The "fix" is free to the AM dealers. But I've seen them charge hundreds of pounds to get rid of the rogue coding that makes the car undriveable. Owners pay up, not releasing that this is not a firmware upgrade, but just a return to normal service..Sadly, AM Lagonda have gone too far down the "brute" road, whilst ignoring the "suit" option, by not unilaterally issuing a recall notice that would guarantee the necessary repair work is done gratis...No wonder AML share price has crashed -95% since coming to market in 2019... They somehow think that screwing owners will lead to a miraculous recovery in their fortunes...Add this to the fact that you're basically going to lose 50% of your hard earned money when you buy a new AM car within 3 years and just a few thousand driving miles,.. I was considering getting the new Vantage, but seeing how they treat customers - and the fact that all the info-tech in this vehicle is made inhouse - and subject to the same malware issues, I'm probably going to go with a Roma.

 

So, what's your next step? If you have already consulted an attorney, what does he/she advise about the feasibility of a civil suit against AM?
I'm no attorney but it seems to me that your (our) complaints would be difficult to prove in Court....
Thoughts?

 

The case is actually quite straight forward (as borne out by my correspondence with the company): AM conspired to defraud its customers by telling them that they need a firmware upgrade – when in fact, what they are doing is killing malware that they themselves wrote into their infotainment systems.



The key point to note is that nothing has broken on the cars in question (which seem to number in the hundreds if not thousands). Unlike when a clutch bearing wears out through usage, the aforementioned rogue program is identical in every respect to the very day when a new vehicle was delivered to a customer.

As such, they knowingly supplied a faulty car that, had the malware been set to activate at 5 DAB stations not 20, would have caused the current issue to reveal itself in the first year – and thus still be under full warranty.



The only difficulty is then proving that, by AML not doing the honourable thing and announcing a recall free of charge, they conspired with dealerships to charge an “installation fee” to correct this sorry state of affairs – as a means to generate revenue to help compensate the latter for the high cost of licencing AML diagnostic tools…



I have contacted a few online auto influencers – hoping that by bringing attention to this discriminatory practise, AML will come to their senses and stop screwing-over their long suffering customers… But, the sad reality is, youtubers who rock the reputation-boat suddenly find themselves out of the loop when it comes to being invited to new model launches, track days etc.. And are thus unwilling to say anything that might offend their overlords



My hope is that enough owners push back against AML, either by contacting their own dealerships or directly the head office, so as to make management aware that their first responsibility is to ensure that current customers feel respected and appreciated – not conned and misled…



Relative to the enormous amounts of money thrown at vanity projects such as Valkyrie & F1 (which do almost nothing to get a new prospective buyer to turn their back on the Porsche and Ferrari stable of super cars in favour of a much more expensive, often inferior performing AM), doing the right thing by us costs almost nothing…

 

Thanks for your detailed explanation --- what Model Yrs/Models are you focused on?

 

As far as I can see, the vehicles that potentially have this malware installed range from DB9's to the last true AM Vantage built in 2016 (mine is the N430 variant of that year).

 

To the best of my knowledge DAB radio stations do not exist in the US so this should not affect US owners. If you are in the US and you are experiencing this problem it may be related to something else.

__PRESENT