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Comment by dsfyu404ed | Hacker News Reader

>It seems Tesla is deliberately ignoring or trying to squash the aftermarket/custom-car culture which has basically existed since cars existed...

Plenty of people are willing to aid them. Go on Reddit and you'll find that it's impossible to have an adult discussion of repairs or modifications more involved than parts swapping without being drowned out by people screaming "hurr durr, muh public safety" or just down-voted into oblivion. You'll find no shortage of people willing to tell you that industry standard modifications (like lengthening truck frames), repairs (like welding cracks in steel wheels) or anything that modifies how a vehicle handles compared to stock configuration (like a lift kit on a Jeep) are fundamentally a danger to the public.

Edit: I dunno why I was optimistic that HN would be any better.

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Why be optimistic, in this thread a poster insults blue collar workers. The poster is classist, elitist, and ignorant. Its not surprising to see appeals to authority, it is surprising to see the post not downvoted and the poster called out for what he is, an asshole.

When the "right to repair" comes up, for cars or farm machinery, or the Magnuson-Moss act, or the costs of code scanners for most vehicles, the manufacturers are universally hated.

But this is Tesla and Tesla doesn't have the same rules.

For any other kind of machine that can kill people, you are solely responsible for any accidents that could have been caused by your modification. I don't think that it's so unreasonable to want to apply this to cars too.

Being responsible if you screw something up is how the world normally works. Just because something can be unsafe if done wrong doesn't mean the thing you are doing is fundamentally unsafe when done properly. Many people don't seem to understand this.

But that's exactly the reason why there is a lot of regulation of potentially hazardous activity. The likelihood of "when done wrong" is implied to be higher for backyard mechanics than for licensed mechanics in a garage.

Like most things in life there's a wide range of skill even in licensed mechanics. Add to that the current trend of paying auto techs by the job instead of hourly in many dealerships and you have licensed techs rushing through jobs or low-dollar jobs done by apprentices.

That's how you get wheels falling off from not being torqued, bearing failing prematurely, brakes improperly adjusted or pads popping out, and the list goes on.

Unless you have a tech you know and trust (preferably an independent garage) do not rely on the fact they are licensed to guarantee safety. I could spend the next hour listing off instances of shoddy or incomplete work by licensed folks.

> But that's exactly the reason why there is a lot of regulation of potentially hazardous activity.

Almost all of this as applied to hobbyists is corruption.

The amount of danger you can put yourself or others in without any involvement of automobiles is immense.

If you build an electrical device improperly it may catch fire and burn down your house and your neighbor's house and spread from there.

If you mix the wrong chemicals together you can cause an explosion, or produce poison gas, or create a large volume of something difficult to safely dispose of. These chemicals include things like propane and household cleaners that are available to anyone.

If you maintain unsanitary conditions where you live you can contract diseases that are communicable to others.

What prevents this from being more common is by and large not regulations and inspections of private citizens. It's the fact that people don't want uncontrolled fires or poison gas or staphylococcus and are generally cautious when doing things that are potentially dangerous.

And people don't want to destroy their $30,000 car or kill anyone either.

Common sense you say? We can't have that ruining our government-corporate oligopolies!

Maybe, maybe not. There's plenty of horror stories about mechanics. There are some things on my car I wouldn't trust other people to do, even if they were licensed, certified, trained, etc. I just want to be able to be picky about each little thing, and know it's done right.

I honestly have found the opposite. There have been times when I've taken my truck to a "licensed mechanic" and they failed to even torque my wheels to spec.

That doesn't preclude people from responsibly modifying cars or building their own planes or whatever.

> That doesn't preclude people from responsibly modifying cars or building their own planes or whatever.

That's the point.

I don't know about other things, but using a lift kit is more dangerous to pedestrians that might be hit. This stems from pedestrians being hit closer to the center of their body as opposed to their legs.

The people who raise up their cars also seem to never make the corresponding adjustments to the headlights, and end up blinding other drivers.

Times have changed. Nowadays, when you talk to a random person about car repair, you're probably talking to someone who has never so much as changed their own oil or brake pads! They see auto repair as arcane wizardry that only government-licensed professionals can do safely.

I trust myself (or the average DIY enthusiast who elects to perform the task) to correctly change their oil or brakes than I do a randomly selected ASE-certified technician. I know me, my wife, and my kids are going to be riding in that car and it's not coming off the jack until it's right.

The real scary part is when you only sometimes work on your car. You get to see all the mistakes the "pros" made. Missing bolts, over/under torqued lugs, and my current pain: replacing the battery 3 times when there's clearly a parasitic load that needs diagnosis.

That's nothing. I once had a "pro" put my (clearly-marked asymmetric) tires on backward. That was a hella wobbly ride away from the shop. Another "pro" once inflated my tires to 80 PSI.

Tires are always done by the most junior guy in the shop. I always double check those.

When you modify a truck lifting it, it's bumpers no longer "mate" to car bumpers and may not trigger an airbag system or worse, intrude into the cabin of a sedan. It's selfish and ridiculous.

Light truck bumpers do not 'mate' to car bumpers at stock ride height. No lifting required.

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