BMW Patents Proprietary Screws That Only Dealerships Can Remove | Hacker News Reader

BMW Patents Proprietary Screws That Only Dealerships Can Remove

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90 pointsthunderbong122 comments

That already is old news, lots of manufacturers do that.

For example, the Passat 3B and later platforms introduced proprietary screws for the wheels and brakes, so you weren't able to change them yourself.

Same for all kinds of sensors that will go rogue when the car is turned off and you change a sensor on the engine. All firmware gradually was modified each generation to allow less modifications and less self repairs, and less repairs by third party workshops.

Also, the Golf 2 platform for example had a very sturdy engine running beyond 1 Mio km easily. What do you think happened with the Golf 3 engine design? They made the camshaft structurally weaker, so the engine will blow up more easily. The rest of the engine is almost identical. Talk about being bad at hiding planned obsolescence.

There's many more examples like this, acrosd every manufacturer. The real reason why there is so many people on race tracks driving old cars is because they're easier to modify, easier to maintain, and easier to buy replacement parts for.

It's ridiculous if you think about it, and really frustrating that there is no legislative intervention against this.

Guess eventually people will buy the cheapest cars and treat it as a consumer product that breaks down every few years, like a laptop. Or simply find a remote job and rent a car.

Welcome to the Dystopian world.

> Guess eventually people will buy the cheapest car

It looks like lots of people choose to lease very expensive cars, and give them back after 3 years for a new one, dropping a obsolescence time-bomb onto the second-hand market and providing a strong signal to manufacturers that there is a substantial maintainability-insensitive market segment.

I am still surprised that no manufacturer has a balls-out "buy our cars, they will NEVER DIE, anyone can service them, and your kids will still be driving them" model, as they might have lower returns from not gouging over subscriptions, planned obsolescence and parts and software lock-in shenanigans, but they'd instantly capture a market segment.

I also advised some Chinese manufacturers to produce cheap, dummy home appliances and then sell to the Western market with a bit of mark-up, as more people are fed up with the smart ones. Not sure anyone is going to try though. Looks like everyone is in the data business.

China already competes in that market in the USA with Haier.

Electronics are cheaper than high quality electromechanical stuff, and allow you to give any product a veneer of sophistication and modernity that the modern consumer still perceives as being a sign of higher quality.

Our love of blinken-lights will be our downfall.

And you can make very shiny out-of-the-box finishes even in quite shitty materials that will decay quite quickly: soft plastics going gooey, white plastics yellowing, all plastics becoming brittle, poor anti-rust coatings, soft paintwork, etc, etc.

You should see motability

It’s largely a market signal, it seems. I was listening to a podcast with an ex-GM engineer and he said basically the business end is entirely driven by financing vehicles. Very little profit is derived from selling a car itself, nearly all the profit comes from the finance end of the business either on leases or car loans. Americans overall drive cars for a very short period of time before upgrading.

That, coupled with massive consumer preference for “zero maintenance” vehicles like supposedly not having to change transmission fluid for 100k miles. The manufacturers know that such a schedule will guarantee (more) damage, but it’s considered a marketing expense to handle early failures under warranty but sell the idea your car just needs an oil change every 10k miles and nothing else. After that first owner and warranty period the parts are simply considered a consumable.

If you plan on keeping your car for more than 3-5 years, toss the maintenance schedule handbook in the trash and figure out what an actual reasonable schedule is. It’s probably at minimum double the recommendations are.

Just curious how does one figure out the real maintenance schedule? I own a Tucson 2020 and plan to buy a Honda or Toyota in a couple of years.

Vibes? I jest a little bit.

For my car it’s been message boards with enthusiasts and mechanics who work on my vehicle. Luckily (or not…) mine is a somewhat niche performance car so people tend to nerd out over them.

A lot of it though is ignoring the vendor recommendations for outsourced parts like transmissions - go direct to manufacture and see what they say. This does seem to involve having an “insider” with manuals intended for service techs.

I also imagine fleet vehicle schedules might be informative as well.

Unfortunately I don’t have a very clean direct answer on it - it was a lot of feeling around and when in doubt erring on the side of over maintaining vs under.

