Posted on 03/31/2022 4:30:21 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
The owner of the vehicle had decided not to purchase Audi's tri-zone climate control, yet still received a "Sync" button in their brand new battery-powered SUV. And yes, pressing it did do something—but not what they expected.
"Blank buttons aren’t rude," wrote the owner. "This one is reminding me that I’m cheap."
(Excerpt) Read more at thedrive.com ...
This is the future. Optional equipment on cars will be built-in and can be accessed via a subscription service.
Fiction is standard on US cars.
That’s the way it is with much industrial equipment. There are options one can pay for, or not. If one wishes to add the feature(s) later, usually there is an activation code that one can buy from the supplier to “unlock” the feature. If they go “blank button,” then it’s harder to add that feature back in.
I want my '69 AMX back.
Correction: 4 speed MANUAL transmission ...
Power Steering by Armstrong
Several car makers, including Ford and Chrysler, have had similarly paywalled features. It’s not uncommon to have to pay to unlock navigation. I never unlocked mine, despite having an 8.4” display. Unlocking was $500, and it came with 3 year old maps. So you have to pay more every time you update. Then there’s stuff like remote lock/unlock and start from your phone, apps on the radio, etc that require a $15/month subscription.
You want the features pay for them, but don’t whine.
An added feature is having air or heat in a car?
The greed is reaching insane levels.
Just imagine if you bought a used super awesome Tesla and a month later stuff stopped working, so you called them up and they said
“we did an audit and you should not have superboost or self driving mode” so we have removed those features from your car.
You are welcome.
Jailbreaking cars will be mainstream pretty quick.
We can thank Tesla for starting this bs.
“brand new battery-powered SUV”
I think I found the problem
I am running into this sort of crap with solar inverters. Watch out for SMA, aka Sunny Boy.
If you try to adjust settings yourself, the almighty software will lock you out and leave you losing $$$ day after day. As company will not post solution and noone encountering this in forums, has found a solution.
If you write the code you will own the user.
Ya want windshield wipers? Please enter your credit card number!
No wonder I can get more for my 10y/o car than I paid for it (for real)
“You want the features pay for them,”
They did pay for some of it though. The hardware is already in place to perform the function. Just need the software key.
E.g., say you buy a car without power seats, this would usually mean there is no electrical motor installed that actually moves the seat. Your car is a bit cheaper, because you didn’t have to pay for that extra motor to be installed.
In this case, however, it’s like you bought that motor and it’s installed (unless car companies are handing out free parts now), but you have to pay even more to actually use it.
No kidding...Looking at this insane greed, I’ll be keeping my old ICE vehicles forever.
“Crap like this makes me yearn for the days of non-power assisted steering, non-power assisted brakes,”
ROTFLMAO!
Software companies started his crap. Yearly subscription costs for virus software and then on to regular applications software like Office 365.
I would never buy a car where you had to rent the heating and AC already built into it. I’ll bet you almost anything that if you did ‘rent’ it and the AC compressor went out they sure as hell wouldn’t cover it in warranty after the initial time/miles warranty ran out.
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