But if you still want to use a 3rd party tool you pay $100 a year for an autoauth subscription that supports all tools an independent shop could possible have among all their employees. That effectively allows the 3rd party tools to request FCA unlock the SGM so they can program the car directly with aftermarket tools. And if you just don't want to deal with chrysler or care if nefarious actors can potentially hijack and program your car over a cellular connection. You can replace the SGM with a bypass and even ditch the cellular connection. Or you can add another OBD port for yourself by plugging in at the star port. Or use something like the 8+12 method.
So its not like John Deer or Tesla where you can't do anything. Its more like if you owned an Apple computer and Apple allowed you to purchase their software to work with it. And did so at a very reasonable price (comparatively) any independent shop could afford. But also allowed you to register with a auth service that allows you to disable all the stuff blocking you from doing things with 3rd party software.
If we're going to go down this road of cellular vehicles I really hope FCA being out there ahead of others rubs off on how other manufacturers handle it. I think its a pretty good engineering design to address modern concerns as well as support independent shops by extending access to their tools to work with. You don't have to worry if Autel or Snap-On understood something well enough to program the various modules correctly. But you can still go that route if desired.
Plus you only get those subscription services for as long as FCA decides they want to sell them to you. Will they still offer that 10 years from now? 20? Consider me extremely skeptical.
WiTECH isn't entirely brand new here. This release (WiTECH 2.0) is a continuation of WiTech 1.0 (installed software) that has existed for decades with full support for all OBD2 model years up to 2017. v2.0 is all web based so you can print off whatever you feel is important while you have an active subscription.
You can still get a haynes, chilton, etc manual but I feel we're comparing apples to oranges there. Those sorts of things are not shop manuals + dealer tools even on a 30 year old car. I'm pointing out that the dealer tools are starting to be within grasp of a shade tree mechanic and they're letting YOU service the modules. You don't have to settle for a reverse engineered manual based on a teardown or 3rd party tools. But they aren't stopping you from using those either. I appreciate it with how computerized cars are getting. Who else lets aftermarket flash modules with OEM firmware updates? This is the exact opposite direction tesla has been going in.
All that said. I very much respect a carbureted vehicle that only needs a dull spark on 6 out of 8 cyls to get you down the road. No question about it.
