[FPGAhacker]

I don’t disagree but this is about warranties. Apple etc make it difficult to just repair, because they glue stuff together and invent weird screws that need specialized tools. Just hard to repair.

This legal action is about Harley saying your warranty is void if you have repairs done through a third party.

I mean the law says whatever it says and that’s the end of it, but it sounds like crap to me.

If I sell you a widget and I guarantee it’ll work for 5 years as long as you have me repair it instead of bob the janitor, I have a hard time seeing the problem. Frankly I think if you have bob the janitor repair your widget it’s now on bob to provide a warranty.

But what I think doesn’t matter, whatever the law requires is.

[NonNefarious]

That's not the point at all. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty act arose out of scams perpetrated by car manufacturers, who tried to invalidate warranties unless you bought "Ford" oil or "Chevrolet" tires.

This goes beyond third-party repairs. The law says the company can't invalidate a warranty even if the user MODIFIED the product in question, unless the modification caused the issue for which the customer is seeking warranty service.

So the problem is this attempt to invalidate an entire warranty because of irrelevant actions the owner might have taken.

[rasz]

Is a concept of consumer rights really that alien to you?

>I guarantee it’ll work for 5 years as long as you have me repair it instead of bob the janitor

Its called a lease aka I dont own a thing, I just pay rent. https://www.gmfinancial.com/en-us/business-financing/busines...

[FPGAhacker]

I’m not saying you can’t have bob the janitor fix it. I’m just not going to guarantee bob the janitor didn’t screw the whole thing up. But knock yourself out, have bob fix whatever. It’s your widget.

[rasz]

Its on you to prove bob the janitor caused damage I want fixed under warranty.

[tbran]

Realistically, while it's "about warranties", it's also about making more money: "How can we deny more warranty claims and make more money?"

It also starts from the assumption that the "authorized" repairer can repair something better than an unauthorized repairer, which is silly.

Also see this comment for a practical take:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31856699