[HN Gopher] FTC action against Harley-Davidson and Westinghouse ...
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FTC action against Harley-Davidson and Westinghouse for limiting
right to repair
Author : sinak
Score : 189 points
Date : 2022-06-23 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ftc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ftc.gov)
| fragmede wrote:
| Fascinating. I wonder why those two companies got singled out
| from all the rest of them.
| pilgrimfff wrote:
| Insufficient political campaign contributions, probably.
| rasz wrote:
| Apple turn was in 2018 https://www.ftc.gov/business-
| guidance/blog/2018/04/ftc-staff... not that anyone enforced it
| after the warning - apple still refuses warranty after you
| replace screen or battery with third party.
| parineum wrote:
| I imagine it's because they view those as most winnable.
| Probably a combination of egregiousness and strength of defense
| (money). I have to hope that winning this case sets precedent
| for future cases against larger entities.
| citilife wrote:
| When are we going to discuss tractors (speaking to the FTC)? The
| fact I can't even change some settings such as the gear shifting
| speed without a technician is insane.
| caboteria wrote:
| Well, the article mentions Harley-Davidson, which some claim
| makes 2-wheeled tractors.
| joshspankit wrote:
| John Deere is a consistent (imposing) presence in almost all
| discussions of right to repair simply because they understand
| the power we people have: Once right to repair is established
| in law and public opinion, nothing they can do will stop
| farmers from being able to work on their own tractors.
| mulmen wrote:
| I paid for books (and beer) in college with a summer farm
| job. I did equipment maintenance and drove trucks. We ran
| John Deere 6602 combines from the mid 1970s. This was in the
| late 2000s.
|
| They were an absolute dream to work on. Everything was
| straightforward and consistent. The assembly was well thought
| out to enable in the field repairs. In my mind at the time
| John Deere was a brand that understood the needs of farmers.
|
| I can't reconcile their current position on right to repair
| with my experience. Something clearly changed between the
| 1970s and today.
| [deleted]
| Hellbanevil wrote:
| zdragnar wrote:
| My grandfather and his brother (sons of poor immegrants)
| traveled halfway across the country in their youth with
| nothing but a motorbike and some tools. They stopped at a
| farm each night and worked out a deal to do some equipment
| repair work in exchange for food and a place to sleep.
|
| Those days are long gone. Fewer small family farms, fewer
| friendly and trusting people, fewer simple things for
| mechanically minded handy men to fix.
|
| There's a lot of good things progress brings us, though it
| is often interesting to ponder on what we have lost.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > fewer friendly and trusting people,
|
| I honestly blame film/TV and other modern media for
| implanting anxieties in people via a combination of
| sensationalist news reports on gruesome crimes and the
| horror genre which seem to form a feedback loop of
| mistrust. Before that people had to go out of their way
| to hear of such grizzly tales in books or newspapers (if
| they could even read) so most lived in ignorant bliss,
| unaware of the potential violence lurking in every corner
| of humanity. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd just like to know
| when ans why it was we lost out innocence as a society.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Sadly, I never got a chance to ask him about it, though I
| imagine he probably would have had a few stories of
| inhospitable hosts or people who wanted nothing to do
| with them as they came through.
|
| Nowadays, people tend to have more worth stealing -
| including your identity if you happen to have documents
| in an easily accessible area of your home. Back then,
| though, there wouldn't have been much worth taking from a
| small family farm- no TV, cell phones, electronics other
| than a radio and light fixtures for the most part (this
| would have been in the 1930's or 40's, I forget which).
|
| One last stay thought: hospitality and community in
| general were much more central to people's way of life in
| rural farming communities then- farmers would help each
| other out with planting and harvesting, share equipment,
| every person in the community went to the same or one of
| two churches, etc. People had to rely on each other just
| to survive.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Man different CEO, they got the sales (wrong word in this
| case, see my other comment about selling) in charge of the
| company. Clearly. I highly doubt John Deere--the man named
| John, last name Deere, the actual living breathing human--
| would have stood behind like tractor on a cloud.
|
| Tractors on the cloud.
|
| Castles in the sky.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Sure you can. They don't care about farmers because farmers
| are a smaller percentage of their business each year. When
| Private Equity buys all the mega-farms, they won't care
| about having to rent tractors from JD. Actually, they would
| prefer it because you can CapEx a maintenance contract
| instead of putting it on OpEx. It does mean that there will
| be an ever growing opportunity for a smaller tractor
| company that actually does care about farmers but JD knows
| where their bread is buttered and they don't care about the
| little guy.
