Sure, but the reasons programming requires proprietary software accessible only to the dealer via some kind of online access are depressing: laziness, greed, and crime.

Making software that's usable by independent shops and consumers costs money, eliminates business lock-in to dealers, and boosts the gray/black market for broken or stolen parts, so the only reason manufacturers do it at all is when they are required to by regulation.

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tmerc an hour ago | parent [-]

Calling bs.

It takes more effort to implement proprietary protocols and codes in addition to the globally mandated obd2 protocol. You can extend obd2 with additional codes that could be read by a simple device. It costs money to run servers that check your license to read those proprietary codes. It's not laziness.

The black market on stolen parts isn't affected by this. Catalytic converter are stolen and resold all the time and swapping one doesn't require anything more complex than a socket set and a new gasket (assuming the thief didn't use a cutting tool, but then you just weld). Cats also get sold for scrap, so not sure what the software lock is gonna do for that.

Hellcat engines get swapped all the time. ECUs get flashed by the black market regardless of the software locks.

But what we see this proprietary software get used for is blocking the ability to swap brake pads and block heated seats.

So it's not crime, but I'll agree on greed.

	▲	bri3d an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Did you miss the > Making software that's usable by independent shops and consumers costs money sentence before “calling BS”? > The black market on stolen parts isn't affected by this. Cars have more parts than a catalyst, and the used parts market is absolutely, 100% affected by software adaptation locks. You can watch the price of used engine control modules, instrument clusters, and infotainment modules rise as soon as aftermarket tools come out which bypass protections, and the tools to do so are worth a significant sum of money. > Hellcat engines get swapped all the time Yes, all protections are eventually bypassed, especially weak Stellantis ones, but that doesn’t mean that the goal wasn’t anti-theft, just that the goals were badly achieved. Anyway, I think we broadly agree that vehicle diagnostics should be more open, but discounting crime and “security” as objectives doesn’t work, because they’re the main arguments used against regulatory efforts to improve the situation. EDIT: I read again and I suppose you are arguing that diagnostic tools don’t or shouldn’t cost manufacturers money to make; I simply can’t agree with this argument, any software has a support and maintenance cost which scales with the type and number of users.