Some is simply basic common sense though. We have not developed lubricants that can last over a decade and 120,000 miles in temperature ranges from below zero to hundreds of degrees.

70's American cars were not very far from this. The competition from Japanese manufacturers really helped to improve this.

And ironically, the reason why Japan invested so heavily in high quality was to overcome their former image of low quality products that severely hampered their ability to sell to international markets.

I am not a libertarian that holds a religious belief on the infallibility of the market, but a lot of times, the market gave us better outcomes than any regulation.

I believe its more about optimization for price and minimum amount of km you need to design something for.

And in regards of screws: If you have too many laypeople doing stupid shit for critical components, you might also think 'lets fix that by adding a barrier'.

Why would that be your problem? Make it a warranty violation, and they can either get it fixed themselves, or pay you money you wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Because people lie and still give you 1 star rating perhaps.

The same people, the ones prone to tinkering with their cars, might give you a one star rating for putting the car together with proprietary screws.

Don't get me wrong, i do not like it either but I do think often enough they do this for this kind of reasons and not to be dicks on purpose.

> [...] so you weren't able to change them yourself.

This should be illegal. You're supposed to do what, stay on the roadside for 20h before an authorized repairman can reach you? What if the weather is harsh, and you run out of basic supplies like food or your medicine?

Towing exists.

> The real reason ... driving old cars is because they're easier to modify, easier to maintain, and easier to buy replacement parts for.

the real reason is that if a manufacturer makes their car same as those repairable, easily maintainable old cars, they will soon lose customers (as they stop needing to buy new ones!).

Planned obsolescence out-competes in a market economy that does not have regulation against it, esp. in a saturated market (like the US). The gov't could legislate, but then businesses cry foul - not mention that these manufacturers hang the sword of damocles over the gov't in the form of job losses (but of course, out-sourcing is OK...)

I think you’re seeing malice where none exists, particularly in those VW examples. VWs have always required a lot of special tools to work on, but usually for good engineering reasons making things smaller, lighter, simpler, and easier to manufacture. They will happily sell the tools to the public, and for most VW models, a few hundred dollars worth of special tools is all you need for any DIY repair- I personally have accumulated pretty much every VW special tool for every model and year, and find the special tools tends to make them easier to work on for a home mechanic- less stripped bolts, etc. than other cars. A 12 point star on a brake caliper is really not a rare tool, and it is so much quicker and easier than trying to fit a huge socket in that awkward space.

If VW had been trying to make the mk3 engines bad for planned obsolescence, then why did the mk4 engines like the ALH TDI and the 1.8T earn reputations as some of the best engines made? VW had quality issues in the 90s that they later attacked and fixed, but it was just sloppy leadership and engineering, not a plan.

What engine exactly are you seeing broken cams on? My guess would be this is not VWs fault but a mechanic failing to keep track of the ordering and orientation of the cam bearing caps and swapping them around- they’re line bored and any modern engine will break the cam if you do this. I’ve seen it on a mk2 GTI.

I am not sure if you wanna go into discussing Diesel engines now, especially with all the engine software problems when it comes to AdBlue, and when it comes to Dieselgate, which, by decision of all involved courts, was malice.

While I agree that some models improved when it comes to performance (especially in the 1.8 - 2.0 Turbo range as that's the sweet spot when it comes to cc) and technical failures, I would still say that all newer models have more problems with software. So much that it's really not even necessary to create these problems even in regards to regulatory requirements or safety compliance.

Just thinking about the messy code that I've seen to pass ASIL-D requirements makes my skin boil.

> I am not sure if you wanna go into discussing Diesel engines now, especially with all the engine software problems when it comes to AdBlue, and when it comes to Dieselgate, which, by decision of all involved courts, was malice.

I mentioned the ALH TDI from the MKIV Golf/Jetta only, which is a legendary engine, with a ton of them having now reliably reached half a million miles with no major work required. This long predates the dieselgate cars, and adblue was never used on the 4 cylinder VW diesels anyways.

