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Why Your New Car Is Nearly Impossible to Fix (And It’s Getting Worse)
(www.carsandhorsepower.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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Interesting thing here; I drive a 2013 vehicle. Other than regular maintenance, the only repair it’s ever needed was a rear bumper replacement and a bit of bodywork when someone rear ended me at a stoplight.
Contrast this with vehicles from the 1950s-1990s where sure, you could affordably repair them yourself or at the local garage, BUT that was something that became a regular event after the vehicle was 4-5 years old.
Personally, I’m more concerned with how manufacturers are closing off sections of the software in their vehicles such that it can’t be audited, security reviewed, independently patched, or modified to prevent all the telematics from flowing back to them.
I still don't get how telemetry is even legal.
If I purchase a vehicle from a previous owner, I do not have any agreement with the manufacturer regarding collection of my data.
Clickwrap should have been made illegal when they started doing it a quarter century ago. If I put a tracker on your car, I'm a criminal, but if every automaker drops a clause into the "user terms" on their vehicle sales, then every car you buy gets tracked forever, perfectly legally.
You agree when you use the car.
At least that is the legal claim.
There is a disclaimer when you start the car.
Wait... Every car I ever rented, borrowed or owned never showed a disclaimer anywhere. What are you driving that shows a disclaimer?
I'd check owners manuals, and any rental policies, or bill of sale/contracts. Sometimes this may show up when the vehicle is first taken out of pre-delivery mode and never again.
If it's only at pre-delivery or in manual, then I buy the car second hand without a manual am I still legally complied to the disclaimer?
Not a lawyer. No idea, but possibly. Seems like it would be covered by some sort of clause about taking on those risks and responsibilities if you ride in or drive the car but how enforceable is that?
Would be an interesting court case... If I'm not even shown or given a method to see a disclaimer, can it disclaim anything (is that even good English? You know what I mean but there must be a way to say it)?
Part of me says no. The company should make safe devices, a lamp is certified by ul and a car us way more dangerous.
Part of me say yes. People are really stupid sometimes. Companies shouldn't need to design everything with bubble wrap and people need to know not to slam their head into a coffee mug.
The sad part is this will/has gone to court and the first case will determine the future. Like someone is like "Nissan video recorded me buying lunch at McDonald's and saw my pin code" court says there was no damage since you can change your pin and no record of fraudulent charges. From then on there is legal precedent they can take your pin code. Year 2056, you see a Ford employee emptied your bank account by buying door dash, court states "Sorry, 30 years ago these other people said someone seeing your bank account data with your car camera is fine, just deal with your empty bank account."
I honestly think they are banking on it never having to go to court. Most people don't read contract terms, EULAs and TOS's, and for the most part all three are written in legalese so most people have a harder time understanding them. If nobody knows it's there they don't have to worry about people taking them to court over it. So they think it's better to beg forgiveness (or the court) than to ask permission (follow what few privacy laws we have).
I think that's why people were so scandalized when Mozilla made their report about the data car companies collect on drivers and passengers and so on. A lot of car features that spy on people are marketed as safety and convenience features.
Onstar started the whole "if you're ever in a crash or the car becomes disabled" etc thing and car companies decided that was a brilliant idea and they have been collecting data about everything they can ever since.
About the same time they decided that the less maintenance a person could do on the vehicle the more they could make for repairs (locking in parts distribution with certified labor at dealerships). And then they realized cars that are expensive to fix and that people can't fix themselves sort of snowballed into people can (and will) just buy new cars so we can sell more cars etc etc.
So it's all a whole interconnected plot of convenience, safety, telemetry data, data collection, and fixability leveraged against buying new cars every few years. And car companies have already proven to us again and again that they'll bet against our knowing enough to know we're being taken advantage of so they figure it's cheaper to do it this way and fight the few lawsuits that do crop up.
Partially you are right. My only disagreement is while most people don't read those documents, 1 lawyer who is bored and sees a pay day is all that's needed. Like someone has a law degree but can't find a practice to hire them so they go to a dealership, test drive a vehicle, sit down to sign paperwork, read everything and are like "hold up... Can you give me a copy of this?... Thanks, tell your boss to expect a letter from me."
It's like general computer security, you can block 500 bugs and security flaws but if 501st is discovered it's a really bad day.
What choice do consumers have, anyway? Return the car cause you don't agree with the disclaimer?
and then what are you gonna buy instead, a second hand car from the mid 90s before they all started adding telemetry modules.
I did literally that.
