HACKER Q&A
📣 herodotus

Should an auto's warranty period apply to the car's software?


After using Apple Car Play for almost seven years it my VW Golf, it stopped working, with a message that said: "If you wish to use App Connect, please purchase an access code from your VW Dealer".

This was something I had never heard of, so I called the dealer, and they said "it's a glitch, bring the car in". It was due for a service anyway, so I took it in. When I got the bill, there was a $99 item for labor to "fix" App Connect. The rep said the car was no longer under warranty. I refused to pay: in my mind this is a software bug, not ware and tare, and so warranty rules do not apply. Luckily, they waved a bill.

So here is the ask: If a car's software is buggy, and the bug only manifests itself after the warranty has expired, should the owner have to pay for the repair?


  👤 Tanoc Accepted Answer ✓
I see it as no different from maintaining old software. Either keep it going yourself (by breaking the copyright protection or bypassing user restrictions), or you pay to get it fixed or find another working copy. I wouldn't expect free help from the company for a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS6 considering CS6 is ten years old at this point. This seems less like a warranty issue and more like a lemon law issue.

The problem is there's no easy way into this software like there is with personal computers. And most annoyingly most of it's in a proprietary ROM. Unlike an old copy of VLC that someone can download off the internet and modify, pulling and modifying the music playback software running on their car's infotainment system is nearly impossible. Because it's not on the CANBUS or OBD-II so they can't get to it via the car's main systems, it's some strange standalone with unique implementations that they would need to spend months learning how to engineer a replacement for, and they have no way of reflashing the ROM or performing the even simpler task of just saving the new software to onboard storage.


👤 suddenclarity
What are you proposing? That software should be up to date and working for all eternity without the user paying a cent past the purchase price? EU rules state that software is included in the warranty but it doesn't extend seven years.