Looks like Adafruit took down the page about 3D printing a working driver bit. Wonder who made that happen :/

I think this is misunderstood - everybody points out that how evil BMW is for trying to be proprietary, then immediately points out any Chinese factory can produce a compatible tool for pennies - which one is it?

I think this is a pretty good mechanical design in general because:

- large contact surface (like hex or torx)

- no chance of slide-out (like flathead) or torque-out (like Philips)

- you can use a different size screw bit than the screw, and it wont slide around, or destroy your nut like torx does with hex

Seems to be in line with BMW's enshitification moves they've made regarding Home Assistant. I actually have an X5 that was affected by this & it will be the last BMW I ever own.

https://alerts.home-assistant.io/alerts/bmw_connected_drive/

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1n8tidg/bmw_...

Wouldn't circumventing trademark lockouts like this be fair use under "Sega v. Accolade"[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade

I have heard about these screws, but it isn't a reach to hand make a bit that would turn these all day, that said, I am done with screens and capacitive switches in cars and will be doing retro mods to a few nice clasics for my own use, one that only beeps when you push the giant button just for that.

You will be able to buy a "BMW screwdriver" from China in a couple of weeks. This prevents nothing, it's just annoying and goes to show that BMW is run by dickheads (in case you didn't know yet).

Apple's "pentalobe" screws tell you the same about that company.

Who cares about bmw except gangsters and narcissistic psychopaths these days anyway?

The quicker they bury themselves the better for everyone, more market space will remain for good car manufacturers

This patent came from the design department. Some dude looked at the logo and said, “Huh, we could make a screw from this.” The legal team then took it and made a design patent.

If you guys want, I can message him and ask about the grand conspiracy behind it but you might be disappointed.

I rent cars 300 days a year, for work. Generally I don’t have high expectations.

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.

Now I’m curious, are there any manufacturers still making repairable cars?