(CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE)
What do u think of this ?
So toyota is charging u for the remote feature that u already paid for.
What do u think about ?
if current trends continue, you won't own your car in the future.
Not even car like basic daily use equipment
This idea has already been around for other products.
In electrical test equipment for example. A company will put out a line of equipment.
Inside, the models are all the same, and have the same capabilities. However, depending on how much you paid for yours, certain features or levels of performance will be disabled in the software.
The reason for this, is that the product costs the companies relatively little to manufacture. It's actually cheaper for the company to produce one kind of PCB and put it in all of them, then it is to make a customize design for each one (economy of scale). What the company spends money on most, is the R&D.
The consumer feels cheated, because they can't use something they already have. But the company needs to recover their costs somehow to stay afloat. It's counter-intuitive, but it's actually better for the consumer, because it keeps prices down. If prices actually represented manufacturing costs, then customers with more basic needs would pay too much, and customers who's needs are higher pay not enough, and the company loses money.
This business model decouples revenue from the physical object. It gives companies more flexibility for price structures, insulates them from supply chain volatility, and allows them to put more revenue towards development.
It's a new paradigm to the car world, but I think we will see it spread to more products, and more different high tech sectors wherever there is cheap offshore manufacturing. I'm not defending or knocking it. It's just the way it is. But regulation will only makes things worse. Governments are unable to run efficient business because they only know how to spend money. At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself, the consumer, are you getting what you paid for? If not, give your money to somebody else. The market will decide what works.
The cool perk that comes out of all this, is that clever hackers and hobbyists often figure out how to get the extra features for free. (the company doesn't expend a lot of resources to prevent this because they don't care. It doesn't represent a significant loss. Commercial customers, who represent the bulk of revenue, won't bother trying to do this)
Toyota, allegedly, requires a subscription for all of the features inside of your cars remote to work.
For the remote start button to work, you apparently must be subscribed to their web services - although this does not use Toyota’s services.
Crap like this should not be legal.
Toyota isn’t the first to have an app and a subscription to use it, but they’re the first (that I’m aware of), to just force you in and disable things that (as I see it) do not have anything to do with it.
Hell, even on a Hyundai Sonata if you don’t pay the subscription to the app the car and keyFob still works. not only can you still remote start the car you can drive it forwards and back using buttons on the key.
And on Ford products, from what I know, the “Ford Pass” service is free - why would they charge you yearly if you already paid them quite a large sum upfront for the car…
What do you think on this issue?
The idea of having to pay a subscription to use what I already purchased full price (the keyFob and radio receiver in the car in this case) is just disgusting to me…
(Well this was originally a post but it got put into this comment)
Well, I'm sticking to my guns. I have never bought a new Toyota because of the high sleaze factor I have experienced at their dealerships. This just takes it up a few notches. It looks like they now have a way to get their hooks into the used Toyota buyers as well. That's a shame. The bigger shame is that people will likely buy into this next level of pocket picking hook, line and sinker and it will become the new paradigm like @mmj says. Some may call this progress. I call it a rip off. I've always wanted a nice new Toyota but I never could bend over far enough to close a deal. Just my humble opinion.
Would you still be against it , if your sticker price was lower because it meant you didn't have to pay for the features you didn't need or want anyway?
The lower price of your car would essentially be subsidized by the people paying for all the extra stuff.
I feel you on that @rth3rth3.
I love Toyota, Honda, etc….
I hate the dealers and dealerships. These middlemen don’t add any value to the process these days. They take value away.
They keep the "New Car Smell" makers in business.
No, if something like that was to come from it, probably not.
I would support removing the legislation that gives dealerships exclusive access to selling new cars. I want to see auto mega marts. I don't know why the government is hesitating on that deregulation. I guess it would rock too many boats.
I'm with you on the auto mega marts. It would give more power to the consumer. I didn't know deregulation was being considered in the car sales industry. That could be very interesting.
I agree with @rth3rth3, Toyota dealers are crap, I just don't see my self paying an extra 20% for their new unproven technology with possible additional ripoffs compared to other proven cars.
For instance, I have no clue how long will a M15A paired to a K120 last, but a G4LC and a A6GF1? I know everything about It, it's simple and easy to work on and the workshop manual is available online instead of being hidden from owners like it's a state secret.
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@mmj Is it though? you're still paying for the hardware it's just that they want an extra fee to use it. $800 over 10 years for a remote starter? after you already spent around $40,000? what kind of value is that? will they soon want to charge me a one time fee each time I want to use the telescopic wheel adjustment?
The only reasonable option is to offer costumers to buy it - not turn what should be a single time purchase included with the car, into sucking out every last penny - and again at $40k? that should be either included or not - not as an option for Toyota to suck out your blood.
Let's assume it'd be free after 3 years or that Toyota is responsible that while the subscription is on, they are responsible for the system working correctly - for some this could be a "reasonable" "financing" deal - but being constantly bent over to use hardware you already own, have payed for what ever installation cost there could be, for eternity? now that's what I call a total f****** scam.
The actual cost to integrate a remote starter on a push button car? - nothing the electronics are there. It's like Microsoft Office 365 instead of paying $149 once, over 5 years you're going to spend $350. Actually it's more like slowly boiling a frog - only $80 a year for this $150 for that, $35 for another thing ends up being a literal fortune over just a few years.