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| Why are we making a distinction between (indie) farmers
| and mega-farms?
|
| They are all farmers, do the farmers' thing. And the
| latter is more efficient. It makes sense (and IMO is
| better) for a tractor company to cater for the latter.
| adolph wrote:
| That seems a kinda conspiratorial stretch for a phenomena
| that has a simpler possible explanation: they see
| maintenance as a growing revenue source.
| salawat wrote:
| It's not conspiratorial at all. After a certain size, and
| upon getting a CFO that'll actually pay attention to
| things like that, this is a 100% incentivized way of
| doing things.
|
| It's not conspiratorial in the mustache twirling sense,
| but it is 100% an unambiguously desired outcome of how
| our tax laws and accounting principles are currently
| structured.
|
| A system is perfectly tuned to generate the outcomes it
| does. If you don't like those outcomes, you have to
| change the system.
| 0des wrote:
| To be a fly on the wall at John Deere right now..
| trash3 wrote:
| Laughing and clinking drinks. Look at their stock past five
| years. They're a monopoly.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| In which way are they a monopoly? Is that US specific? In the
| UK/EU there are at least half a dozen different tractor
| brands which I could name, all of them with significant
| market share.
| 0des wrote:
| John Deere limits your options with regard to repair. It's
| not so much a monopoly as it is anticompetitive
| nomel wrote:
| I don't think a brand being fashionable, to a middle aged
| demographic, makes them a monopoly. They're just popular.
| There are plenty of other similar bikes that can be bought.
|
| edit: I'm an idiot. I read the comment as being about Harley
| Davidson.
| 10u152 wrote:
| John Deere doesn't make bikes. They make tractors and farm
| equipment.
| nomel wrote:
| My bad. I just realized I read the comment as Harley
| Davidson rather than John Deere.
| WheatM wrote:
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| John Deere, Apple, Sony... all of them. To a larger point with
| miniaturization, however, surely there is a point where third
| party repair might be very difficult, if not impossible.
| Avenger42 wrote:
| Apple recently* announced their self-service repair:
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apples-self-
| service-r...
|
| Possibly this was just to head off this kind of enforcement
| aimed their way.
| threeseed wrote:
| I think it's more to do with the overall company strategy.
|
| As phones have matured as a product people have stopped
| buying them at the same pace as in early years. And so to
| counteract this Apple has gone heavily into services,
| accessories etc.
|
| So just as Apple has increased OS support periods for
| phones they are much happier now for people to fix their
| phone and stay in the ecosystem than switch to Android.
| 0des wrote:
| Modern Lexus cars appear to be going this way too. It's
| nothing but a bunch of shenanigans and plastic under the hood
| now.
| joshspankit wrote:
| Only at the point at which they themselves cannot repair it.
|
| If one human can repair it, so can other humans. They can
| argue "safety" all day but there is nothing magical about
| certification.
| threeseed wrote:
| > If one human can repair it, so can other humans
|
| Not all humans are created equal.
|
| Repairing a mechanical watch for example requires fine
| motor skills, decent eyesight, impeccable patience etc.
|
| And modern day electronics are fast approaching that level
| of complexity.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| There is nothing about the use of microchips that forces
| you to make the way in paper thin glass glued to the
| case. We invented PCBs for a reason.
| joshspankit wrote:
| > Repairing a mechanical watch for example requires fine
| motor skills, decent eyesight, impeccable patience etc.
|
| No. What I said was that certifying someone does not give
| them magical abilities.
|
| Two people who have equal motor skills, eyesight, and
| patience (etc) have equal ability to repair. The one
| without official training just has to learn through
| experience.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This was the obvious one, how could they miss it? Smells like
| money & politics might be involved...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| I bought a car from a guy who was a H-D dealer but privately,
| rode everything but H-D and said the bikes were shit.
|
| Their V-twin design is not only a shit engine - but it generates
| so much vibration that it literally shakes itself and everything
| on the bike to death, causing stuff to fatigue/wear/rattle loose,
| wiring to fray, you name it.