The real solution is regulatory, though, because obviously my boycott has done absolutely fuck-all to change manufacturer behavior.
yeah they know most people don't know or don't care, maybe selling the data from the telemetry to a data broker who on sells it to ICE might change some peoples minds...
Or if ICE starts connecting to the telemetry modules directly on older less secure models...
A simple hardware modification is all you need there.
Find the antenna for the on-board modem.
Disconnect the cable that leads between that antenna and the car's brain.
If necessary (if the car gives annoying/disabling errors after step #2), connect a high-ohm resistor between that antenna connector and the car's ground.
After that, the car will forever think that it's outside of signal range. And since operating while outside of cell service range is something even the most modern of cars still need to do, all of the car's essential functions will still work. You'll lose any internet connectivity features, of course. But in exchange, you'll have completely and permanently disabled any possibility of remote telemetry.
Until you take the car in for servicing, at which point all that data will get downloaded to the service module and from there be transferred to the manufacturer.
Losing Internet connectivity features is a sacrifice many aren't willing to make, unfortunately. Besides, this modification is a good way to void your warranty. And prob insurance too.
Yeah this.
Cars are storing so much data that the auto manufacturers were using "mechanics having access to all your telemetry data" as one of their big reasons people should vote against Right-to-Repair in MA.
Nobody really questioned what kind of data the cars store, or for how long. Nobody cared that this implied dealer mechanics already have access to all that data, and for some reason we are supposed to trust dealer mechanics with that data more than independents and shadetrees, or even ourselves?
No matter, the propaganda must've worked because the ballot initiative failed.
Moral of the story, listen to what people don't say. It's often more important.
I've known enough mechanics to know... Maybe.. BIG MAYBE... I may trust them with a screwdriver but nothing more complicated
If we're ever going to have cars that run user-repairable software, we're going to need mechanics (or at least independent mechanic shops) that know enough about software to get around. I'm not saying it's the only thing or even that it's the top priority right now, but it's gonna take a while to get there from where we are, and I think the sooner we start thinking about it the better off we'll be.
I'm honestly surprised at how far some tech-illiterate people get in office jobs.
If my clients who rely on computer use to obtain money are reluctant to learn even the basics, if I can get away with it, I will say "imagine your home builders didn't know the difference between a nail or screw? Learn file types, it's your screws and nails. Now imagine your bus driver doesn't understand road markings?"
It surprises me too, but I actually think that's fine. Lots of people have different skills and not everyone has to be the tech expert, as long as everyone acknowledges that it is an expertise and that that expertise deserves weight. But, most technical mistakes in an office setting don't result in serious injury or death, and that happens a lot in mechanics shops. People who decide whether dangerous machines are safe enough would need to have a higher level of technical professionalism than your average desk jockey.
I think that attitude is pretty common among people who make software that can get people killed (e.g. medical) but my experience is limited to a few secondhand conversations so I don't know how well-established that culture is. I've only ever worked on software that, if it failed, meant that a few people would get very upset and a bunch of people would get mildly upset, then we'd fix it and everyone would move on pretty quickly.
I mean you are mostly right and I was joking and exaggerating. I mean someone who can tear apart a transmission and put it back together and have it work better is obviously smart and intelligent.
Honestly I hate the direction cars are going. For example twenty years ago I could buy a new stereo at Walmart and have it installed in an hour. Now do that in a tesla. Yes some cars had different physical mounts and some had the door chimes built in such a way they would not work with aftermarket stereos but generally worked.
That was a solved problem. There was no reason to make this difficult.
I do too, I think general-purpose compute has become a too-cheap way to solve problems that have more durable (and repairable) mechanical solutions. It makes the sticker price lower even if the total cost over the lifetime of the vehicle (or laptop, or washing machine, etc.).
I think it would be nice to have a law that certain hardware needs to have user-autitable and user-replaceable control software. If you want to ship your hardware product with some preinstalled software, the source code must be publicly available. I don't know how it would get passed in America because it would make consumer electronics more expensive to manufacture, but I think it would be helpful in the long term to legally decouple hardware from closed-source software.
I would go further than software. I think too much stuff is cheap. I'm not rich, I'm barely surviving. That said if things were more expensive but better I think that's a net positive. Like you can buy a 50 vacuum, won't do a good job won't last long no hope to fix anything. If minimum was a 300 vacuum but it had a 15 year warrenty, mandatory suction and cleaning ability and user fixable wouldn't that be better?
It's similar to the old boot thing. A poor man buys a pair of boots for 10 dollars and lasts 2 months. A rich man buys a pair of boots for 200 and they last 4 years.
Being poor is very expensive!