201 to 228 hp is just like an idiot tax. But of course it’s only a start. If customers accept it, they will put more and more behind a subscription.
Well, I was planning on buying the new electric van they have, but this article has changed my mind. Same reason I won’t buy a Tesla or any other company that hides features of a fully purchased car behind a paywall. Fuck that mess and I will never support it.
I don’t know why they made a minivan with only two cup holders.
My husband and I had looked at VW as one of their cars matched our criteria. When we went to look at it I was like "what do you mean this car only has 1 cup holder?!?!" Like that wasn't even on our list of needs to consider because... You know... I assumed every car had at least 2.
It's like having pants with only one pocket!
Yeah, honestly I will never own a German car again. They are way over engineered while also lacking the creature comforts i expect as an American. My 20 year old beetle has 2 cup holders, but they are underneath the radio and can't hold anything wider than a soda can, and only have about 8 inches of clearance.
Europoor here, we never used the cup holder for holding cups in my life time.
The only acceptable usage was throwing coins that you don’t know where to put, usually for paying the motorway tolls in France (but this has also disappeared in favor of cards).
But on the same cultural differences, I bet I’ve seen the cigarette lighter and ashtray being more used than you had (during the 80 and 90s when cars still had them).
On a long American commute, you gotta have a large coffee so sip on. In fact, anytime i am in a car longee than 30 minutes i feel like i NEED a coffee or a drink. It's a pavlovian response at this point.
LDV e seris ?
ID. Buzz
Ads when you're driving, features you've paid for locked behind a paywall and overpriced repairs.. the future is here.
Hope suburu doesn't end up doing this, just bought one.
Seems like this scheme might save you money in countries where insurance is extremely expensive? Since car's official power figure is the original one.
I'm legitimately impressed that you managed to come up with a scenario where the cause of this silliness wasn't 100% corporate greed. I'll see if I can give it a go too:
We have P (provisional driver) plate restrictions here that limit power to weight... Possibly it could be a car you can drive on your P license without the subscription, then turn it on when you get your full license to enjoy 10% more power?
... I dunno I'm struggling.
Oh it's pure corporate greed, I just enjoy playing devil's advocate
My wife's 2017 Volkswagen, with only 160,000 very gentle km on it (100,000 miles) suddenly had a warning light come on. It seems that the sensor on the turbo charger had gone bad, but the only way to fix it is to replace the entire turbocharger, close to $5,000.
From what we have read, Volkswagens of this age start to have large numbers of very expensive repairs. Lesson learned, she got rid of the Volkswagen and bought a hyundai.
That’s bullshit. That vintage of VW has like two sensors on the turbo. They’re easy to get to and cost like $100 tops.
And $5,000 to replace a turbo is nuts. A new turbo can be around $1,500 but it’s less than six or eight hours of labor for a good mechanic.
I’m an idiot code monkey and I replaced mine in my garage in a weekend.
+1 to this. $5k is BS, Especially if we're talking USD, but this also sounds like classic VW making a simple repair a massive job, replacing unnecessary parts, charging exorbitant prices and throwing away perfectly good components that end up in landfill, and best part is in the end it probably wasn't even what they diagnosed to actually be the cause of the problem, dealerships love to fix symptoms, not causes. A good independent Euro specialist would have loved that job.
The price was $4-5,000 in Canadian dollars, so probably a bit over USD $3,000. And this came from my local mechanic, who sourced it from Volkswagen but also called around to scrapyards to see about just buying a sensor.
It's not like he had anything to gain. He actually recommended that we sell the car, and he knew that he would be losing business because my wife's new car is electric and he doesn't service those.
I had the VW dealer quote me $6,000 for a new turbo when the actually problem is probably a clogged catalytic converter.
Also they told me I put in the wrong turbo but it’s literally the same part number and manufacturer as the one I pulled out.
I got news for you, I purchased a used Hyundai 2019 that has turbo, and the one thing wrong with it was the turbo. My father's a mechanic, so he said he would put it in, but I believe the cost for the part was around $500. Idk what a dealer would charge. He then told me that turbos, on average, only last about 100k anyway, so it's definitely a part that will most likely need replacing more than most sadly. Then, a month later, the entire car died, and the engine was bad... this was earlier this year, and my father again said he would do it, but a new engine takes time, which he doesn't have, so now I've been car less for 4 months, yay!
