this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
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Car manufacturers screwed over consumers the last 10-15 years big time! Cars used to be the big thing many could fix a lot on by themselves and were proud to do so. Then they basically just said incrementally to the DIY'ers "it's all computers now, not your cup of tea", purposely made cars less and less self repairable and got away with it! It's infuriating.
Computers could make cars a lot more reliable and moddable. It's proprietary/locked-down software and hardware that's the problem.
Exactly, repairing your car was even a very common trope in Home Improvement, which kind of catched the average American household of that time pretty well, or so at least to TVs best abilities to generalize
Do you seriously think they computerized cars to make them less repairable? That's some tin foil hat stuff there.
They started computerizing cars to make them more efficient, reliable (ironically), safer, etc. The problem is that beyond OBDII there is no standard for diagnostics, and makers keep these proprietary.
They didn't have to keep it proprietary, and I think in many "computer problems" the certified dealers will just replace 1 circuitboard by a new one, but it's a part which private customers are not able to order and replace themselves
They didn't do it for that purpose, I am saying they used the opportunity of cars becoming more digital to make them less repairable outside of "certified dealers"