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by outworlder 1213 days ago
> Recalling the hardware is a drastically more difficult request to impose on customers and financially/logistically for the car maker.

And the distinction matters to consumers because...?

A component is faulty. It needs to be fixed. Whether or not you have to drive to a dealership, if it's OTA, if someone at a dealership needs to plug a specialized device to your car's OBD port, or the car is unfixable and needs to be melted to slag and you get a new one doesn't really matter. There's an issue, it is a safety issue, and it needs to be fixed.

How efficient the process can be it's another matter entirely. That's up to the manufacturers.
4 comments
chc 1213 days ago
> Whether or not you have to drive to a dealership, if it's OTA, if someone at a dealership needs to plug a specialized device to your car's OBD port, or the car is unfixable and needs to be melted to slag and you get a new one doesn't really matter.

As a car owner, those scenarios are drastically different to me. I have a hard time imagining anyone saying "It doesn't really matter to me if my car receives an OTA update or if I need to drive 2 hours to a dealership or if my car is melted to slag."

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hex4def6 1213 days ago
If you had to send in your cellphone each time there was an android update vs all IOS updates being OTA, I think you would see the distinction as a consumer.
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kalleboo 1213 days ago
> And the distinction matters to consumers because...?

Because in one I have to book a time with a dealer and take half a day off of work and in the other I have to do... nothing and it will just fix itself.

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shkkmo 1213 days ago
I would say that whether a "recall" requires some action on the part of the owner is a very important distinguishing factor.

A recall should unambiguously mean that some action from the owner is required to resolve the issue (e.g. taking it to a dealer to get a software update installed.)

If no action is required (other than caution / not using the product feature), we should use some other term such as "safety advisory" to avoid ambiguity around critical safety information.

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jjav 1213 days ago
> A recall should unambiguously mean that some action from the owner is required to resolve the issue (e.g. taking it to a dealer to get a software update installed.)

Should, perhaps. But recall has a meaning with legal implications, so it matters. A recall requires the fix status to be tracked and reported for example, whereas a random OTA updated does not.

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