BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea • Hacker News Board

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#251

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

t0mas88 wrote: post #234

wil421 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low profile tires do not last 50k much less 85k miles. Lots of BMW tires are front/rear and left/right which means you can’t rotate. People on the X7 forms said they had to start changing tires around 20-25k. My coworker had a Leaf and said he went through rear tires 2x as fast.

This. For example a BMW 550i eats rear tires under heavy acceleration and front tires under sporty cornering, because it's not a light weight car. Worse for low-profile and sporty tires, better grip but softer rubber. A BMW 550i has similar horse power as a Tesla Model 3 performance, but I think like any EV the Tesla delivers even more low-end torque. So it can kill tires even faster, and it's all-wheel-drive...

[deleted]

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#252

Post by vasco » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #79

We are rapidly moving towards Feudalism. If someone can charge you for using things you already bought and 'own', then average man has no property rights. The fee could be increased at any time, or new fees could be introduced. As the housing crysis deepens, average person will never own a home either. So average person will be in the same position as a medieval serf, conpletely dependand on the whims of the lord, pr…

If you want to know more about the history of IP laws and how it relates to this concept of modern age feudalism where someone owns all the rights on anything of value, this is an excellent book: https://thenewpress.com/books/information-feudalism

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#253

Post by wil421 » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 2:59 PM UTC

t0mas88 wrote: post #234

wil421 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low profile tires do not last 50k much less 85k miles. Lots of BMW tires are front/rear and left/right which means you can’t rotate. People on the X7 forms said they had to start changing tires around 20-25k. My coworker had a Leaf and said he went through rear tires 2x as fast.

This. For example a BMW 550i eats rear tires under heavy acceleration and front tires under sporty cornering, because it's not a light weight car. Worse for low-profile and sporty tires, better grip but softer rubber. A BMW 550i has similar horse power as a Tesla Model 3 performance, but I think like any EV the Tesla delivers even more low-end torque. So it can kill tires even faster, and it's all-wheel-drive...

The BMW tires are about $200 more expensive then the Tesla. In 5-7 years the Tesla would be drastically less in maintenance but in years 4-5 the BMW could be less if you need to throw an extra set on the Tesla. Not sure I’d want a 550i outside of an extended warranty. However, newer BMW v8 twin turbos are a LOT more reliable than the first couple generations.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#254

Post by _ea1k » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #110

2143 wrote: post #31

I seriously hope this doesn't catch on. For cars with internal combustion engines, the company tends to get constant income via service thanks oil filters, other filters, and a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be replaced (assuming people take it to authorised service centers, which I assume most people do when the car is relatively new). With the transition to EV, those avenues dry up because EVs need lesser maint…

Not for nothing, but BMW realizes very little post-first-sale service dollars because they bake that into the price of the car. If you go and buy a new 3-series this afternoon, you pay for your gas and that's pretty much it. All your scheduled maintenance is included, and you may even end up with a tire plan (wise on some of these cars; Z-rated rubber is pricey, and urban areas can eat tires) so the rubber ends up "i…

I always just assumed that program was meant to encourage tradeins after the free maintenance period ends. That kicks off the next profit cycle via a used car sale and another new car sale.

Its a trap! And probably one that customers are pretty happy with.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#255

Post by bko » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

ChrisRR wrote: post #166

bko wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relax, it's just heated seats. It's user hostile and I imagine they'll drop it because it'll be seen as annoying. There are real problems with housing affordability but a subscription to heated seats in a luxury car is not indicative of a bigger issue.

