BMW Is Giving Up on Heated Seat Subscriptions Because People Hated Them::The blowback worked—but subscriptions for software-based new car features will continue, according to a BMW board member.
HA, I read the title and thought “what is going on? I love my seat warmers” - I completely overlooked the word subscription because it is absolutely absurd that there would be an ongoing cost to the consumer for a feature that provides no ongoing cost to the manufacturer.
no ongoing cost to the manufacturer
The “ongoing cost” is manufacturing diversity. It costs more money to put heated seats in one car and not in another than it does to put them in all of them and allow the people who want them to simply pay to activate them.
That being said, it is a fixed cost, and should be a one-time purchase. Or at least offered as an option. At least Tesla does this correcrly.
It occurs to me that all of these feature subscription models never seem to mention maintenance. Is that correct? Like, Ford wants to make a car that will deactivate the radio and blare annoying noises at you like you’re a fucking cat if you miss a payment, BMW and Lexus are gating performance and heated seats behind subscriptions and paywalls… But all you get is access. They arent going to fix the heated seats if a coil burns out. They aren’t going to fix a spun bearing you incur while using the extra performance you paid for. They aren’t going to repair a blown transformer in the radio. So you are literally paying for nothing. I am so glad I have an '07 Mustang Convertible. If I keep it maintained and looking good, the value will skyrocket when they actually standardize all of this abusive shit.
Of course, then somehow “Cash for Clunkers” will come back and be even less “voluntary” and suddenly most cars made before ~2018 will be removed from the road and bricked.
Your 07 mustang is ICE so in the next 3 decades will lose all value.
No, it’ll become a hot enthusiast pick when everything is electric, especially if it’s a manual. There are a lot of car enthusiasts who swear by the “feel” of an ICE sports car.
How would you get fuel for it?
They arent going to fix the heated seats if a coil burns out. They aren’t going to fix a spun bearing you incur while using the extra performance you paid for. They aren’t going to repair a blown transformer in the radio. So you are literally paying for nothing.
This is what a warranty is for.
Not all warranty is lifetime.
True, but not the point
Is your point that warranty is part of the cost of the car and so they’ve already paid a substantial portion (for the lifetime of the car) of “the subscription”?
It is the point when the subscription is paid for lifetime, but the warranty is not.
A subscription fee might make sense if it came with warranty coverage. If the fee is for using some heating elements you already have, but no promises they will actually keep working, then you are paying for something that doesn’t track any associated expense incurred on the supplier.
So you get free access to the features after the warranty runs out?
I suppose not, but you are mixing two things: a subscription fee and a warranty. They are differnt things.
I obviously agree that a subscrition model for a car hardware features, even if backed by software, is stupid but you are not paying to have it repaired if broken, you are paying for another thing: the use of it no matter how stupid the thing may be.
