cross-posted from : https://lemmus.org/post/20199206
Adafruit: From Ultimate Driving Machine to Ultimate Rent-Seeking Machine: The BMW Logo Screw Patent.
If you havenât already heard, BMWâs R&D teams have been busy âinnovating.â Unfortunately, they arenât focusing on the things that actually matterâlike stellar engine performance or the legendary driving dynamics that gearheads love. Instead, the C-suite execs decided that the best use of their engineering budget was to design a proprietary security screw specifically intended to prevent BMW drivers from fixing their own cars.
I donât care if thereâs workarounds, I donât care if youâll be able to buy a knockoff bit for $0.50. I donât care if most people wonât be impacted.
This. Is. Not. Ok.
I donât care if thereâs workarounds, I donât care if youâll be able to buy a knockoff bit for $0.50. I donât care if most people wonât be impacted.
I donât care about BMW at all.
If you are not using a standard fastener you need to provide a lifetime warranty on whatever canât be removed by standard parts. Lifetime means you need to escrow with a third party enough money to fix it in case you go bankrupt.
I dont understand how they can sell it as security screw if you can unscrew it with those thin pliers
As someone who has broken a pair of pliers trying to use them to unscrew something, that may not work as well as you think it might.
You clearly werenât using Knipex pliers.
Nope, I am one of the poors.
The thing is. This is an arms race. The service providers need to source the tools, and the tools or copies will be available from various vendors.
Itâs mildly inconvenient at worst. So itâs not even efficient evil, itâs stupid evil.
itâs stupid evil.
Since the screwhead is ~50% hollow, I wonder how the metrics on durability and longevity go.
Itâll also be cheap evil.
