets swapped as soon as the term is up.
Volkswagen charges a subscription for full engine power
- Thread starter Grim5
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It’s not a new thing at all. Well. The subscription or temporary upgrade is, but the same engine in different states of tune for more money has been done for a decade or more. Audi 1.8T in 150,180,210 and 225PS flavours. My BMW N20 comes in 190 HP and 245HP flavours, same engine, different tune.
Intel started this with k and non k cpu's.
Intel did this with core counts, they launched a CPU where some of the cores were disabled unless you paid a subscription
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I can do that with my Mustang. It's called 'adding a Whipple'.
No but people just seem to be focusing on the subscription bit and missing out on the you can just pay a lump sum and have it "remapped" forever.
IMO there is a fine line and just because other similar situations already exist doesn't necessarily mean they should be acceptable either.
EDIT: Something I find funny with these things, they are often purely a pencil pusher decision looking at the company bottom line, while if they threw in a bit of a sweetener with it no one really would blink an eye.
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I'd be interested in the stats behind it. Ultimately it allows a streamlining of production but how many more people would buy a software update for more power verses buying the same car with more power from the outset? How many think "no thanks" from the outset then subscribe after?
I was on a sales course last week (my role isn't sales but we paid for the course so I thought I may as well tag along
) and it was 90% psychology. For all the bluster and backlash I'm sure the manufacturers have done their homework and, in theory at least, know they should do well from this model.
I was on a sales course last week (my role isn't sales but we paid for the course so I thought I may as well tag along
) and it was 90% psychology. For all the bluster and backlash I'm sure the manufacturers have done their homework and, in theory at least, know they should do well from this model.
I think the second hand market is important here too - they're not stupid and they know people are (and have been for decades) paying tidy sums of money to tuners/modifiers to unlock all that spare headroom in turbo combustion engines - now with a motor, it's easier than ever for them to offer it themselves and even be able to do so over the air etc. and turn that into their own revenue stream rather than one for aftermarket companies.
Yes because you could remap an engine before yourself, but now I believe that you'll be breaching some sort of agreement, or if not now, then I believe their intention is to make it this way. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but imo, left unchecked, it's just a matter of time.
Do people really not mind car servicing and repair ending up like apple devices? Agreeing to things like this (and yes stuff that came before, to a degree, if it really is the same thing) is 100% their way of stepping in that direction. Why wouldn't they?
This is partly how Apple justifies their behaviour in strangling the the third party repair space, but over time have added in safety. It's much harder to explain to law makers why a company's actions are predatory when they're banging the safety drum.
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ECUs have been becoming locked down and encrypted for at least the last 10 years removing the ability to remap full stop, again there was no big hooha about that which personally seems even worse as it completely removes any ability to fiddle with something you own. You've always been breaching an agreement when remapping a car anyway, if the engine goes pop the warranty isn't going to cover it.
So these are all exactly the same engine in exactly the same car with no upgraded hardware otherwise?
Voiding the warranty is one thing, but now they could potentially have an argument for theft, since you would be causing a financial loss
I the case of the 1.8T examples, the lower power 150 and 180 variants are, AFAIK, identical other than ECU programming. In the case of my BMW engine, again AFAIK they're identical save for ecu parameters allowed.
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This was my understanding as well. The engine, brakes, exhaust etc were all identical apart from “tuning”.
Yea but they also don't detune themselves when you stop paying monthly or sell it to a new owner, who then has to subscribe
Nor will these if you choose the option to pay in full for it to be permanently enabled
Weird my Netflix stops working too when I stop paying
£600+ to turn on something which the car already has is a scam and overpriced for a measley 20hp.
Better off getting a tuner to do it and keep it quiet. A car which has had a few owners will make it hard to pin it on someone if they chase it. Also a used buyer hasn't agreed to VM's terms.
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How is a tuner not a scam too then ? Also find a tuner who can do it