|
| H-D dealerships are cash cows between that and insane accessory
| and clothing sales. They're basically Boomer cosplay stores.
| WheatM wrote:
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >....a[n!] H-D dealer but privately, rode everything but H-D
| and said the bikes were shit.
|
| And word didn't get around? Hmmmmmm......
| rootsudo wrote:
| not really, high barrier of entry and one source of branded
| material/license means it's totally dependent on HD, which,
| very soon will go dealer hostile.
| eweise wrote:
| I had a sportster with the engine solidly mounted to the fame.
| Drove it over 10,000 miles one summer. It was totally fine.
| Nothing broke or rattled loose.
| BenSahar wrote:
| When did he sell Harleys? The 1970s?
|
| It's almost laughable to say that about most of their bikes
| past the introduction of the Evolution in 1984. Their latest
| engine is as about as smooth as a V-Twin can get.
| Rumudiez wrote:
| Far from smooth compared to the v-twins from Ducati which are
| even at the same pricepoint. And if you said that to an older
| HD rider, they would be offended! Some of them like the
| rumble -- they like it quite a bit, actually
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah, today they're just overpriced.
|
| The years under AMF ownership were bad quality-wise.
| blobbers wrote:
| Right to repair feels like it's a battle of who _owns_ a product
| after it is bought.
|
| Everyone wanting to operate their business in the way SaaS or
| subscription service is really annoying.
|
| Photoshop gets jealous of saas numbers so they put out the
| creative cloud. Printer companies authenticate their ink
| cartridges. Coffee makers only accept their own branded
| cartridges.
|
| Right to repair, right to modify, it all comes down to ownership.
| toss1 wrote:
| EXACTLY
|
| If you don't want anyone else to work on your products, then
| you need to only rent or lease them out.
|
| If you claim to "sell" the product to the customer, then THE
| CUSTOMER OWNS IT, and should be able to do whatever T.F. they
| want, including decompiling, reverse-engineering, breaking
| locks or codes, etc.. The only thing they should not be able to
| do is manufacture and resell copies of it.
|
| And, if you only lease/rent your product, you are responsible
| for disposal at the end.
|
| Seems like a reasonable distinction and deal to make.
|
| Acting like you are selling something when you are really only
| leasing it out, and withholding information and rights to the
| object is dishonest.
|
| Just because it is profitable does not mean that it is right.
|
| This needs to be codified into law.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah the word "sell" and "buy" is false advertising right
| there, it's very ingrained that buying and selling imply
| absolute ownership, all the way down to chattel slavery,
| where "buy" and "sell" are insulting. Very very ingrained.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Tesla next please.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| In case you didn't know you can now get free access to all the
| service manuals via https://service.tesla.com. I'm guessing it
| was a recent development to try and stave off such a suit.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| travisporter wrote:
| Friend has a 2020 model y with a clear balance issue. I
| suggested firestone or a local tire shop but he's so scared
| tesla will void his warranty he's waiting on them to service
| it. I don't disagree - they probably are tracking exactly where
| that vehicle is.
| jsight wrote:
| That's silly. Our mobile service tech happily recommended a
| local shop when I asked who he uses. Some of the Tesla
| service departments will encourage you to use local tire
| shops for routine tire work, too, as it reduces the load on
| them.
|
| A bigger issue is that some shops don't like to deal with the
| risks of lifting a car with a battery. Poor lift procedures
| can cost them a lot of money, and some avoid the liability.
| Most have reported success with Discount Tire, Costco, and
| other normal shops, though.
| nxm wrote:
| And Apple
| jsight wrote:
| As much as I would love for Tesla to offer high voltage parts
| (motors, inverters, controllers, etc) to the public, I don't
| think this ruling was intended to force the sale of parts to
| third parties.
|
| I'm not aware of a case of Tesla ignoring Magnuson Moss to deny
| a repair.
