Autoblog headline - Automakers to gearheads: Stop repairing cars

I always wondered when they would start this push and I guess it has began. Automakers now say it is unsafe for us to modify our vehicles and want to use copyright law to stop us. I cannot imagine a time where I am not allowed to work on my own car. I have been working on cars since I was 12 when I got a summer job under the table that paid me $50 a day to remove parts for a body shop. I loved that job and it was what led me down the road to being a car nut. Maybe a loose one, but a nut all the same. Are we going to get to a place where you are unable to order parts unless you have some sort of factory certification? I doubt it. I just don't see how they can remove the shade tree mechanic. If they some how pull it off, I guess I will be ok as I prefer older cars without all the electrical gizmos anyway.

dude,hang around and read some of the lulus of people working on their cars here. classic ones.....they want to change their own oil because they do not trust the idiots at the dealership...they then ask....what is the difference between an oil pan and a drain pan or some one [eeeek] wants to work on their brakes....and then ask how to jack up their car. they in stalled 750.00 buck TI wheel bolts and now the car wobbles at 60 mph. quite a few here should be arrested for touching their car and endangering the motoring public.

SEMA will never allow it to happen. They are getting big like the NRA. So as long as guns are legal in the states, so will modifying cars imo.

Follow the money! Interesting though IIRC, performance chips and custom maps aren't covered by copyright - this is why they are almost always in chips or done as a reflash and not something someone can download. From that I can see why companies would want to keep their information a bit more private than it is now. Data can't be copyrighted, what is done with the data can. For example a copy of a graph can be copyrighted but the data points behind it can't. At least my understanding after reading through the laws, not a lawyer and I mainly focus on image stuff.

everyone's gotta start somewhere.

Other than my family, there is nothing I enjoy more than working on cars. I don't do it for a living but I am always looking for a reason to go to the garage. I wouldn't have bought a 14 year old 911 if I didn't enjoy wrenches. I am fully addicted now and want to buy a fixer 996 that I can strip and rebuild to a track car just for the experience. I think it would be fun for my boys and I as a 5 year project or something. Teach them how to wrench and once complete, they would be near the age to learn how to drive it. I just couldn't imagine not having that opportunity.

If only common sense could be mandated. Interesting timing on this thread as yesterday I went to a local cars and coffee with my 15 year old son, or 15 and 1/2 as he reminds me when it comes to talking about his wish for a Mazda 3 speed as his first car, has to be a hatch and has to be stick. (nudge, nudge, your old mans got no job but you are certainly allowed to have a goal) On the drive there we were amazed at the volume of cars obviously heading to the event; anything and everything. There was a long line of what my kid calls "tuners" (we called them something else but he is more politically correct). Just as he was pointing out how cars were lowered with oversized tires and the extreme camber and me starting a lecture about messing with factory engineering to the point of creating a hazard, we see a cloud of smoke about 1/2 mile up the road. I say I hope it's not an accident with the way the kids were driving and as we approach we see one of those tuners my son had pointed out, it was off the road missing a left front wheel. It was a good example to illustrate my point. Next up, kids driving crazy in traffic when one short stops for a light on the bridge and a three car hit takes place. Airbag deploys on a Honda Civic but only the drivers side door air bag, although it was a direct rear end hit. My kid asked why the side airbag and not the front, don't know I say, maybe they messed with more than wheels and suspension. I hope my son is learning.

I SAY NO MORE LAWS, GOVERNMENT STAY OUT OF MY LIFE.

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There, FIFY! Seriously though, it was only a matter of time before attempts like this started, but the same could be said of ANYTHING. Minor home remodeling, home appliance installation, plumbing repair, etc. I would consider this to be a load of crap that gets no traction. I hope I'm right!

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Copyright laws and common sense don't really go together... Especially (not in this case) when you're also dealing with images and privacy, a lot of that really isn't common sense either. I'll also go out on a limb and say that patent laws and common sense don't always go together either.

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LOL. It is not the government that is starting this, but the OEM and their main lobbying organizations that is pushing the government for this. I am almost certain that this law won't make it. But, you never know... the power of money is stronger!

This does make sense with the direction the cars are heading in. Cars are moving away from being purely mechanical objects to being autonomous, multi-computer controlled entities. Cars can now stop, turn, maintain speed, and pretty much drive on their own. They have more software packed in them then any of us can imagine. Servicing a car is no longer changing 5 types of fluid and taking-off a few bolts, it is more like dealing with a highly sensitive computer. Imagine Billy Bob "tinkering" with his new Chevy and accidentally disabling the "dynamic cruise control" sensor. Now Billy Bob drives on the freeway, sipping on coffee, relying on his DCC to do the braking and speed control; he slams into your car at 75MPH while you were at 30MPH. Jeremy Clarkson also brought up a great point when it comes to the car's AI making ethical decisions. What if the crash is imminent and you have two options: head-on collision with a big rig (certain death) or swerving and hitting two people on the side of the road but saving your life. Would you be OK with the car choosing to kill you instead of swerving away?

^ As much as Clarkson can be a goofy tool, the point was valid. Asimov's revised "0th" law: 0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. Now, I realize that automakers probably don't live by Asimov's laws of robotics, but the point is certainly interesting: If you design the AI software such that the car has to decide between the lesser of two potentially fatal scenarios, it is potentially responsible for ending one or more human lives. I don't see ANY automaker's attorney signing off on that any time soon...