People relaxing on shitty behaviour is how you end up with a subscription for heated seats in the first place

No, people having a meltdown about some luxury car brand charging a subscription for heated seats is how regular people dismiss real concerns about privacy and ownership rights. Wait until you hear about how Sirius is disabled without a monthly fee.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#256

Post by midhhhthrow » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #171

farisjarrah wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, I been seeing more people then ever riding, building and modifying electric and motorized bicycles. You can modify a regular $200 mountain bike with a $200 motor kit from amazon and have a $400 motorcycle that you don’t need a motorcycle license for. If you really don’t want to burn fossil fuels, a $1000 bafang mid drive ebike kit can turn a regular bicycle into a hill crushing monster and can be installe…

more people then ever More people than ever maybe, but that is a tiny fraction of the number of cars, at least in the U.S. It is like saying more people than ever are turning vegetarian/vegan. Yes, it is true, but it is still a miniscule number in the grand scheme of things, and the the change is way too slow/small to have any real impact, at least in my life time. I love Jetbrains products, it was irritating when th…

I stopped using jet brains because they went to subscription

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#257

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

johnwalkr wrote: post #224

_fat_santa wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree because at the end of the day, the consumer has a choice. BMW, Stellantis and other car makers are charging subscriptions for features. I see an immediate solution: buy another car. I see this argument a ton, people complain that new cars are too expensive, super high monthly payments and subscription features. Yes these are all problems but they are only problems if you choose to buy a new car. Se…

Kind of true but also not as true as it was pre-COVID. Used car prices skyrocketed during COVID to the point that people are selling their 2-3 year old cars for more than current new MSRP. And a 10 year old Corolla is often more than $10k. Prices are just now starting to come back down, but probably not to pre-COVID prices.

I bought a new car recently because of problems with my existing car. I didn't have a lot of negotiating leverage on the new vehicle but I was shocked by the tradein I was able to get on my existing car and was even able to negotiate it up by about $1K.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#258

Post by stephencanon » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

krallja wrote: post #243

stephencanon wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baby on a bike is easy (well, once they're big enough to hold their heads up). Ours (one and five) pretty much want me to take them on the bike everywhere, unless the weather is brutally wet or cold ( When the weather's sufficiently bad, we take the BMW with heated seats instead =)

> once they're big enough to hold their heads up I don’t think this happens before mom and baby are discharged from the hospital, so it is not relevant to the discussion.

Clearly I was taking a longer term view of the phrase "after that happens".

That said: my wife and her mother _did_ ride home on the back of her father's bicycle after she was born (in 1980s China).

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#259

Post by mywittyname » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

altdataseller wrote: post #240

johnwalkr wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of true but also not as true as it was pre-COVID. Used car prices skyrocketed during COVID to the point that people are selling their 2-3 year old cars for more than current new MSRP. And a 10 year old Corolla is often more than $10k. Prices are just now starting to come back down, but probably not to pre-COVID prices.

Used cars are now just $3k USD more than new cars, on average. There should be absolutely no reason to buy a used car anymore. I feel like I'm living in a bizarro world b/c everyone seems to claim buying a used car is the much better financial decision. It isn't for me, by a long margin.

There honestly hasn't been much reason to buy a new car since the GFC. It's really felt like new cars were subsidized because they were necessary to create used cars. With the last several cars I bought, or tried to buy, the negotiation ended up with the new car price being the same, or lower than 1-2 year old models with the same options.

I feel like most used car buyers look at inflated MSRP and judge the "discount" for the used car based on that. They don't factor in the sometimes massive discounts (pre COVID, of course) that practically every new car would have. So a used 2018 model looks $3k cheaper than an identical new 2019, but the 2019 has $4k on the hood, plus better financing, lower miles, and better legal protections (lemon law). Granted, "certified pre-owned" cars often come with better sounding warranties than new ones, but I'm sure there are some fine print details that make them worse than the factory one.

Granted, the post-covid market is all kinds of skewed.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#260

Post by bengale » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:04 PM UTC

wodenokoto wrote: post #61

bengale wrote: post #59

I wasn't particularly impressed when I got my new 4 series and had to pay £20 or something like that for auto-highbeams, even if it is a one off. I can sort of understand a subscription for the speed camera data, although its a bit cheap, but for the lights it seemed mad.

20 quid plus minus on the sticker price doesn’t matter at all. 20 quid after the purchase is quite an annoyance. Why didn’t they just add it to the sticker price and everyone would have been happier.

Yeah that was my general feeling. I'm paying upwards of £40k for the car and the first day I press a button and get told I can "buy" the feature, not a good experience.