This new car had 93k on it. My last car (Nissan Sentra) lasted 19 years and 250k on it and only traded it in because we were nervous it could go at any time. Thanks for the great car, Hyundai!
I just had to pay upwards of $700 to boost my VW’s horsepower.
By buying a Cobb Accessport
Do they have something for Mercedes?
Are you dealing with diesel or petrol? Naturally aspirated petrol is pretty useless to tune, anything turbocharged has tuning potential, especially diesel where you can get ridiculous torque.
Electric. You can unlock higher speeds with a subscription for EQS.
Ah, I'm sure there's some way to do it, but not sure if it's been discovered yet.
I’m not sure. Everything I’ve found for Mercs replaced the ECU entirely
"You wouldn't download a car"
You wouldn't own a car you purchased
Give it a few weeks and some eastern European wizard will find a way to unlock it with ease and make it available to the masses
Personally i just drill holes in my ECU to install weatherproof connections to the BDM port so I can fiddle around with it myself in WinOLS. quite the learning curve though.
I own a 26 year old skoda 1.9 TDI 110 HP Without touching any hardware it can be remmaped to 140 hp, which is a setting used in an Audi A4 from that era. Replacing a couple of things, like injectors turbo and intercooler, it can go to 180-190, which was also offered for the same engine. I'm happy with the 110hp, the car drives fine, and the engine is relaxed, wich has helped its longevity
I’ve got a ten year old GTI and the amount of power you can get out of these engines with really simple, cheap mods is crazy.
Don't Manufacturers do this for years? My 2005 Ford was available with 60 and 70HP and those engines were basically identical
Buying a different model and paying a subscription to use the hardware you purchased are completely different things.
I get the problem with the subscription. But, as I said, back in the days there were also cars with basically the same hardware, but different amounts of power
We'll say it again: They had different amounts of power because it wasn't the same hardware.
Not always. Sometimes the more powerful car gets something like a bigger turbo, sometimes it's literally the exact same engine with the exact same peripherals, but one costs 2 grand more because more power.
Then explain chip tuning.
Chip tuning is a way to have slightly different performance from the factory settings, but they didn't sell different models where the only difference was chip tuning. Chip tuning is modifying the purchased car, like changing the rims or adding a different air intake.
This is completely different because they made it for 228 HP and down tuned it so they could charge a subscription to remotely apply the tuning the car was designed for. This is charging money to undo an electronic limiter they added pureky to gouge customers.
but they didn't sell different models where the only difference was chip tuning.
You sure?
I admit not looking into it in the last few years, but since chip tuning has been around since the early days of computer chips in cars, and I'm talking about cars released over several decades. This article presents it as something new, so I didn't take the time to double check recent history.
Do you have examples of paying more at the point of sale or as a subscription for only tuning that are more than a few years old?
Tesla doesn't really count since they fuck around with their software constantly.
Chip tuning is a real thing that simply remap the injection/ignition timing to deliver more power. This is done by ignoring emissions regulations, engine wear, and fuel consumption in favor of power.
It doesn't involve changing parts of the engine. But often the reverse is true where changing engine parts will need you to chip tune the car in order to make use of the new parts.
I agreed it is a real thing, just pointing out that is done post purchase just like physical modifications.
Nvm then I read your sentence and understood you meant chip tuning is like Tier1 tuning or something and I got confused. My bad
That is when someone changes the operating parameters of the engine.
From the factory the air/fuel mixture, turbo boost maximum, shift points, shift duration, and many others are configured to maximize longevity, fuel economy and comfort.
When someone changes those values, they are choosing to trade any one of the previous things for more power. Usually durability is the biggest trade off. You generate more heat, use more fuel and wear components out more rapidly.
Its like adjusting the pressure regulator on your house water main. Same hardware, but now you can dial up the water pressure to max. You will also probably start seeing more leaks at faucets, water heater and appliances that must now sustain that higher pressure.
Basically the same, but not exactly the same, and they didn't charge a subscription for the difference.
The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source
We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.
We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.