Just as a side note: According to the patent application, BMW plans to use this special screw for parts of the vehicle that are not for regular service, e.g. airbags and seat mountings.
Examples include seat attachment points and joints between the cockpit and the load-bearing structure of the body.
These are IMO not the kind of screws you need to use to carry out regular maintainance or repair tasks.
I can see closing up non-serviceable components like an airbag module or ECU, like in place of rivets or potting, as it can make forensics easier in a failure. But, people swap out car seats all the time, and even sometimes the steering wheel too.
Also, for the first 5 or 10 years. No. You may not normally need to touch those parts, but as the car ages and wears, those parts may need to get swapped or removed to get at the failing part. (Similar to how you need to pull the entire engine just to change the water pump on some Toyotas)
Just because the parts aren’t on the roster of regular maintenance, doesn’t mean that an experienced DIYer wouldn’t want to swap the part themselves for whatever reason somewhere down the road.
Sure, and any experienced DIYer is gonna be able to get the right $5 bit from any of the random bootleg company that makes them. This isn’t a true security bit (it doesn’t require destructive methods to open once installed) its at best just tamper resistant, which is fine and completely normal to use on critical parts (my Subaru needs security torx to access the airbags, for example)
Just as a side note: According to the patent application, BMW plans to use this special screw for parts of the vehicle that are not for regular service, e.g. airbags and seat mountings.
These are IMO not the kind of screws you need to use to carry out regular maintainance or repair tasks.
I can see closing up non-serviceable components like an airbag module or ECU, like in place of rivets or potting, as it can make forensics easier in a failure. But, people swap out car seats all the time, and even sometimes the steering wheel too.
Also, for the first 5 or 10 years. No. You may not normally need to touch those parts, but as the car ages and wears, those parts may need to get swapped or removed to get at the failing part. (Similar to how you need to pull the entire engine just to change the water pump on some Toyotas)
Just because the parts aren’t on the roster of regular maintenance, doesn’t mean that an experienced DIYer wouldn’t want to swap the part themselves for whatever reason somewhere down the road.
Sure, and any experienced DIYer is gonna be able to get the right $5 bit from any of the random bootleg company that makes them. This isn’t a true security bit (it doesn’t require destructive methods to open once installed) its at best just tamper resistant, which is fine and completely normal to use on critical parts (my Subaru needs security torx to access the airbags, for example)