|
| Although the limiting of supercharging and other DCFC on
| salvage vehicles has been a problem. I'd like to see something
| done about that, but I'm not sure if there's a law that
| applies.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I have no problem sourcing non restricted parts from Tesla
| (except when they don't produce enough and backorders are
| measured in months). They know me at the service counter, I
| walk in, pickup my parts, and leave. They gave me a hard time
| buying led projector headlights for my S to retrofit (because
| the legacy OEM halogen running lights burn out all the damn
| time and that gets old at $1k/pair) and they would not allow
| me to order a PMSR motor (HV parts restricted as you
| mentioned) to upgrade my S from legacy to Raven drivetrain (I
| sourced those parts from a well known Tesla rebuilder on
| /r/teslamotors). All above changes required I root the
| vehicle, which is silly imho; the vehicle could've detected
| the changes and updated vehicle state accordingly, versus
| rooting and me running commands to do so (I opted out of
| arbitration in the event I have to pursue legal remedies for
| warranty coverage wrt MM). I think it's also be reasonable
| that Tesla be required to provide me access to Garage
| (Tesla's internal remote diag web tool) at a reasonable cost
| using my Tesla credentials, charging the same CC they have on
| file for Supercharging charges.
|
| You're right that it's unlikely legislation can force part
| sales, and that secondary markets (salvage) will likely be
| the solution until restricted parts are reverse engineered
| and cloned in traditional fashion by the Chinese or similar
| (although QC then becomes the challenge, I would be hesitant
| to install a clone of the carbon fiber wrapped motor in the
| Plaid lineup). Acquiring battery packs will likely always
| require pleading your case to Tesla with a VIN and good
| cause, because no one is building packs of that quality.
| [deleted]
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| > "Taking your product to be serviced by a repair shop that is
| not affiliated with or an authorized dealer of [Company] will not
| void this warranty. Also, using third-party parts will not void
| this warranty."
|
| I do not own or plan to ever own a Harley Davidson or
| Westinghouse product. I understand and 100% agree with the right
| to repair parts. The second part, however, I have a few concerns.
| So, if I buy a cheap replica part from eBay and put it into my
| Harley Davidson, it causes other problems with the engine and
| then I make a warranty claim, they have to honor it?
| post_break wrote:
| "According to the Magnuson-Moss Act, a vehicle manufacturer
| cannot automatically cancel your warranty just because you've
| installed aftermarket car parts. This is an illegal practice.
| That said, if your aftermarket part somehow causes or
| contributes to a failure in your vehicle, the dealer may be
| able to deny your warranty claim--as long as they can prove the
| connection. In these cases, the burden of proof is entirely on
| the dealership."
|
| If your cheap replica part causes issues to the thing you're
| trying to warranty then yes. If you replace the headlights with
| crappy clones from ebay, and Chevy says your warranty is void
| on your transmission, no.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
| infogulch wrote:
| Totally valid question that prompted a great answer. Thank
| you!
|
| For some context, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act [1]
| mentioned above was made a law in 1975. This action by the
| FTC is basically calling HD and WH out on their
| noncompliance with this law, and more generally announcing
| their intention to enforce it more boadly. It's unfortunate
| that the FTC has allowed this lawbreaking behavior run
| rampant for decades, but I'm glad that they've gotten off
| their laurels and are finally moving on it now.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warrant
| y...
| rasz wrote:
| I take it you only use OEM Ford fuel in your car, because third
| party could cause 'other problems with the engine'?
|
| The onus is on warrantor to prove third party components caused
| damage.
| d23 wrote:
| I don't think people should downvote comments like these. It
| started a good discussion.
| throwaway23234 wrote:
| I think most of the comment was just fine. The second phrase
| of the first sentence (not planning on ever owning) probably
| pissed people off and didn't add to the discussion. It's ok
| to not want products from companies. But it's mostly
| inflammatory to reduce the entirety of a company to a weird
| clause written in the warranty that was just some lawyer
| thing.
|
| That all being said, it's the top comment at this point
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| I was trying to get across that I'm neutral or I don't have
| a vested interest in either company. I certainly could have
| phrased it better.
| dundarious wrote:
| I think that was just them stating their priors, and it
| wasn't a consequence of the logic of their post.
| samaman wrote:
| And not tesla, seriously?
| jsight wrote:
| Does Tesla void the warranty if parts are replaced with third
| party ones and those third party parts are unrelated to the
| failure?
| yakz wrote:
| Tesla has other levers they can pull if they have a bone to
| pick. Supercharger network access can be revoked.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Long gone are the days when "custom motorcycle", a term generally
| associated with HD and similar styles, would imply "I can repair
| this by myself, heck, even modify it with spare parts taken from
| a demolished truck".
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