51–60 of 79 posts
Right now I’m driving a BMW IX2 and it’s the stupidest fucking car I ever drove.
I had booked a Polestar 2, which Hertz unfortunately didn’t have available. Great car, that one.
If you guys want, I can message him and ask about the grand conspiracy behind it but you might be disappointed.
Correct bit for screwdriver available on AliExpress 5 minutes after the bolt is available for public.
And that would violate both BMWs Trademark and Patent, which at least in Switzerland could mean having to pay BMW damages and get fined for importing counterfeit goods.
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Why not? A properly set up CNC machining center would turn those out by the bucketload. That's precisely the sort of thing that BMW does regularly with exterior details, no reason why they couldn't do it for a batch of bolts.
You don't use CNC for making a billion individual screws. These would have their heads formed by being stamped in a die, just like phillips, robertson, security torx or any other screw heads.
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Why not? A properly set up CNC machining center would turn those out by the bucketload. That's precisely the sort of thing that BMW does regularly with exterior details, no reason why they couldn't do it for a batch of bolts.
You can make anything on anything. Doesn't make it smart tho. If this were a production run of a few dozen super high grade aerospace donkey dicks with five shoulders and four pockets, an oil channel, a precisely engineered break point and a 12-step heat treat process I'd say yeah, make it on your Swiss lathe with live tooling or bajillion axis VMC or whatever. But this looks to be a simple small, probably cosmetic o…
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A friend of mine used to buy the first model of any new and hot BMW. He'd know the specs better than the sales people and he spent a fortune on them. They also spent more time in the shop with electrical gremlins than any car that I've ever seen. One of our employees insisted on a Mini, which is also BMW as their lease car. No other car we had had that much trouble. BMW is a crap brand that used to make very good car…
> Neither of these will survive in the longer term German government will do everything possible to prevent these companies from failing, no matter how bad the situation gets. This means that current management can simply apply the "next quarter" strategy without any realistic downside.
Helps to keep house prices up
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You can make anything on anything. Doesn't make it smart tho. If this were a production run of a few dozen super high grade aerospace donkey dicks with five shoulders and four pockets, an oil channel, a precisely engineered break point and a 12-step heat treat process I'd say yeah, make it on your Swiss lathe with live tooling or bajillion axis VMC or whatever. But this looks to be a simple small, probably cosmetic o…
I know how just about every fastener is made. I also know how to look for toolmarks on the work product and I guarantee you that the bolt in TFA was made by machining rather than by stamping. Because this is a marketing instrument, not just a fastener.
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good thing that it would be a chinese copy, and thus, not subject to switzerland law. So i wonder if chinese law recognize this patent/trademark for a screw?
Their point is that there's a possibility that Swiss customs fines them and confiscates the "counterfeit."
Reminds me of the 2-hole "snake eye" or "pig nose" screw heads you sometimes see in bathrooms or elevators. I have several of the bits for these since they come with every one of those n>20 -piece screwdriver bit sets, but I've never actually had to undo one. I guess that goes for most of the oddball bits those sets come with. If they really wanted to screw (pun, sorry) with repairability (and at significant cost to…
BMW resale values make it very clear: these cars are actively hostile (in many many ways) to their owners the second they go out of warranty. Pity, their interiors are lovely. In the long term, is this strategy going to work out for them? I won't buy another one. I know... anecdata :)
BMW used to be extremely good and very repairable/upgradeable. They have clearly lost their way. Seems like a fundamental loss of confidence in their ability to produce leading technology, and instead feeling like they must defensively focus on blocking and extracting maximum funds from customers, both with costly "authorized-only" repairs and subscriptions for heated seats. Sad
(My E39 M5 was one of the last user-repairable BMWs, but it's getting very expensive. On the other hand, it's driving a significant market for regular people designing and building replacement parts, whether 3D-printed, CNC'd, or homemade)