Interpretation The Second: These vehicles are maintained by a corporation that is both greedy and incompetent.
The service writer told me (and documented) that the car needed rear pads when I came to pick it up.
That's a little weird, I thought.
I took it to a tire place for snows two weeks later. They inspect that shit for the upsell while the wheels are off anyway. Front and rear brakes: fine.
Checked 'em myself. Sure enough, barely worn.
That was the last time that car visited the dealer.
I still have to pull the dash apart to bypass the spy box they never mentioned when selling the car.
These dicks feel they aren't making enough money just making and selling cars they have to do shady shit.
Well fuck that, I won't buy a new one again.
Never going to that dealer ever again.
I was thinking of the exploit back from 2023 that effected Acura, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Infiniti, Nissan, and Porsche. I remember it being discussed on HN at the time but I can't find the relevant thread. Here is an article covering it: https://www.securityweek.com/16-car-makers-and-their-vehicle..., at the time.
You and I understand the word "basic" differently.
I wish they'd offer a lifetime purchase option--but maybe they learned from the 2g remote start debacle not to rely on technology they don't control
My 2017 Honda civic has it without a subscription so I was pretty shocked to learn that Subaru decided its customers would be cool with it being behind a pay-wall.
I'm not happy with how consumer choice is boxed in by automakers, but for sensitive systems like ignition, I don't think that their approach is unreasonable.
I get what you’re saying about app-based. My civic has that too and it’s for a cost. I’ve just never needed it since we have the free for life RF version.
At $110/yr for cell-based remote start via Honda link, I’ve saved $770 over the years. Over the life of the car for me I could be looking at doubling those savings. That’s the power of avoiding needless subscriptions.
I’d understand a complaint for heated seats subscription, but not for remote start.
By the time I get back to addressing the car itself, the snow and ice is easier to brush or scrape off and the doors might actually open without ripping the handle off (which is something that I've directly experienced twice so far in my days).
This all conspires to mean that it makes my life easier.
And it's OK if you don't like the feature and take a very dim view of it. It's also OK that some others may find merit in using it.
It's all OK.
It's not the feature I dislike. I find the practice of idling a car to warm it wasteful and polluting.
Even better to move to a place where there isn't regularly any winter weather. Perhaps something below the 35th north parallel, and as close to sea level as can be mustered, would be good.
Let's all do this. It will be a Great New Beginning for so many people.
And thereafter, we'll burn our money polluting the world by running the aircon while we drive instead of burning it to help pre-emptively warm our cars on wintry days.
If you park your car in your garage you'll burn less fuel and own less stuff (because you can't store it in your garage). I'm telling you an easy way to save time, money, and your own energy (scraping ice) and you're mocking me. That's nice.
(I adore and embrace every opportunity for a stranger on the Internet to tell me how I should live.)
I thought you were talking about air conditioning in buildings. In warm climates, in a car, cooling is usually free: roll down your window and catch something called a "breeze". Works great unless you're on the freeway. But if everyone moved to a warm climate, as you, suggested we'd be living way more dense so you'd drive way less anyway. checkmate
There are also these things called "electric vehicles" that you can charge with solar power without requiring a panel on the vehicle.
> I adore and embrace every opportunity for a stranger on the Internet to tell me how I should live.
You're welcome! Normally I don't care what people do. But this idling cars affects everyone's air quality.
Over here in reality: It is that time of year again where the weather is shifting.
I think I'll stay where I am, park in whatever location it is that suits me, and start looking into remote starter kits for my Honda.
And I'm quite certain that I don't care at all what my neighbors may think of this.
I mean that was pretty much the outcome I expected from this interaction.
We had a hybrid replacement Yaris. It's nice but it still turns on the engine when it's cold. I wasn't complaining abut the noise, but the fumes. Diesels are the worst, regardless of CO2 rating, but gas engines produce a lot more CO even if they stink less. There are places where idling is regulated up to 5 minutes.
https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/environment/pollution/air-qual...
There’s a time limit on it on my car, I think about 10 minutes or something pretty sane. If you don’t get into your car by then it turns back off automatically.
And sometimes I did use it to keep the car running while doing other stuff. This function was a design intent of the device.
It would work like this: Drive to a destination not so far away on a cold wintry day and put transmission in park like usual. Then, push the start button on the remote and turn the ignition switch off.
After that: Remove key, get out, lock doors, go do whatever quick errand it was that had us out to begin with, and return to a car that was finally actually warm inside. The engine and accessories would continue running uninterrupted, like nothing ever happened.
After returning: Put key in, turn it to "on", select a gear, on to the next destination. Engine stays running the whole time.
When I read about this function, I figured I'd never use it. But it did work very well and my then-wife liked it quite a lot. Also if short, cold runs are bad for things like bearing wear and oil contamination, then keeping it running and letting it get up to operating temperature was perhaps a nicer way to treat that old engine than the alternative of never letting it really get warm might have been.
(It would time out and turn off after about 10 or 15 minutes. Otherwise, the engine would cease immediately upon touching the brake pedal if the ignition switch wasn't on.)
Sure, it sucks when someone idles a diesel outside your house, but new cars are QUIET.