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Comment by lordleft | Hacker News Reader

I was (and still am) considering buying a Kia Forte, but only a 2023+ model with an immobilizer. There are rumors that Kia is planning to install immobilizers for free on impacted cars, but it's shocking that it's taken this long. I can't imagine how much reputational damage they'll sustain because of this.

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> I can't imagine how much reputational damage they'll sustain because of this.

I bet not much, if any. There are many more significant scandals in recent automotive history that everyone has already forgotten about. Not many people are running down to their Kia lot based on their impeccable reputation, they're going there because they sell contemporarily styled cars with a decent feature set, accessible financing, and they're priced a few hundred bucks less than everyone else.

And there's people like me who own one of said models and hearing about it for the first time.

From my perspective it seems that everybody in the market for a car or small SUV has a deposit on a Hyundai or Kia EV.

Even if you have the immobilizer on your new car, if a potential thief thinks your car is one of the stealable ones, you may still end up with a broken window.

I have a 2022 Hyundai Tucson hybrid (which I love!) and your comment makes me wonder about another commenter's suggestion to get The Club. My car _has_ the immobilizer, but maybe adding a visual deterrent is a good idea.

And a destroyed steering column. They wouldn't know it has an immobilizer until the lock cylinder was torn out, and it still didn't start.

So these insurance bans are likely going to remain and the resale value on affected models won't recover.

Eh, a steering column and a busted window might be a couple thousand dollar loss, but it a fraction of the loss the insurance company would otherwise have.

Not even. Used columns are ~$150-300. New or used windows are less. There's a huge supply because these are popular cars. You're talking like a grand all in.

I am giving the above commenter the benefit of the doubt with my high estimate. There is also labor, administrative costs, and other consequential costs (e.g. rental car).

Nothing's preventing the company from saying "we only insure cars with bullet-proof windows" next - this is a more scary implication to me I think.

Why is that scary? Some insurers refuse to insure all vehicles in entire states. Some insurers refuse to insure expensive brands. Some won't insure you if you drive your car to work. Some don't insure cars.

Because I'm legally obligated to have insurance, so a car that is street-legal should be insurable. The premium may need to reflect that higher risk (and of course here is how insurers can play the game of "let's set premium to $2k a month" to make cars de facto uninsurable), but I should not be sent away.

There are whole ton of reasons why vehicles and/or drivers are dropped or refused insurance every day, some of which are way more widespread than this particular story. Undoubtedly it’s part of the reason why millions of Americans drive illegally without insurance.

However, if you’re risky enough that no insurance company will touch you, but you are able to financially mitigate your risk to other drivers, many states will allow you to fulfill your legal insurance requirements by self-insuring. So it’s technically not correct (in many states) to say that you have to buy insurance. You usually just have to be able to prove you can afford the risk of a (minor to moderate) accident. For example, in California, you can deposit $35k at the DMV and drive with no insurance.

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