[Captain Blight]

A fight over the right to repair cars turns ugly
Massachusetts Subaru and Kia dealers disabled remote start and maintenance alerts.

Has anybody heard anything about Hyundai?

A fight over the right to repair cars turns ugly

Massachusetts Subaru and Kia dealers disabled remote start and maintenance alerts.

arstechnica.com

 

[Jay]

Good article. Thanks for posting. As for repair information, I've toured Hyundai and Kia's tech info websites and I find that repair information, at first blush, looks fairly complete and reasonably well organized. The article speaks mostly to the telematics info that modern cars gather and transmit to OEM servers (Bluelink in Hyundai-speak). I have no idea what they've got on me or how to get it, and I would like to know. I have (and should have) the right to know what credit reporting agencies are gathering about me, so why should I not also have the right to look at my stored telematics info? I think this right is mis-named "right to repair". Any data mining operation that gathers information on me should give me carte blanche access to that data.

 

[AdmiralQ]

This is all about right to repair, and the fact that these manufacturers are being spiteful by removing features that were clearly a part of the functions of the cars, all because they want dealerships to have exclusive rights to work on their cars. This is going to prompt a massive class action lawsuit against Kia and Subaru, along with any other manufacturer dumb enough to try this. Pissing off your customers is generally a really bad idea.

 

[Tucson Joe]

The farmers are going after John Deere to have the "right to repair" their farm equipment themselves.
I wouldn't buy from a car company that takes this position.

 

[Snowdog82]

There's already a story about Toyota disabling remote start after 3 years of the trial subscription like the Hyundai Bluelink. I wonder myself if Hyundai would mirror Toyota plans. Toyota owners would have to pay a monthly fee to enable that feature.

 

[AdmiralQ]

There's already a story about Toyota disabling remote start after 3 years of the trial subscription like the Hyundai Bluelink. I wonder myself if Hyundai would mirror Toyota plans. Toyota owners would have to pay a monthly fee to enable that feature.

That is a somewhat different topic than "right to repair", and Toyota is paying dearly for this decision as far as customer pushback goes: Toyota 'Reviewing' Key Fob Remote Start Subscription Plan After Massive Blowback