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In the end, the KIA car company made its cars into subscription models, I really hate this because in the end the car we buy with our own money doesn't feel like it belongs to us. Should we finally buy an old school car ? so as not to be affected by this subscription models or is there a way to crack the software installed in it ?
I love all the comments saying "yeah well that stuff isn't free someone has to maintain it"
YOU'RE PAYING 100K FOR A FUCKING CAR
That's the payment. That's what they get their money from.
Wanting more in perpetuity is fucking stupid no matter what the excuse is.
There’s also the fact that remote start, while shorter range, has existed on key fobs for like 20 years. My ex wife’s 2022 Hyundai has remote start, but only through the app, while my 2013 Focus has it on the key fob.
That’s honestly the only feature that’s bundled in those subscriptions that I really want, though the alarm notification is a nice to have.
I have a 22 kia with remote start. I also have the app (that costs the same as this post so I don't pay either). The remote start sets the car to 72 with nothing else on. No way to change it via settings. Paying for the app remote start is the only way to do the defroster, heated seats, steering wheel, etc. It's so fucking lame.
A 2024 Kia Telluride is right around $50,000 USD (fully loaded specs), but I get what you're saying with regards to vehicles in general.
Like BMW and Tesla having "creature comforts" behind subscriptions.
Not only that, but if you have no choice but to buy a car with internet connectivity, these are supposed to be the kind of bells and whistles they give to at least make it SEEM like you're not being completely taken advantage of. It's like a double-dip. "We're giving your car connectivity so we can sell your telemetry, AND we get to charge you for all the useful features, too!"
If it costs SO much to maintain these services, cool. I'd be happy to save the poor little car manufacturers money by buying a model that uses no connectivity whatsoever. But, for some reason, they don't seem to want to offer that. Gee, I wonder why.
Demand more out of them, because they'll always be looking to get more out of you.
you should absolutely choose a vehicle without subscriptions, and make a point of stating it at time of purchase
this is your one moment to make a difference
Not until my 2007 Tundra literally collapses into a pile of rust and plastic. Hopefully it’s not too late by then.
And then you can't use it when the temp is 0F because they decide to do some maintenance
I do find that the days I need it the most it's slower than molasses.
The only problem with services as a subscription is THE FUCKING IDIOTS THAT PAY FOR THEM
If nobody fell for shit like that, manufacturers would drop it like boiling diarrhea
The crazy thing is that at the price you are paying for a friggin telluride they could easily raise the price by a few hundred (ie several years worth of subscription) and it would be unlikely to shift sales by much at all but would not piss off the buyers like this. You can't put this crap on your car loan either. I really get the sense there is a conspiracy level concerted effort to try to indoctrinate generation Z into allowing every corporation they deal with to stick an IV into their bank accounts.
They intentionally didn't roll the subscription into the sale price. That's the goal. They want that sweet, predictable, monthly income that they sell their investors on.
They also figured that if you've found your car, you're less likely to walk away for what is essentially a fraction of the car's price.
I honestly hope the next car I buy has shit like this. Because boy am I going to make it my mission to jailbreak it and release my code open source.
Worth noting that these features appear to require your car to be connected to a cellular network. This isn’t the same as BMW charging a fee for heated seats.
They could have just put a SIM card in your car and required you to pay your cell phone provider for a connection.
This type of subscription is actually kiiiiinda understandable because the company has to maintain servers, staff and keep the software secure because they're handling sensitive data such as location etc.
I also remember that BMW I think? Had a heated seat subscription and that's really not justifiable imo
Fuck sakes. Those features were free on my 2020 Telluride.
Simple. Buy an older car and spend the extra money maintaining it. Reducing demand is the only language consumers have that businesses understand.
It doesn't have to be ancient; even 5-10 year old cars don't have this bullshit.
I own a Kia. I don't enjoy the subscription anymore than the next guy but I'm calling bullshit.
The only features behind a pay wall are the ones the app provides. The ones that require an always on internet connection and server infrastructure to maintain.
None of the in-car features are limited. The remote start on my key fob, seat heaters, onboard nav, all work fine without a subscription.
This isn't like the crap bmw was pulling with the seat heaters.
The cost to maintain the servers to send extremely small packets of data to instruct the car for the entire fleet of cars they sold could be less than $100/m.
Indeed; what we need is a jailbreak and a way to operate these systems on our own independent or third party / aftermarket resources. In a REAL competitive market, someone else could set up a server and offer to run these applications (or others!) for a different price. Not that I'm even particularly fond of capitalism myself nor how vulnerable it makes your car to turn it into an IOT device.
This WILL be hacked though, eventually.
"You wouldn't download a car."
I would absolutely hack the heated seats to work without my credit card.
or.. we just need more FOSS alternatives to the car manufacturers proprietary OS.
I already see GH issues like: "breaks stop working when going above 200mph."
I might be the guy that shows up at the revolution for the most trivial reason but I hate that it says $59.00 per annually like companies think they're so smart for having business school graduates on staff charging for things only business school graduates would think to charge for but they can't even get basic grammar right.
While I'm generally against subscriptions, for the most part the above are things that require cellular service and cloud infrastructure...
While the price may be too high. I'm normally ok with subscriptions for things that have on-going costs to the seller.
There is not one single new car on the market that I would take possession of if you gave it to me for free. I like having a manual transmission and a radio with buttons.
You wouldn’t download [the basic features of an item you already purchased.]
These features require the cloud, which costs money and uses carbon. If you don't want them, as many don't, you shouldn't have to force the company to price them in at the purchase.