The Computer and Your Car: The End of an Era

The Computer and Your Car: The End of an Era 

The Computer and Your Car: The End of an Era

Many people modify their cars, and many people repair their own car as it breaks.  There has never before been a question if this was legal.  A long list of car manufactures are trying to make working on your own car illegal.  Some of these companies include Ford, GM, Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Volkswagen.  Even some luxury lines have joined the party such as BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, and Land Rover.  The obvious question is “why?”  The real answer is money.  What these companies say involves the DMCA.  What is the DMCA?  These letters stand for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and working on your car stands for copyright infringement.

Car makers claim that modifying the car’s engine control unit, or ECU, makes the car less safe, less secure, and although they don’t say it outright, less profitable.  At a glance, this may seem okay.  Just leave the ECU alone when you work on your car.  The problem with this is the ECU doesn’t just control a car’s timing pattern anymore.  A car’s computer monitors the wheels, the brakes, the steering rack, the engine temperature, the amount of air coming into the engine, the temperature of the exhaust, the catalytic converter, air bags, headlights, traction control, anti-lock brakes, and service periods.  The new laws will ban working on anything that can interfere with the ECU.  A new exhaust would change the ECU data.  A turbo would bypass factory Mass Air Flow sensors.  Big brake kits wouldn’t allow the ECU to monitor wheel speed.  The list goes on.

Cars and their computers have become inseparable.  Taking away the right to work on your car’s computer is the same as taking away the right to work on your car.  A person owns their car.  They do not license it like they would Microsoft Office.  A person should be able to change what they own and make it how they want it.  It is scary that unfortunate greed on behalf of car makers may one day change that.