If BMW truly wants to innovate, they should work on fixing their turn signals. They must always be in a state of disrepair, because I rarely see a BMW driver use them....
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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Apparently it's by subscription only...
If you can afford a BMW in the first place, you can afford the blinker fluid subscription....
BMW turn signals are only decals.
BMW drivers use blinkers to signal other brands to clear the left lane of the Autobahn for them.
I like to fix or upgrade people's PCs here and there. I always tell people not to buy HP. There are 100 reasons, but one big one is they won't just use regular fucking screws.
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Because this head prioritizes branding over utility, neither the bit nor the screw head can withstand the torque of a standard Torx or Hex fastener. The result? Broken bits, stripped screws, and more time spent on what would otherwise be a simple task.
Ugh.
That was my first thought as well. I love torx bolts. I worked on BMWs professionally for a few years and never in all that time did I ever strip a torx bolt. Not even 1.
Of course, the engine bolts themselves snapped frequently without even touching them due to galvanic reaction to the magnesium block, and the much weaker in general aluminum bolts, but that's a different problem.
Have they actually used it anywhere or just have the patent? Because I expect they won't actually use it anywhere, like with Sony's (IIRC) patent where you have to shout "McDonald's!" after watching an ad. Though I wouldn't be too surprised if they actually use it
That's what's often missing from stories about patents: big companies churn out patents in case they ever need to use them in patent warfare against competitors. For the sole reason that the competitors are doing the same thing.
However, I doubt it that BMW would ever have a chance to use this particular patent on a competitor.
Most of these employera pay employees a couple thousand dollar bonus for any patw t they get out there successfully, with zero limitations on actually implementing the patent.
It's not like it's going to prevent people from working on their cars, either. It's probably just for decorative purposes.
Innovation under capitalism will always benefit capital. Any benefit to consumers is incidental.
I think they just patented it because the system rewards patent trolls with thousands of patents, even if they have no intention to ever use said patent.
This is unpractical and will cost them more (replace all the tooling, rethink supply chain) than it will supposedly make them (rich customers would go to official repairs anyway, and poor customers will just get a copy from aliexpress)
If you didn't already know bmw had lost their design edge, you clearly haven't seen the XM or their ugly ass plastic grills on electric vehicles that don't even need grills.
I guess though I could see these being a novelty security feature for hubcaps that you don't want to be removed too easily. Beyond that it's just hostile and or dumb.
Idgaf about car design in general, but I definitely noticed when beamers started to look like Angry Birds pigs, they look sooo stupid.
BMW pinned so much of their visual identity on their kidney grilles. Literally decades of variations on the theme, mainly just getting bigger and bigger. And now grilles are completely redundant with ev's and BMW hasn't got a clue what to do about it. The lack of foresight and imagination is stunning.
I wouldn't even mind if the fake grills looked decent, but they are just ugly. They seem to be thrashing around with what to do trying all sorts of ugly things.
a novelty security feature for hubcaps that you don’t want to be removed too easily
If this picks up, the people you'd want to not be able to remove these too easily will be the first to have the adequate tools to remove them easily.
Just take out your rotary tool, grind a notch into a bit, et voila! You have a tool for your BMW.
Or grind a slot in the screw and you can use a flat head screwdriver.
Be sure to upload the process and tag BMW with a FU.
I'd buy 20 knockoff security bits before ever intentionally adding a flat head screw to a car
It's just so that you can take it out and replace it with a standard one.
Spite is the only reason I would.
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Oh no. Another reason to not buy a BMW.
Didn't R2D2 have one of these?
I went looking for a screenshot of that scene but got distracted by all the shop-vacs painted as R2D2. Off to buy white and blue paint.
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I mean, yeah, it does look kinda cool. Not sure why they think that all I do all day is stare at screws, but that's just me.
"Hey mate, got a new car today"
"Wow, that's awesome. How does it drive?"
"Dunno, I just bought it to look at the screws. Look, they're shaped like the BMW logo!"
This is what happens when leadership now chase stock price over value to customer.
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I see they're taking notes from Apple.
That's shitty.