At this point Ford and Hyundai's approaches are reasonable - Ford's app is free, and Hyundai's just doesn't remove any feature off the car to make it "a good value"
It's up to everyone to decide for themselves. Toyota thinks they know what they're doing. We'll see how it works out for them. Based on the current post-plandemic market, I predict it will be successful. Fortunately for you and I, we still have a choice in the matter. I think these are very small problems. There are much bigger threats to our well-being like rampant inflation.
No argument here. Please don't get me started on the rampant inflation. You'll never be able to shut me up.
@mmj Toyota Motor Corporation knows how to make money - they know marketing a remote starter as "only $80 a year" instead of a $250 add-on will fool a lot of consumers who aren't thinking about the long run (in this case it's just 3 years, not to mention how remote starters are generally unreliable and sticking a cellular system into one sounds like a terrible idea).
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Where I live the inflation the previous year was (-0.7%) and this year (over the past 12 months) it's 2.3% (and with a predicted 1.6% for next year) - so overall together with the USD being the cheapest to buy since 1996, same with the Euro being cheaper then ever to buy (but that's kind of a monthly thing, the Euro has always only been depreciating in the last 20 years or so) It's really not bad at all, for me. But I did hear that in the US it's just under 7% which is pretty terrible...
Nothing really new. I had two different Cadillac dealers try to sell me a car alarms on used sedan de villes when at that time, ALL SDV'S cam with an already factory installed system.
Bruhhhhhhhhhhh
Use the key and ditch the subscription.
Ha! I knew those sneaky people would join the rest of the automotive world and start screwing their customers.
Pay the ransom or be reduced to using your key to start the car!
I wouldn't be surprised if they start charging you a subscription to use the A/C, heated seats, or even unlock or lock the car LOL.
It's a manufacturer's way of recovering revenue from the used car market, because used cars sales directly attack their revenue stream.
Most people find it distasteful that they now have to pay a fee for something which was an up-front cost before. I'm not sure what this feature would have cost up front as an add-on , but lets say $300. If you're the type of person that owns a car for 5 years (most people), then that feature is costing you $5/mo. It may actually be more cost effective for you to pay a low monthly fee. For the person who owns cars a long time, it's cheaper for them to pay once. And for the guy buying used... well he actually has a choice now. If he doesn't want the feature, he may actually be able to negotiate a lower price, since the feature doesn't automatically come with car.
The way cars are computerized now, things like remote start aren't an option now. It doesn't cost the company anything because all the hardware is already there, in every model. Do you just give it away for free? Not likely.
Everyone likes to criticize and thinks they know what's best. But nobody will get up and do it. Do you think YOU can run a car company? OK go start one and try to compete with all the rest who have been doing it for a century.
I think he recently did a video on this, but I can't remember which one it was.
The Car Care Nut produced a short video on this topic, justifying the use of the subscription model on economic grounds, but subsequently pulled the video when the topic proved controversial. I had a few things to say, which I'm cuttting-and-pasting, here:
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My assumption is that pulling the discussion on the key fob video was the result of getting unanticipated feedback. If so, I would ask you to consider the source of that kind of discontent. It's not just an economic issue, although that was the thrust of your argument. It's about human agency. It's about a lack of choice, given that this subscription model can be seen as an initial foray into a situation where we end up having increasing "sunk cost" (since such features migrate down, over time, into even the base models) in a system that eliminates ownership and control, on the individual level. In its place, we have a permanent "tax," a perpetual revenue stream that turns all of us into digital sharecroppers. (This is the overt goal of other auto companies, such as Tesla, Stellantis, Ford and GM, which imagine themselves as tech companies, collecting rent into infinity while harvesting data). It's a situation (frought with problems) that the novelist and tech critic Cory Doctorow explored in a recent short story, "Unauthorized Bread." (Imagine a poorly run company like GM monitoring and billing for every use of a refrigerator or toaster, only to have their system go haywire). Doctorow discusses the ideas and trends that led him to write that story, a story relevant to this key fob issue, at Google (of all places). Here's the link: https://youtu.be/xvbusjDOspQ
Doctorow is a commie.
What do you think about Toyota jumping on the bandwagon with subscription services? Apparently for 2018 and newer cars, one will have to subscribe to a remote service to be able to remotely start one's car.
Hi Scotty,
Have you touched on the new subscription service Toyota is requiring for their key fobs post 2018 models? Initially, it seems, they are requiring a paid subscription to be able to remote start you car with the key fob that comes with the car you purchase.
Louis Rossmann’s YouTube channel has a short rant about it with some interesting points regarding pay to play fad and right to repair. https://youtu.be/3MXgnecxVeU
you're the 3rd person today. Please use the search.
Toyota is taking a page out of Tesla and BMW's playbook and is starting to charge subscription fees to activate functionality that's already built into the car.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/43329/toyota-made-its-key-fob-remote-start-into-a-subscription-service
Please use the search before posting. Thanks.
What is the question?
Easy, don't use remote start!
Just wanted to know what you thought about this.
thedrive.com/news/43329/toyota-made-its-key-fob-remote-start-into-a-subscription-service
please use the search before posting. Thanks.
Hey Scotty, have you heard about Toyota charging you a subscription fee for use of your key fob? What's yours take on this. Great channel!
Toyota may be back pedaling a bit: https://www.thedrive.com/news/43636/toyota-reviewing-key-fob-remote-start-subscription-plan-after-massive-blowback
