A while back, BMW caught a lot of heat for wanting to charge a subscription fee for owners to use the seat heaters that were already installed in their cars.
As the push for charging “subscription fees” resurges, this article goes a bit more in to depth. Seems that BMW, and other automakers, are figuring out that it is cheaper to build features into every car they make. But, they don’t want the customer to share in that cost savings. So, customers are supposed to pay a fee, for the life of the car, to use a feature that was standard equipment, in the car they already paid for.
Steve…old phart, remembers when a heater was “optional equipment”