Mazda Annoys Owners By Making Remote Start A Subscription
from the pay-extra-for-something-you-already-own dept
One foundational belief of the “right to repair” movement is that consumers should actually own the technology they pay for. Unfortunately that’s increasingly not the case when it comes to carmakers, who are utterly insistent on not only charging people a flat retail price for a vehicle — but are also increasingly charging you additional fees or subscriptions for tech you already paid for that already exists in the vehicle.
The trend has featured everything from BMW trying to charge users a subscription for heated seats (the tech for which, again, already exists in the car), to Mercedes locking better engine performance behind a paywall. It’s one thing if users get a discount on the overall price of the vehicle in exchange for new fees, but in an industry dependent on pleasing Wall Street’s need for quarterly returns, that doesn’t happen.
Mazda is the latest carmaker to flirt with consumer anger with the recent requirement that some owners sign up for a subscription if they want to keep certain features they already paid for and own.
Previously, users paid nothing to use either their key fob or the Mazda app to remote start their vehicles. Now, Mazda has informed users they’ll be charging them $10 a month to use tech already embedded in the car:
“Mazda used to offer the first option on the fob. Now, it only offers the second kind, where one starts the car via phone through its connected services for a $10 monthly subscription, which comes to $120 a year. Rossmann points out that one individual, Brandon Rorthweiler, developed a workaround in 2023 to enable remote start without Mazda’s subscription fees.”
Developers and Mazda owners who have developed clever workarounds for Mazda’s restrictions have faced legal threats and DMCA takedown demands.
Increasingly users are having to pay extra to use app-tethered services for remote locking, starting, or vehicle tracking. Ironically, these apps and features usually contain terms of service allowing automakers to collect and monetize your location and behavior data, often without telling you.
So in many instances you’re (1) paying a lot for the car, (2) paying extra for services that used to be free or included in the price, and (3) having your data heavily monetized, but poorly secured.
It’s precisely this kind of behavior that has resulted in surging interest in state and federal right to repair legislation, designed to prevent automakers from nickel-and-diming you to death. Automakers, in turn, have lied and tried to claim such laws would be a boon to sexual predators. It’s obnoxious behavior from an industry with some of the worst consumer privacy ratings of any sector in tech.
Filed Under: automakers, cars, dmca, price gouging, remote start, right to repair, subscription
Companies: mazda
Comments on “Mazda Annoys Owners By Making Remote Start A Subscription”
Other than not buying a Mazda
how do we fight this sort of thing as consumers?
It’s hard to vote with your wallet when the only things for sale are trash.
An irony is that this drive to protect corporate ownership completely undermines the concept of personal ownership (cars and software aren’t owned by ME anymore, I lease property from THEM.)
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My other car
is a ’62 Dodge
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The way to “vote with our wallets” is to go to a Mazda dealership, spend some time with a salesman, and then say this fee is a deal breaker and you’re leaving. Either he’ll waive the fee to get the sale or he’ll complain to Mazda corporate about how this “feature” lost him a sale. Then if Mazda gets enoigh complaints from their dealers, they might stop this idea.
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Another good alternative to “voting with your wallet” is “voting with your vote”, and demanding that your elected officials regulate this sort of extortion.
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Well no. Consumer protections are a non-starter, because that’s red tape regulations that kill businesses.
Re: Re: Re:2
If businesses were to operate with a modicum of decency, things like ethics and morals, but as we all know that will never happen.
Buyer beware is a saying that remains applicable today regardless of whatever the advertisements proclaim.
Re: Re: Re:3
“Modicum of decency” seems to be getting low on stock in the US.
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From what I’ve heard, car dealerships don’t even want sales anymore, and are strongly pressuring people to lease cars instead.
The Mazda “Remote start” allow to configure the cabin temperature (heating or air conditioning) and un/lock the doors with a phone.
So, now I know that it exists and how much monthly is, I still need to investigate why the Hell this exists in the first place?
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Because automotive software was not inherently vulnerable to hacking on its own.
The FBI can’t get into your car if you encrypt it with a strong key …
Re: Re:
The local juvenile can get into your vehicle.
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Theoretically? Because it’s nice to have your car at a comfortable temperature as soon as you get in.
It’s not worth the gas you have to burn for it, in my opinion.
Re: nice feature
So I have to admit that remote unlock is nice. It lights up the car so that it is easier to spot in a parking lot. And it does let you in, and if you press the button twice, it also lets the wife in.
But as far as configuring temperature, well, no. I should prefer it to remember what I had set previously, and certainly it would be better if it did not fire up the motor before I check for intruders and get in.
That memory is present in the mechanical thermostate on a 1970s coupe. I see no reason you could not have a similar memory in a modern electronic car.
And if I find another nice inexpensive 1970s Coupe de Ville which seems suitable, that is what I will be driving. Power windows let you have extra control over cabin conditions.
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The pre-start of the AC could function as a bit of a range extender when talking about electric cars.
The AC consumes quite a lot of electricity so, if it is connected to a charging point, it might make sense to pre-cool/heat, so you start with a fully charged climatized vehicle.
For combustion engines it is pure comfort. Still, if the windows are iced over, or if the car has been in the blistering sun for some time, I think it’s worth it.