As an aside, yes dieselgate was intentionally criminal, but was sort of the opposite of a quality issue. VW couldn't figure out how to get their engines to work reliability and drive well with current technology at the time and still meet emissions requirements, so they cheated. They had to fix them (I own one) and they are still good, but not as good as they were before the fix- worse fuel economy, less reliable, excessive adblue consumption (in 6cyl models). The ethical thing to do would have been to pull all of the diesels from the market instead, which is what many of their competitors did at the time. Passenger car diesels in the USA are effectively dead because the emissions requirements render them less practical than gasoline cars.

VW had serious quality issues in the 90s that weren't strategic, but were actually causing their company to lose its reputation and nearly collapse. They turned it completely around when Ferdinand Piëch started running things- they were arguably making the highest quality cars at in the world any price point during his tenure as CEO. The quality of current VWs has now fallen back down again, even lower than the 90s cars unfortunately.

I bought a 2013 Passat TDI, one of the dieselgate models, after they completed the recall repairs. I thought I was getting a great deal at the time. Unfortunately, the “fix” seemed to cause some other issues, at least in my case. I religiously used Liqui Moly certified low-ash oil, and kept up with the maintenance schedules. Even still, the turbo wore out at around 100k miles and had to be replaced, and then the new one was exhibiting the same symptoms only ~20k miles later, and would likely have eventually given up as well if the car hadn’t been totaled before it got to that point. Cold weather would cause it to run like dogshit until everything got up to operating temps, and then it would usually run fine the rest of the day. The fuel economy was also never quite as good as I expected, it always struggled to get better than 35mpg.

My mechanic told me that engine was really poorly suited to city driving, which was a lot of my activity, and short trips caused an inordinate amount of carbon buildup, which he cited as the cause of my cold weather performance issues. Anyway, I think it’s probably a great car for folks with a lengthier commute. I learned my habits and routines were likely murder to a TDI engine, but especially those dieselgate models.

Yeah, they do survive better with more long distance driving, but ultimately the newer common rail diesels are complex, fragile, and inefficient compared to the old TDIs. They succeeded in getting the emissions much cleaner, especially after the court mandated retrofit, but at the expense of everything else that made them economical and practical. I could get 60mpg in my 2000 TDI golf with a 6 speed manual.

>What do you think happened with the Golf 3 engine design? They made the camshaft structurally weaker, so the engine will blow up more easily.

Wow, talk about an oversimplification. The Mk3 moved from an 8-valve to a 16-valve engine; yes, this adds more valvetrain failure modes but also brings myriad other benefits, increased power, better fuel economy, reduced emissions…

The idea that a carmaker would purposely engineer flaws into core engine components in order to drive future sales doesn’t make much sense.

> The idea that a carmaker would purposely engineer flaws into core engine components in order to drive future sales doesn’t make much sense.

There is a legend that Mercedes 190D was built like a tank and this caused customers to not buy the next iteration. Mercedes solved this, making cars a bit unreliable.

>The idea that a carmaker would purposely engineer flaws into core engine components in order to drive future sales doesn’t make much sense.

You need to realize modern business revolves not around one-and-done, but around recurring revenue streams. To the "business minded" the only thing that doesn't make sense is leaving money on the table.

Selling people grenading engines is not a great way to build recurring revenue streams. And building performant, efficient, and reliable engines is hard enough without intentional sabotage

Nevertheless, as long as everyone else optimizes to the same metrics (minimized Bill of Materials, and building for assembly, not service), it may not be great, but it undeniably works.

Wanna start a car company?

> really frustrating that there is no legislative intervention against this.

Ironically, things are like that in a big part because of legislative and regulatory intervention.

> They made the camshaft structurally weaker, so the engine will blow up more easily. The rest of the engine is almost identical. Talk about being bad at hiding planned obsolescence.

A lot of such things are just workarounds to reduce weight and meet tightening emission standards.

Every thing that can be built with less metal, thinner walls, lighter metals will be built like that when every gram matters.

Tighter tolerances, increased pressures, increased temperatures, higher rotational speeds. All of this leads to increased efficiency, but sometimes (not always) the trade-off will be decreased reliability.

Any workshop can command WV screwdrivers, at least in the EU. I think the new regulation is that if you don't have the piece, or the tools necessary to replace the piece, you have to produce the plans on how to do it.

I know someone who had an issue with his old WV Kombi, and thought it would be the last drive (Around 2020-2021). He found an auto shop who could manufacture pieces and replaced every single malfunctioning pieces from plans they got directly from WV.

