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Thank goodness Packards and our generation of cars of interest have no or very minimal computers but think about what some bureaucrat will do to the future collector cars if this kind of thinking gains traction.http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/20/automakers-gearheads-car-repairs/

Thats just tragic thinking. Right now they are thinking about this in terms of onboard computers, and proprietary information, but with typical legislative scope creep are they going to eventually try and prevent me from doing my own oil changes, or tire rotations?

There are a number of factors driving this situation.

Firstly, most of the electronics are junk and trying to modify a junk ABS, EPS, TCM, or whatever can destroy circuits. "Four Letter Word" in particular builds a lot of junk that shouldn't be tampered with because it is - junk.

Secondly, the auto makers have forced the dealers to invest huge amounts in equipment for which there is not sufficient volume of personnel to pay for. Why? Because working at a dealer sucks and they ream labor so badly they need to wear diapers. My joke is that if car mechanics are such bloodsuckers then they should build cars that don't break and fire everybody.

Thirdly, PCM programs represent as close to optimal a set of overall control parameters as you can hope for. Sure you can change injection and timing to increase horsepower, but you will need to carry a shop vac to clean up the results. My preference is towards detuning that increases motor life because I just want to get where I want to go and burn less gas. That will never happen because they are trying to engineer cars that blow up immediately after the warranty expires.

So perhaps they don't want anybody to see their shoddy work in the first place. If electronics were chrome and tailfins today's junkboxes would weigh fifteens tons.

It is going to get interesting before it is all over. Cant wait to see how the politicians and powers that be handle what I think is going to be a can of worms. The way money is available to buy politicians, I'm sure lobbyists are rubbing their hands with glee for what is coming.

Just read another article along the same lines as the first where it says GM and John Deere are petitioning the copyright office to rule that in effect you no longer own your cars. Along with being forbidden to work on them, all the money you spent "buying" a vehicle in actuality didn't buy anything except a license to operate the vehicle since they rely on software to function and will do nothing without the software. GM and John Deere claim ownership of the software under the DMCA and it is not sold so you can't own it. An aftermarket item added that is not licensed or approved or interacts with or affects their software adversely should be a criminal act.

I expect with the typical politician thinking and enough lobbyist inducements even something as simple as changing oil or adding air to a tire could in effect be considered messing with software since oil change intervals and tire pressure warnings are software controlled items.

Just another reason the USA is becoming a second rate economy.

Quote from directly above:
" by Tim Cole on 2015/4/21 17:31:12

Just another reason the USA is becoming a second rate economy."

Tim Cole. U got that right, SURE got that right.
Or
What do u mean "becoming", it HAS BEEN secondd rate economy for at least 5 years now.

I'm just trying to avoid learned helplessness.

We all got a big laugh at work today over this issue. GM is trying pretty hard to go out of business again. Think of the ad campaign - "Why license a troublesome Cadillac when you can OWN a brand new Toyota for the thousands less?"

Really, if software piracy were such a big deal everybody would have stolen what they need from Toyota, Nissan, and Honda. On top of that is the accounting and financial nightmare that goes with the whole scheme. If the product isn't being sold then GM is asking the bank for money to hold cars produced as assets to be licensed for use. If the piece of junk breaks down then it's a breach of contract. The customer can walk away and stop paying.

The top management at GM is overpaid and crazy.

I'm leary of EZ "thuh politicians," "thuh bureaucrats" laments. We get the government we deserve. That wonderful adage comes to mind: "If you don't like the news, make some of your own."

But it's easier to complain and look for black helicopters.

Automakers produce cars laden with electronic toys because that's what m o s t of the public wants. Look how much time even we "real" gearheads spend online.

You can't blame automakers in a litigious society not wanting Joe Sixpak working on one of their complex offerings, then turning around and suing them, despite Mr. Sixpak's tawk radio penchant for lawyer jokes.

The US has 100-fold the attorneys per capita than Japan. Tim Cole's right above, inc. Detroit's out-of-touch, obscenely overpaid "management." Flying to Washington in private jets to receive their welfare--oops, i mean corporate bailouts, at our expense.

BTW, Packard's legal counsel, Henry E. Bodman, rewrote the Merlin agreement so that it became the basis for government contracts for years to come, and look where that led; a s t i l l unaudited Pentagon that gets 53.2 cents of every one of our Federal income tax dollars. A $1.5 trillion F-35 blackhole.

Been a long time since we had class acts will Sen. William Proxmire and Admiral Hyman Rickover, who demanded accountability.

Again, we get the government we deserve, and little over a third of registered voters bothered to vote in the last November, 2014 national election.

So let's stick with Packards and dial down the downhome politik. The bureaucrats and "politicians" are, like us, US citizens. Anyone can run for office. If you don't want to put it on the line, then at least bother to vote for the lesser of evils.

BTW, unit costs, labor costs in Germany are higher than in Detroit, and they're not holding back Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, VW. Germany also owns 70% of Europe's debt, and China a large portion of ours.

No bogeyman is going to stop us from wrenching our inline eight lawn mower engines, but i'm sure, as with the ZDDP, unleaded gas, multiweight oil scares of yore, we can whine about this, too.

To quote Claude Rains' Capt. Renault in Casablanca,
"Round up the usual suspects."

It's hilarious that we're up to a total over 10,000 posts of what Packard "should've done" before half the posters were alive, or old enough to remember or appreciate the tenor of the times, how East Grand "might've been" saved, while i've been trying to find homes for rust-free California Packard parts on the Buy/Trade/Sell forum here, some for little more than postage.

Some of us longterm Packard guys wonder when some of the posters have time to work on their cars, or if they have one.
Beware of early retirement. Back to work.