Let me introduce you to our good 'friend' Control Module.

*friends, my 435i has something like 30 ECUs

But people still do find defeats for most of those. The reality is BMW doesn't care because the average person won't bother with any of that and will just pay.

I'm not sure the average person drives a BMW. I don't know, maybe if you can afford to drive a BMW, you don't mind having to rent something you already bought. I have a feeling that if Honda or Toyota pulled this shit, nobody would buy the models that had it.

Renting things like heated seats? It feels bizarre to even have to discuss such a dystopically stupid idea.

It is a silly idea 100%. However, I think BMW knows its customer here. I like to chat up the repair people sometimes. The one conversations that stuck with me for years after bringing in my older BMW. "oh wow have not seen one of these in awhile" (it was 8 years old at that point). "huh, what do you mean?" "oh most of what we deal with in here is lease". A lease is pretty much subscribing to a car service with terrible financial terms.

There are plenty of people out there that make decent money but are bad at managing it.

well, terrible is a relative term, maybe they make so much they don't care.

Everyone buying iPhone knows it's not a financially optimal decision

Where to begin...

First off, saying "the average person would do X" is a hypothetical. It doesn't mean they're in that situation: "If given choice between modifying car and paying money, will pay money"

Second, the article is about BMW, so even if you missed that it'd still be pretty easy to infer an average person amongst their customers...

Third, what's with the weird dig against people for owning BMWs. Different people can want different things... and there's a reason Toyota's halo sports car is rolling around with a BMW powerplant.

Fourth, Toyota started this is 5 years ago by paywalling remote start not just with the app, but with your normal physical key fob: https://ktvo.com/news/auto-matters/costs-associated-with-ent...

They even doubled down and removed the physical button on newer models!: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/toyota-remote-start-digit...

Is the control module built into the heating pads themselves?

I fail to see how it matters, really. Heating is generally pretty straight forward. Apply current, get heat. Bypass the module altogether and stick something else in its place?

Absolutely, seat warmers are typically nothing more than a resistive grid under the fabric. A quick check for how power's supplied in case there's a requirement for current control, and wire in a physical switch.

Unless there's something snuck in that throws codes if the seat heater does something unexpected - wouldn't that be something, DRM for Bimmer bun warmers. In which case if it's not possible to fool the system by wiring in a resistor instead, then it's a car to avoid as seat warmers are rather prone to broken traces over time from occupants bouncing and shuffling around on the seats, which could render the car unregisterable in regions that check OBD codes.

I had a BMW i3 2017. Last year one of the front turn signal lights broke. So I went to the shop to ask for a replacement bulb.

There I learned you can't just replace the bulb, no. The whole light module had to be replaced, $350 + work.

These things are getting ridiculously integrated. Wouldn't surprise me if the seat heaters had some integrated temperature controller unit just because.