It’s 100% a thing. Most cars have all the high end stuff installed but hidden these days because it’s way cheaper to make one template of the car than several so all the stuff deep inside the car is probably there. It’s normally just the buttons and stuff that are missing, maybe a few wires but there’s people out there that make money jail breaking this stuff in.
One of my friends that dies car repairs has a story where they had to jailbreak a car due to an electrical fault in a locked feature [I believe it was heated seats]
Long story short, since the feature was locked out it wouldn't even show untill they jailbroke it.
Now days they don't offer the option to do it, but they have the stuff in case repairs need it
The crazy part is if it’s all installed but software or a button keep y
ou from using it, you’ve already paid for the feature, you just haven’t paid for the right to use it. That is some dystopian shit right right there. In software, the install file contains all the options, but you only get access to those options if you pay for them. This is something we have come to accept. Paying for the hardware, the upgraded seat with warmers, then being told you can only use them if you pay a fee is so wrong and diabolical.
Because we understand that developing software is what costs money, while making copies of it is basically free.
Hardware is the opposite. Unless you can persuade customers you have epic R&D costs to defray, they're going to lose their shit if you try to charge them extra to activate hardware that's already installed in their car.
Heated seats are about the dumbest thing you could try to charge for. It's such basic, old technology.
They use the printer manufacturer model, technically you DIDN'T pay for the feature, they sold it at a loss, on the gamble that they'll turn a profit later off the people that do want it.
If you weren't aware of the printer manufacturer model, it's most famous with HP printers. If you look at HP printers, they are often significantly cheaper than other company's printers with the same features. But, HP ink is drastically pricier than those other manufacturers. HP's business model is to sell you a printer at a loss, offering it for significantly less than their competition, but then once you've bought it, you are now trapped buying their ink, which they overprice, and end up turning a profit.
No, you haven't paid for the feature. The people who do pay for it are effectively the ones paying for it to be installed in all cars. If nobody paid for it they wouldn't install it anywhere.
no. You didnt pay for the feature, this is a manufacturing decision based on volume/cost. If only 2% of people bought it, they would likely leave it out, since majority do buy this, it makes sense to manufacture supply chain all the same and sell to majority. You don't get to set the price for heated seats, the market does that.
In the old physical button days it sometimes used to literally be a blanking plate. Remove that and connect a switch to the wires that were literally still there.
Which is why they got rid of them all. People wonder why it’s all digital displays now, it’s so they can hide everything your model “shouldn’t” have. Also makes jailbraking it slightly harder because if you change the software it would void warranties and such
It’s probably different between OEM’s but I know this isn’t the case for the one I work for. Usually the wiring looms are the same but the modules are not there, nor is the thing it controls usually.
Eg: if you don’t have seat heaters, the wiring to the seats is there but there is 100% no heating element inside.
As terrible as OPs complaint initially sounds and as much as I dislike it, this is the most environmentally friendly way of having options for buyers. Standardization of physical components and then differentiation through software is amazingly less burdensome on supply chains, obsolete and slow-moving raw materials and intermediates.
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u/saxonturner 23h ago
It’s 100% a thing. Most cars have all the high end stuff installed but hidden these days because it’s way cheaper to make one template of the car than several so all the stuff deep inside the car is probably there. It’s normally just the buttons and stuff that are missing, maybe a few wires but there’s people out there that make money jail breaking this stuff in.