What are the best cars to buy these days for self-service and tinkering?

Vehicles no newer than 2010 would be the general rule of thumb.

Wait, wait - aren’t you the cookie engineer Who did the site about cloud flare and did the auditing of the malware sites hosted by cloudflare?

OK, now I remember - it was this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38496499

... which I was very intrigued by and I tried to contact you via your web based email submission on cookie.engineer but it broke/failed.

Would you please elaborate[1]:

- who was the person who ran crimeflare, etc.

- Where can I learn about the lawsuit(s) that made them suspend this reporting/indexing ?

I am (potentially) interested in resurrecting these efforts but would like to have a better understanding of them first.

[1] email info@rsync.net if you don't want to respond publicly.

Watch makers have moved to this model over the last few years as well. The Swatch group has restricted access to movements and parts by acquiring major movement manufacturers, forcing the industry to use duplicate parts, some produced in violation of patents (dep on region). The patents attempt to protect proprietary approaches adding complexity through unique pieces, which rarely add functionality or new value.

BTW, none of this is surprising from BMW. They were the first to try a subscription model for in-car features like Carplay... Or seat heaters. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30139034/bmw-apple-carpla... and https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/bmw-relents-on-heated-seat-...

"Wait, Boeing made life-saving features an expensive option, and almost got away with it??? Get marketing on the phone! We need to double down on our evil."

I have one Swatch automatic which can not be opened or serviced or repaired.

Sistem 51.

Once you're out of warranty you're done.

Meanwhile my dad's 40 year old Swiss automatic has been serviced just 2 times, and the last time was 10 years ago when the integrated bracelet broke.

You probably should be getting the automatic serviced every 10 years. That basically involves cleaning it, replacing the mainspring, and applying new lubricant. If it's a dive watch, they would also replace the gaskets which dry out.

The last time I persuaded him to give it for service he complained that the service cost was 3x what he had paid for the watch in the first place. For months.

He had fashioned a strap for the watch using a piece of rubber when the bracelet broke and was perfectly happy with that unsightly arrangement.

Well, that at least establishes how much he values the watch.

Luckily for him, the market for watches is big and when he finally needs something new he has a lot to choose from. The watches on the low end are better than ever and the watches on the high end are excellent but crazy expensive.

Having just bought a Mini Cooper, I'm in the initial free-services period of the ownership and honestly, if it's the $10 a month I suspect, I'm okay with it. Primarily for the navigation...it really is superior to the Carplay experience (a square in the middle of the round screen, vs a map that takes up nearly the entirety of the screen...IIRC, traffic, Weather, remote start, and voice control come along for the ride.

I won't pay for 5g (phone does that) or Serius XM (for all the channels, I'm really not jazzed about the offerings)...but $10 for the above features seems reasonable.

No, it bloody well isn't, and I kindly request you stop with that nonsense. Remote start is a glorified CAN message paired with either a TOTP or HOTP message. That's it. There should be zero room for a manufacturer to justify inserting themselves in the middle except greed. Goddamn tired of solving problems only to see companies keeping the problem around for the sake of market segmentation.

Bundling. You get 5 things, one of which makes the other ones worthwhile. Yeah, I get it...

By the same token, all ranges of Mini Cooper now have the B48 turbo 4...the top of the list had a bigger turbo and improved intake...the bottom two I suspect are identical with differing software.

I will happily take advantage of that when the car's out of warranty. (I have the base motor)

> it really is superior to the Carplay experience (a square in the middle of the round screen, vs a map that takes up nearly the entirety of the screen

I haven't used CarPlay since I'm an Android user, but this reeks to me of a manufacturer developing a problem so they could seek rent for the solution.

If there were no financial incentive otherwise, they certainly would have ensured the CarPlay experience was as nice as their own solution as a selling perk.

At the time the code was/is written, I'm betting carplay offered up a square viewport. Apple's since wanted to offer up multi-display solutions to be the AV/GUI for cars...I think Aston Martin took them up on that...but a number of other manufactures are backing off on that (GM) I suspect because they want to distance themselves from a look and feel you could get in other cars.