But, first world problems, yes.
Which is exactly the kind of performative bullshit that tells you this isn’t at all about protecting IP, but rather about protecting manufacturers’ ability to price gouge. A Federal right-to-repair bill can’t come soon enough because anything that gets around price gouging like this would surely be protected under such a statute.
It’s those damn brunchlords again, isn’t it?
Can we get a “paint fading” subscription, basically a subscription where you pay a monthly fee to have your car’s paint fade over the years?
I’d like that subscription (especially since I’d make it a point not to subscribe)!
Mazda?
Ok, no Mazda cars for me in the future.
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Yeah. I love my Mazda, but between stuff like this and refusing to import a reasonably-sized EV (i.e. smaller than an SUV), it’s making it really hard to justify buying another when this one inevitably dies.
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The problem with EV sedans and hatchbacks is that there’s only three ways to do it. 1) you pack the batteries in every nook and cranny you can build in and get half-assed range, 2) you pack the batteries in a skateboard battery chassis and then have to sit laid out like an F1 driver to save height, or 3) you go with the same skateboard chassis but give the humans a proper seating position and call it a “Crossover SUV”. All three options suck.
Network/security considerations
“Mazda used to offer the first option on the fob. Now, it only offers the second kind, where one starts the car via phone through its connected services […]”
Which means that if you don’t have cellular connectivity, or the cellular network is down, or Mazda’s “connect services” are down, this doesn’t work.
It also means that if there are security compromises at any point in that chain (and as we’ve seen this week, the entire US telecom infrastructure may be compromised, thank you very much Salt Typhoon) then the attackers can access the data-in-transit. If it’s unencrypted, then of course it’s game over. But even if it’s encrypted, rudimentary traffic analysis combined with geolocation of the cell phone will tell them who has one of the cars, where they are, when they are, and that they’re using this feature.
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i’m glad someone much smarter than me made this point in a much more comprehensive manner than i could have.
Hell, i don’t think cars should be networked devices in the first place.
Who would pay for this shit. It’s not needed, although nice to have in some cases, and Mazda’s tech is terrible. Good luck Mazda, you’ll probably easily make $5k on this.
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Not much actually is “needed” beyond shelter, sustenance, and sex. But living in a region that gets the full gamut of weather from “my face is boiling” to “my bones are now made of ice,” remote start is a pretty fucking big quality of life improvement.
Re: Re: pretty fucking big quality of life improvement
Just imagine being made to pay a fee to use a toilet.
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I have a sewer bill lmfao.
Re: Re: Been there but...
I’ve been though all of that as well, from 120 to -40 (different geographic locations, naturally), and I’ve found that the cold and heat are far less annoying when you finally realize that leather seats suuuuuuuck. Never cared about the cold or the heat much when I had fabric seats. Hot, cold, and humid were all made worse by leather seats. If I had kept the Tacoma I bought a couple years ago, I would’ve bought or traded for some fabric seats just to make Massachusetts winters less painful.
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I guess we just can’t all be as tough as you.
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You pussy…
Used to
Only worry about,
Fuel, oil, Tires, Lube
Now, how many Subscriptions?
And Many of the cars are generally CRAP. Added tech that does not last or do much to make a good vehicle.
To anyone that diont know
There have been So many recalls in the last Couple years, its part of the reason Prices are thru the roof. There are Millions of car recalls.
https://www.youtube.com/@scottykilmer/search?query=recall
https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls
Cue jail-breaking
This gives people more than enough valid reason to jail-break a car that they already paid in full for. BMW and Audi are pulling that same rubbish and the owners of those cars are doing a jail-break.
Re: wait for it
As with apple
they will register the parts to the computer/car.
AND Charge you EXTRA for it. they do it with Radio’s already.
Personally I’d like to see the Open Source community do something along the lines of creating a standardized vehicle OS that can be used to overwrite the manufacturer firmware, and then is configurable with respect to the features actually present on the vehicle. Note that I don’t actually know if such a thing is possible given all the variability in automotive electronics, but it would be nice.
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The problem is that the EPA would likely get all hot and bothered ranting something about enabling emissions defeat devices or some other nonsense and shut that shit down faster than Negan on The Walking Dead.
Re: Re: How long
It took the EPA over 10 years to figure out 2 major Auto companies were Modding cars so they would Adjust themselves when being Checked by EPA.
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You don’t even need the computer for that though. You can buy a hardware bypass for your car to get around standard emissions. One of my kids is into that sort of thing and he showed me how easy it was for someone who is mechanically inclined.
You aren’t entirely wrong though, the EPA probably would complain. Maybe “generic car OS” could be locked once configured, or something.
Re: Sounds like a new market.
Got another $1000, for a $10 box.
Start the car
Go back in the house for 5 minutes
Car is now pleasant to sit in
My old man used to do this 50 years ago, i bet it still works!!
Have side cutters. Will use 'em.
Not that OEM remote start was ever really a possibility for me since I drive stick shifts, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve delved into hard to find wiring diagrams and deleted the vehicle’s connection to the hive mind. Did it on my Tacoma the day I bought it.