[John_KZ]

Congrats, you presented the one and only case where the manufacturers are right: Nobody should tamper with critical control systems.

I don't want a DIY arduino-hacked suspension control chip or ABS. Neither would your clients. Unless of course your client understands this and it goes into the service logbook and you take full legal responsibility for any accidents this might cause in the future.

However I couldn't care less if my mp3 player has it's EMMC swapped or if my laptop has a third-party LCD replacement.

[coder543]

> I don't want a DIY arduino-hacked ...

This is a professional service being done by the same professionals who you're paying to actually replace the suspension, brakes, brake lines, or other life-critical components. If you can't trust them to make a good judgement on how or whether to reset tamper detection, then how can you trust them to replace your brakes or suspension in the first place? Surely the idea is that some company would develop and test a process for resetting the tamper detection now that it is apparently legal, and then this tool would be provided to mechanic shops.

> and you take full legal responsibility for any accidents this might cause in the future.

Do mechanics take full legal responsibility for any accidents caused by replacing your brakes or other things? I'm sure in cases of egregiously negligent behavior, they could probably be sued, but most of the time it would be very difficult to prove that they were the cause. I don't think this would be any different.

> Nobody should tamper with critical control systems.

If you believe this, it sounds like you buy brand-new-only cars the moment your existing car turns on any kind of fault light. But, assuming you're okay with them swapping in a $2500 replacement instead, do you believe in this idea so strongly that you would pay 10% to 20% of the vehicle's MSRP any time a fault triggers? Keeping in mind that a vehicle's MSRP has very little to do with its used market value. $2500 could easily be 30%+ of a vehicle's actual value at the time that this occurs.

I get where you're coming from, but I think the strength of your language is out of proportion with the suggested repairs.

[Drdrdrq]

He has a point though... Cars are manufactured in such way that when something fails, the failure is not catastrophic. Car might not be operational, but it is very rare that malfunction causes a crash. With SW I'm not convinced that the same can be accomplished. If you add 3rd party maintainers to the mix, it gets even worse.

I still think the right to repair is worth the risk, just pointing out that it's not so clear cut.

[BowBun]

I think your and OPs logic has a fatal assumption: that the quality of work done by a mechanic for a fix is worse than the manufacturer's replacement.

There is a possibility of failure in either one, right? It's people doing the work either way.

[Retra]

The mechanic's professional responsibility is to repair the car. If we're assuming they are too ignorant to do that job, then why go to a third party mechanic in the first place?

[danmg]

When ABS systems fault, they just turn in to non-ABS brakes.

What's the worst that would happen with a malfunctioning active suspension system? It wouldn't lower when going highway speeds, so you'll get more drag.

The only computer that absolutely needs to work to keep your car running is the one that's controlling the EFI system. If that's not running well, it's pretty obvious since the engine will stall out. If you have a modern automatic transmission, then you'll need that one too, and that's pretty obvious if it's not working correctly. Everything else is an accessory, non-essential and part of planned obsolescence.

[Coincoin]

ABS not working as intended could be a surprise to the driver and cause a crash, especially if you become dependent on it.

It's just like that AF 447 crash, they stalled from 38,000 ft to the ground because they never expected the computer to let them stall the plane.

But I mostly agree, the only software things I would see as absolutely life critical on a car would be drive-by-wire controls. All the rest will just either stall it, reduce performance or break something.

[MertsA]

>especially if you become dependent on it.

Nobody is ever going to become dependent on locking up their brakes during normal driving. Power brakes would be dangerous if they failed because without them you get very substantially reduced braking but in no way would the lack of ABS be any more dangerous than driving a car without ABS to begin with.

[mark-r]

An ABS failure could easily become fatal if it increased your stopping distance beyond what you'd achieve without it. After all it works by modulating the signal you send to the brakes.

[MertsA]

That's irrelevant and it doesn't change the fact that no one drives with the intention to brake hard enough that ABS activates. There's zero chance of anyone becoming dependent on it.

[mark-r]

My point is that ABS failure isn't equivalent to not having ABS at all - it can fail in a way that is actively harmful.

[Coincoin]

There is a lot of snow where I live and the ABS triggers all the time and yes some people just slam the brakes expecting their ABS to optimally slow down on ice.

[tristor]

Yep, and those people are dangerous idiots. Even with ABS it is improper to slam on your brakes on low-traction surfaces. The purpose of ABS is to prevent wheel locking under hard braking, but it is not intended to respond and recover from pure idiocy.

The correct way to apply the brakes is the same with or without ABS, you should always do it smoothly with increasing force as necessary. Doing this would allow ABS to function properly, and in the case of no-ABS, will allow you to feel and respond when locking may occur.

Even if your ABS were to fail, that does not absolve you of the responsibility of driving like a complete moron. It's an unfortunate reality that most of the people on the road in the US frankly should not be driving.

[kw71]

> ABS not working as intended could be a surprise to the driver

That's why there's a warning light for this

[thefiregecko]

In this case the only thing that is changing is a fault state and standard circuit components, not the code running on the device or the device being used. As long as the components are within spec the only problem could be environmental damage from the device being unsealed. I agree with some of the points you made, but not in the context of the previous post.