I'm not a fan of subscriptions, but in this case, the $10 seemed like good value for features. the map is better, and it's much better integrated into the HUD.

It felt like you were getting more, unlike having buttons that don't work unless you pay...weird psycholgical difference between a subscription and being held hostage.

I have a 2016 VW Beetle (which is a pleasure to drive, the 150PS diesel), but it has buttons on the steering wheel that do absolutely nothing without me paying £200 for the privilege of VW unlocking them.

Want to press that phone button to make a call? Sorry please visit your VW dealership.

Want to have CarPlay or Android Auto? Sorry please visit your VW dealership.

Want to speak to your car to make a call? Sorry please visit your VW dealership.

I also have a 1972 VW Beetle which doesn't require any intervention from anyone else on Earth to use. Guess which is the classic between these 2 models?

Only dealerships and anyone with a few bucks to spend on Aliexpress once someone bothers making a removal tool.

Or flathead screwdriver

And a dremel with a cutter wheel. Your answer is silly without that.

Please don’t act like this

Yes, that's why I love AliExpress. It evens the playing fieldin such cases, to some degree.

If in Europe, they're going to "fix" that with a €3 flat fee per item to cover "import duty" under €150 in July (on top of VAT which is already charged since 2021).

Which a huge scam, because there's no way that an average €10 Euro widget has a 30% tariff on it, and I'm pretty sure that very many things things are 0%.

3 euro is actually reasonable just to even out the delivery costs - it is usually cheaper to post something from China than it is intra-EU, because of the international postal union rules.

As you're doing the importing not them, that also gets them around ton of legal compliance costs as well.

The solution is simple: just stop buying BMW.

It's like they don't understand that making life difficult for owners isn't good for business long term. People put up with it for Apple, but BMW isn't Apple. I wouldn't go without an iPhone but swapping a BMW for an Audi or Tesla is no problem.

>People put up with it for Apple, but BMW isn't Apple.

Actually, for making devices I wanted to own and operate, BMW actually has been Apple, and Apple has never been an Apple up with which I will put. But when I test drove new BMWs 3 or 4 years ago, they weren't Apples any more. So I bought a Porsche Apple.

this feature I like in a car is being able to feel the road and the inertia of the car through handling the steering wheel. Too much power-steering or suspension isolation (or something) and it feels like you're driving a marshmallow. Apple computers have similar qualities on many dimensions actually. "hey look, you can cook a marshmallow on a stick and you can even eat it off the stick, let's make the UX be one stick!" "just one stick?" "yes, just ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶t̶o̶n̶ ̶m̶o̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶n̶u̶ ̶b̶a̶r̶ one stick!"... "hey look, Steve Narcisstick, you can even poke the mouse the one stick!" "no, I spell my name Narcissdick")

I agree, after 6 BMWs I'm now looking at other options.

The new models don't work well for me. And things like the original adaptive suspension that the 6 and 7 series had (e.g. active antirollbars, true variable steering ratio and rear wheel steering) have been downgraded in newer models.

Their EVs also aren't that good. They're trying to catch up instead of leading innovation, while still at a high price point.

I can't imagine this move would scare away potential BMW owners. The people buying these cars are rich and never service it at a third party. Also, the reputation of BMWs is well known: hard to work on, expensive, and lose value very fast.

Until the next inspection/change of oil/air filter and see the exaggerated price for doing those operations.

Voting with your money doesn't work in a world where all wealth is concentrated in oligopolies.

Still helps

The rapidly declining German car industry begs to differ

Oligarchs can buy only so many BMWs.

It does work but so does advertising which is why the mass which is actually relevant here, will not react. They don't care about the screws. They don't even care about the extra cost for specials. They'll go out there and advertise the fact that they can afford a BMW with ALL features and so it spreads on...

We're also not even talking only about the private customer. It's business cars who are even more relevant.

Give it a week, there will be a tool out of China that works just fine, the right to repair by brute force!

Not the first product to do this. Jura coffee machines also have their own oval-ish fasteners.

In fact, it's really quite amazing that car manufacturers, generational artisans of the vendor lock-in have not been doing this at a far greater scale. Think of all those generic screws they could be charging $50 each for. No one buys or doesn't buy cars based on the screw heads. If they did they'd also reject cars that require thousands in probes and an annual subscription to use them, and they don't.

