Physically disabling WAN can be a workaround, assuming is can be done and reverse without damage. But it’s not a good solution.
Manufacturers have ways to degrade experience/features when the owner physically disable WAN: deny features and security updates (by doing OTA updates only), drag their feet or void warranty if WAN is disabled, design some features to be unnecessarily dependant on some cloud/online services (eg navigation, media features, …).
They cannot void your warranty over that, maybe for the computer you modified but the Magnuson Moss warranty act means they have to honor the warranty unless they can prove your modifications caused the damage.
Also, who cares if it gets updates? It will continue to work as it did from the factory indefinitely. Security updates aren’t necessary if the car isn’t connected to the internet and those updates cant change how the immobilizer/keys work anyways.
Things can suddenly or progressively break after a while if a system gets too far behind regarding updates.
A few plausible examples:
The navigation system can send you to non-existing road if it doesn’t know about recent major roadworks. Or give you old/bad speed limit and cause you to get a ticket.
The GPS receiver may fail to obtain a location if satellite orbit or other parameters shifted too much since the last update (happened to me once after several years).
A bug may manifest itself only after a while or a given date (similar to y2k) and break some features.
A vulnerability may be discovered, which make cars that aren’t updated easy to steal as knowledge of the vulnerability spread
Physically disabling WAN can be a workaround, assuming is can be done and reverse without damage. But it’s not a good solution.
Manufacturers have ways to degrade experience/features when the owner physically disable WAN: deny features and security updates (by doing OTA updates only), drag their feet or void warranty if WAN is disabled, design some features to be unnecessarily dependant on some cloud/online services (eg navigation, media features, …).
They cannot void your warranty over that, maybe for the computer you modified but the Magnuson Moss warranty act means they have to honor the warranty unless they can prove your modifications caused the damage.
Also, who cares if it gets updates? It will continue to work as it did from the factory indefinitely. Security updates aren’t necessary if the car isn’t connected to the internet and those updates cant change how the immobilizer/keys work anyways.
Things can suddenly or progressively break after a while if a system gets too far behind regarding updates.
A few plausible examples: