Latest grab by auto manufactures

[rontaki]

As for the maps with/without GPS or cell reception issue -
I have Here Maps now (Here WeGo) loaded on my Android, and due to large SD card I have the entire United States and Canada maps downloaded. On a trip to Calgary, with absulutely no cellular reception available, I was able to navigate just fine with those maps and GPS.

I also have Avenza maps installed, there are some free maps of forest roads, and many other areas. I also have their California Atlas and Gazetteer (DeLorme) loaded, inexpensive!

There are other mapping apps as well. All you need is to have the maps already on your device, and GPS.
Granted, there are some really nice advantages to large printed maps, I use them both.

Edited to add - phones use both GPS and cell tower triangulation, and often known WiFi signals too.
You'd better believe phones have GPS and other location methods built-in. How else can you be physically tracked? I'm serious.

 

[paulfun9]

I am able to purchase said headlight switch for 19.99.
I don't think your theory holds water as much as you would like!

Janet

 

[MossRoad]

Yea, you’re lost.
My original response was to post 313. I’m not sure all phones have GPS built in. If you don’t, I was pointing out phones can use cell location data also to determine location. But without either you’re sol

without data, unless you have map pre downloaded, you might end up with a blank map page.
I had it happen to me last fall hiking in VA GPS doesn’t work well under tree cover. Even my portable garmin doesn’t do well under trees.

Whenever we go hiking, I find a trail map online before we go, and take a picture (or two if the trail is long) of it, just in case. Also, at the trailheads, there’s often a large map on a kiosk, so we take a picture of that as well. We usually don’t need it, but it’s handy to have.

Most phones today have GPS included.

 

[MossRoad]

Well then there is your problem, if my husband can install fog lights, all the wireing and the switch for less than ford can install just the switch, maybe they are making some bad choices financially and that doesn’t mean they should subsidize that cost by forcing me to pay 178.99 for the upgraded switch that I don’t want or need.

So the next thing you will try and convince me is they can have all the wires and the fog lights present on the car, not working for the same cost as not having them at all?

I can’t say if your numbers add up factually or not, but I assure you if I worked at Ford the bean counter who is saying 78.99 is ok for a light switch, would be fired.

Janet

It costs more in the long run for the car company to have different wiring harnesses for different option levels VS just using the same harness in every vehicle. First, the harnesses are usually made by a supplier, not the car company. The supplier would have to have several different lines for the several different options. They’d have to keep track of stock, store it, sort it, track it, and make sure the labor is assembling the correct amount of harnesses per the order. PER THE ORDER means the car company would have to know how many of which option package they want built in advance. That would require estimation into the future VS just in time manufacturing.

Then once the different option harnesses are delivered to the factory, they have to store them, which requires keeping them separate, and they have to stock them on the assembly line, which would require more space on the line. The car being built would have to be identified as having wiring harness package 1–2-3-etc, and the installer on the line would have to be sure to grab the correct harness.

That’s just the wiring harness.

Think of all the other options on a car.

That’s why they bundle option packages. There’s less tracking involved, less planning, less to screw up in the build process, fewer mistakes = more profit.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Well then there is your problem, if my husband can install fog lights, all the wireing and the switch for less than ford can install just the switch, maybe they are making some bad choices financially and that doesn’t mean they should subsidize that cost by forcing me to pay 178.99 for the upgraded switch that I don’t want or need.

So the next thing you will try and convince me is they can have all the wires and the fog lights present on the car, not working for the same cost as not having them at all?

I can’t say if your numbers add up factually or not, but I assure you if I worked at Ford the bean counter who is saying 78.99 is ok for a light switch, would be fired.

Janet

Woah, I meant it makes sense to put the all option one that is less expensive even though it has all the options. My wording on that part may not have been clear. My bad. $78.99 bad, $9.77 good, even though you don't need all the options.

Funny related story though... I put fog lights and upgraded to auto headlights in my last truck. All the wiring and bracketry were already there and it was all active in the software. It must have been cheaper for the wiring harness to be standardized...

I actually do this directly for a living. I am a bean counter that buys the materials that go into product. Not in the automotive field. There are economics at play that don't make a lot of sense to someone not in the field, I was just offering a glimpse behind the curtain.

Another example from every day life is packaging. "Cardboard" boxes for example. Economics of scale dictate that an hour of run time, give or take, on a folder-gluer machine gives the best ROI on shorter runs. That's because the setup time on the equipment is the largest cost of the cartons for less running time than an hour. That means if I have 3 units that each take 20 min of run time small, medium, and large. I can actually save money by purchasing all cartons at the larger size and designing it to be used for all 3 sizes. Even though there could me much more material, the carton its self will be cheaper.

I understand the thread is about is the subscription service. I don't like that at all.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I’m anti subscription service. I won’t buy software with it, won’t buy car features with it.

How many paid for caller Id from the phone company? Extra for a service that is built into the system. I could care less, I don’t answer my phone anyways. They gotta leave a message, if I recognize the voice I might pick up.

Quite frankly I buy low end cars without the bells and whistles, I don’t want them. When I got my Subaru it had 1 yr free of some service that would find gas stations and give local weather, or something like that. It was awful to use, can’t imagine someone wanting to pay for it. My phone with google maps and waze and gasbuddy outperforms the outdated garbage they stick in the car.

Fog lights I never use. I barely turn on the radio in the car any more. I still drive over 30k miles a year.

 

[mrmikey]

I’m anti subscription service. I won’t buy software with it, won’t buy car features with it.

Ditto here, all a money grab IMHO.
I was going to buy Sketchup as I mess around with it a bit, a hobby more than anything, US$120 for a year subscription not a chance in he77. I would have paid that for a one time purchase but yearly, nope. I agree with paying for new version updates but if you want to update it should be up to you and you should pay. and the old version should still work... but subscription, nada.........M

 

[MossRoad]

One thing about supporting updates to old and legacy software. They are a pain to support. Someone skips 3-4 iterations of updates and it’s 5-10 years down the road. The people that developed it have long changed jobs, retired, or died. It’s hard to justify training and keeping people on the payroll for something that might only be a very small percentage of your customers.

 

[randyjs]

It costs more in the long run for the car company to have different wiring harnesses for different option levels VS just using the same harness in every vehicle. First, the harnesses are usually made by a supplier, not the car company. The supplier would have to have several different lines for the several different options. They’d have to keep track of stock, store it, sort it, track it, and make sure the labor is assembling the correct amount of harnesses per the order. PER THE ORDER means the car company would have to know how many of which option package they want built in advance. That would require estimation into the future VS just in time manufacturing.

Then once the different option harnesses are delivered to the factory, they have to store them, which requires keeping them separate, and they have to stock them on the assembly line, which would require more space on the line. The car being built would have to be identified as having wiring harness package 1–2-3-etc, and the installer on the line would have to be sure to grab the correct harness.

That’s just the wiring harness.

Think of all the other options on a car.

That’s why they bundle option packages. There’s less tracking involved, less planning, less to screw up in the build process, fewer mistakes = more profit.

My brother works for a company that builds instrument panels for a popular SUV, they have about twenty different wiring harnesses for the IP depending what options are on the car. It makes no sense to me to have so many.

 

[MossRoad]

My brother works for a company that builds instrument panels for a popular SUV, they have about twenty different wiring harnesses for the IP depending what options are on the car. It makes no sense to me to have so many.

Me neither. Some do’s and some don’t‘s.