It's not even that they don't have their own screws made by tier 1/2s, as if you look in a car, many seemingly-ordinary screws do in fact have the brand and part number stamped in the heads - presumably for stock and quality control purposes during manufacture.

People are indeed slowly checking out of buying new cars.

Problem is if we bury our heads and drive old cars, when they give out and it’s time to buy a new car, all the news cars will have so much of this crap in them they will be unusable and you will be stuck with a lemon.

It's also basically impossible to have any EV that isn't an iPad on wheels.

I'm not even opposed to the mod-cons, it's just the irreparability, lock-in, touchscreen-centrism and planned obsolescence they basically all shoehorned into their new platforms.

Good news! Slate.

https://www.slate.auto/

I wish they had 2-3 standard DIN slots for player/nav instead of that horrible phone/tablet mount.

Yeah: thanks, that's a clear patent on not having me as a customer then

Like with smart TV with advertisements, the locked down cars will provide revenue after sale for the manufacturer. Thus they will mass produce and sell those cars for a cheaper price, while adding a significant markup on the non-locked down cars to be primarily sold to commercial partners at lower batches. The cheaper mass produced one will significant out compete the other ones to the point where most dealers will no longer sell those more expensive versions. Most customers won't even know the difference when they buy the car, and why should the seller go out of their way to inform the buyer when most people just care about the sticker price anyway.

Having locked down products also allow the manufacturer and dealer to form a agreement of sharing some of the post-sale revenue. The dealer can have their own shops for repair which the customer are now forced to use, naturally at a steep markup, and the manufacturer get a slice for every repair. The cheaper sticker price can then be decreased further since the dealer now have an additional revenue after sale. The customer can go to an other manufacturer approved shop, but then how many of those exists in the same city, and the manufacturer can artificial limit how many shops get approved in the same location.

The story is the same across any number of industries right now. Customer choice is not a argument for the manufacturer to not do it. If you as the customer want to opt out, the only choice after a while will be to not buy a car or buy the expensive ones for double the cost.

You don't entirely get to opt out.

If you crash into a BMW, you'll still have to pay for the now-inflated cost of the repair - most likely through the mandatory liability insurance. Insurance premiums have gone through the roof, to a big part not just due to insurance company greed but because cars and repairs to them became more expensive.

I don't understand the European Union: they can force USB C on everyone but they cannot enforce standard screws?

"Why haven't they proactively legislated against this new thing I don't like?" is not a strong argument.

Companies producing their own propietary screws to block repairments is not a new problem.

… So they didn’t want to just pay Bryce Fastener to give them their own “proprietary” screw? They’ve been in this market for decades with “custom” security screws for vendors, among other things.

https://www.brycefastener.com/

Isn't it relatively trivial to remove one of these by epoxying something to it or using a drill or dremel to modify it in some way (e.g. dremel a slot that a standard flathead can turn, or drill and use a screw remover)?

Or is the purpose less to prevent people from removing the screw and more tamper evidence?

Even in that case, with a photo or impression of the screw head, an unauthorized key/bit could be produced with with 3D printing (JLC3DP offers it cheap) or EDM.

If its on the wheel hub you’re going to need more than a dremel to do that, and you’re going to need something that breaks less than a flat head. There’s a reason they don’t make flat heads for impact drivers.

The button head is designed to be low profile and is rounded off enough to prevent tools from getting a good bite into it to cut a slot; on top of that they’ve designed these fasteners to torque super tight down (including ‘claw-like’ serrations on the bottom of the screwhwead) to basically require their tool so the bit doesn’t snap off if you try to make a duplicate.

This is outrageous and anti-customer. I’m completely sure the EU will be all over it any day now.

Not if it's their own car industry. They'll only throw the book at foreign companies.

All of that will be accessible for third parties, because afaik it has to be in the EU. The cost is a different question, but I think that's not a surprise for BMW customers.

I don't see how "oh third parties can get a bit for it" is really an acceptable answer. Lightning cables are readily available but that wasn't consumer-friendly enough for the EU. I think the parent is right, let Ford try this and see how quickly the EU goes after them, because this is quite frankly very anti-consumer.

