In effect, the manufacturer can only deny warranty claims for a specific part iff the consumer's aftermarket repair/modifications were responsible for the warrantied part failing. i.e. "I tinted the windows, and now the brakes are failing" does not result in warranty claims on the brakes being denied. However, "I replaced the brake pads [with faulty pads], and now the brake rotors are failing" can result in a denied warranty claim.
While I appreciate the sentiment there, that seems like its ripe for protracted litigation (which will never benefit the consumer).
Plus, in a connected car situation, its going to be very difficult to prove that one thing didn't cause another.
Because you rooted the media control system, your unapproved software had the ability to speak to the brake control system and apply more-than-designed force to the brakes and thereby caused this damage.
Could you be forced into proving a negative?
That said, I think most of these things happen in the context of class action suits. In a class action, its going to be hard to blame or exclude the 1% of the class that has rooted their car.
Not sure why you are being downvoted, you present a valid point.
The trouble is that with mechanical parts it is usually very easy to see connections between elements - not so in digital world. I think the direction the car makers should take is to develop "microservices" with strict APIs, strict access lists and a guardian which double-checks if some requested operation really makes sense. That way if you root a media center you can't mess with the engine from there.
EDIT: I see from other comments that Tesla apparently does something similar. Too bad it's not standardized and open, but at least approach is right...