That is a different legislation.

Ford in the EU is a european car manufacturer with around 100 years of history, so yeah, I think the answer will be the same as for BMW. And sure, car makers have special status - they have just recently secured a huge win in reducing the scope of emmission-related fines, which will now be charged from 10g/km instead of 0g/km from 2035. But this too applies to every manufacturer.

> That is a different legislation.

I understand the legislation is different, but the anti-consumer sentiment is the same, but worse in this case since I have a feeling the screw bit won't be nearly as available and cheap as Lightning cables are.

> Ford in the EU is a european car manufacturer

An American company with factories in the EU. I don't think it's the same as a company headquartered in the EU.

No, anti-consumer sentiment is "you have to buy a different charger for each device and it becomes obsolete with the device".

Factories in the EU means workers employed and taxes paid in the EU. It means a lot here.

> No, anti-consumer sentiment is "you have to buy a different charger for each device and it becomes obsolete with the device".

But you don't? The other end of any Lightning connector is USB-A or USB-C. Works just fine anywhere.

> Factories in the EU means workers employed and taxes paid in the EU. It means a lot here.

So I guess going back to the original parent's point: if your company is producing stuff in Europe, proprietary screws are just fine from a consumer point of view. Which kind of confirms everyone's suspicions about EU regulations... they're just foreign company shakedowns under the guise of "protecting the consumer."

> Which kind of confirms everyone's suspicions about EU regulations... they're just foreign company shakedowns under the guise of "protecting the consumer."

Zero evidence was provided to support this, but I guess facts don't matter anymore.

> Zero evidence was provided to support this, but I guess facts don't matter anymore.

What do you think the whole thread was about?

Apple makes a proprietary connector: anti-consumer behavior according to the EU. Use a standard connector or get fined to oblivion.

BMW makes a proprietary, patented _screw_: perfectly acceptable according to the EU.

Are you being intentionally obtuse here or what? The proof is that you have an instance of the same behavior in two different domains, with the main difference being one company is American and one is European.

> Apple makes a proprietary connector: anti-consumer behavior according to the EU. Use a standard connector or get fined to oblivion.

This was not reactive behavior to Apple on the part of the EU, the legislation was agreed long time ago and there was a period until which all manufacturers had to adapt. Zero evidence.

> BMW makes a proprietary, patented _screw_: perfectly acceptable according to the EU.

Car (parts) market is a different one, different rules apply. Additionally it was not proven there will be no aftermarket availability of the parts. There is no proof, I am sorry.

No. No, you don't understand. This is actually pro-consumer because if the patent is enforced, other car-manufacturers cannot pull this stunt. So, thanks BMW, good job for keeping anti-competetive practices at bay by patenting them.

My angle grinder begs to differ.

Just like Apple with their pentagonal screws, or whatever it was. I'm sure there's even some twisted argument along the lines of "we're just doing it for user safety".

The patent actually reads "to prevent access by unauthorized persons", in TFA.

Meaning the users. And your neighborhood mechanic.

The discerning DIYer will be well advised to look for such tools in chinese e-marketplaces before paying BMW outrageous "free-market tax" for them.

All patent law needs to be abolished. The excuse for it is that supposedly it protects inventors is totally false. Innovation is 99% perspiration.

Surprisingly, we voted for this with our wallets. Heated seats and awd are very popular here.

Just days before it will be available on AliExpress with standard socket for 5USD/10pcs

They must have thought it's _so_ clever that the screw/bit is their logo.

Nintendo has done this exact thing with the GameBoy: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/q/11736

If you mess with the logo, the console locks up during boot. If you don't, you're violating the trademark.

Sparkle wrench can handle it.

We need right-to-repair laws so that this patent can't be enforced

ok so instead of innovating on car tech/EVs/etc they decided to spend their efforts on making profit moats?

Great, now I need an extra large bit set.

I really don't see the point of this, it won't take a year for that bit to appear on shelves at the local hardware store if people need it. I have bit sets containing ever imaginable "security" bit, security torx are pretty much standard in set now. So are the weird flathead with the middle cut out. You almost can't buy an iFixIt kit without Apples stupid pentalob bit. This is just another bit to add to the collection, BMW will achieve nothing by introducing it.

The design is neat though, using their logo at the head of the screw is sort of cute. Completely unnecessary, but cute.

I think the schtick is they can block these tools from being sold via trademark infringement.

Thats why the BMW logo is in fact necessary

This wouldn’t hold up in court, to my knowledge. If you have a tool that is solely designed this way for technical reasons, then there isnt trademark infringement. Just make sure to market it as the “B” screwdriver or whatever. The same thing with the Nintendo case for their logo on cartridge protection, I don’t think that ever held up in court.

Chinese manufacturers: hundred of different companies competing in the free market with a relaxed attitude to intellectual property, producing extremely cheap customer friendly vehicles. This system is called "communism".

Western manufacturers: increasing lock-in to preserve revenues of middlemen

Communism = "different companies competing in the free market"?

That's the irony of the post you are answering to.

Yeah, my bad, I get it now.

I shouldn't do jokes on HN, but if you look at the Chinese car market, it looks exactly like free market competition. Consolidation will come eventually, as it did to Europe with Stellantis.

https://www.carscoops.com/2025/09/chart-with-chinese-car-bra...

Oh, my bad, I get the irony now!

Seven hours in, all comments assume this is to screw the car owner.

But FTA:

BMW really does want to use these to stop people from working on their own cars. It spells out in the patent that "the shape of the engagement recesses prevents the screw from being loosened or tightened using common counter-drive structures, e.g. by unauthorized persons." That's straight from BMW.

The second sentence is key: "unauthorized" can be woke-speak for thief, and this device doesn't seem to require a single key per car which has been a PITA for VW/BMW in the past.

The first sentence can then be edited to simply:

BMW really does want to use these to stop people from removing wheels from cars they don't own.

Before you object the thieves will just go get the tool: professionals yes, opportunistic, no.

This is enough of a real issue in some places there's a discount on theft insurance for car contents and parts when you have wheel theft prevention devices (e.g. wheel or hub locks). Granted, the insurers might not see this as actuarially meaningful, it might just be extra revenue from people who care about their wheels, but then you'd expect to see it everywhere.

I think people are overreacting about what amounts to a patent. There's no evidence if BMW will actually use this and if they do how.

I'm not defending BMW here but there was a similar freak-out a few years ago about heated seats requiring monthly payments that ended up being a giant nothing burger.

Even if it were fairly specific, I’d be surprised if a similar tool couldn’t be 3D printed with DMLS. It’s possible that due to torsion requirements it would have to be molded, which could be much more expensive.

Either way, this is hardly a case where others will be prevented from removing these screws for very long, even if they were to try to enforce that others couldn’t produce a similar tool because of the logo.

It is a sad state of affairs when the only way to attempt to get others to use your services is to attempt to block them. But, unlike attempting to remove DRM encryption, where it might be a challenge to reverse engineer, a physical object of a single standard material can be easily scanned and reproduced.

This is an inherently weak fastener design, it requires the driver to have 2 separate 'pins' to fit the 2 quadrants of the logo. Even with a proper forged tool this will be weaker than a torx or hex bit. Basically the only way this would be manufacturable is 2 forged pins shaped like quarter circles that are pressed into a socket.

This isn't that different to how other bit sockets are made, but instead of loading the bit in torsion, it will be subject to bending forces to loosen the bolt. This will make it far weaker than other tools. So good luck loosening these once they have a few years of corrosion on them. Plus, with the head design, they'll be far harder to drill out to get a bolt extractor on. Although 3d printing and scanning don't really help that much here.

> Even if it were fairly specific, I’d be surprised if a similar tool couldn’t be 3D printed with DMLS. It’s possible that due to torsion requirements it would have to be molded, which could be much more expensive.

A CNC mill should also be capable of creating an usable driver bit, or in a pinch, drill out 1mm center of an ordinary + bit.

Plus, if you you are handy enough to be taking the screws out of your car but don't have a CNC mill, you probably know someone who does, who would love a little weekend project to turn you up a nice BMW screwdriver

Edit: thank you!

Original Source (per the HN Guidelines):

https://carbuzz.com/bmw-roundel-logo-screw-patent/

(Also has the drawings of the screws from the patents.)

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