Support the REPAIR Act

[PMitchell08]

A bill titled the "Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair (REPAIR) Act" has been proposed in the US house of representatives with six republican and six democratic co-sponsors. It requires vehicle manufacturers to make service information available to consumers and 3rd-party service and repair businesses.

The full text of the bill is here:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6570/text

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Below is my letter to my representative and senators, you are welcomed to use it or draft your own.

I am writing to encourage your support of the right to repair, and specifically the REPAIR Act, H.R. 6570, introduced by Rep. Bobby L. Rush on 02/03/2022, and the Fair Repair Act, S.3830, introduced by Sen. Ben Ray Lujan 03/14/2022. These bills will help middle and working class consumers in vehicle-dependent areas to manage commuting costs in a time of high inflation, high fuel prices, and economic uncertainty. Making maintenance and repair procedures accessible to consumers and independent repair and service shops will make vehicles safer, more reliable, and more fuel efficient with cleaner emissions. This will help small businesses in the automotive repair industry to remain competitive with large manufacturer-supported service departments. This will also help manufacturers to profit from service documentation that has already been produced. Guaranteed availability of repair information will boost consumer confidence in new and emerging technologies, thus accelerating the adoption of cleaner and safer vehicles. These bills are truly non-partisan and will make a positive impact on the lives of all of your constituents. Thank you for your time and consideration, I hope you will support these and other bills that protect the right to repair.

 

[sgtsandman]

Reading through the bill, I’m at a loss at to what this bill is addressing.

Maintenance information and access to vehicle generated data is already available. Is this bill wanting all this to be provided for free?

Aftermarket parts and getting your vehicle serviced at an independent garage are already available. Are they wanting the vehicle warranty to cover this?

If your vehicle is under warranty, dealer determined parts and service are dictated by the warranty but the option to get work done elsewhere and using aftermarket parts are available outside of warranty coverage at the customer’s cost. Expecting the vehicle warranty to cover work and parts by an independent shop is unreasonable. You want the costs covered, go to the dealer or a manufacturer approved facility and expect OEM parts to be used.

 

[bilbo]

I haven't read the actual bill yet, but I believe a big component when they were initially working toward creating this bill was to make software available to consumers and independent repair shops. The complaint was that proprietary software was either unavailable or expensive enough it may as well be unavailable so consumers were forced to use dealerships for service. Autos were only a small portion, it was also geared toward ag and commercial vehicles and equipment. This is a big thing with Deere.

Again, I haven't read the actual bill yet. I'm hopeful the original intent made it through to the actual written bill, but that's not usually the case.

 

[sgtsandman]

I have heard that about John Deer.

People have mentioned being able to access and work on their systems in new Fords with forscan. OEM service manuals are also available.

But if this is addressing more than road vehicles, I can see the logic behind it.

 

[fastpakr]

Electrics might be a big component to it also. Tesla in particular has worked hard to make their stuff proprietary. Hopefully other manufacturers won't follow that lead.

 

[Roert42]

OEM service manuals are also available.

It looks like ford does still sell a hard copy of the wiring diagrams, and a CD with electronic copies of everything else. Not all auto manufactures make it that easy.

I know Subaru makes it extremely difficult to get a copy. They don't sell copies. You can only get access online, and it's subscription based. You can download the manual from the online portal, but the way the portal is designed you can only download one page at a time.

My stack of manuals for my 2011 ranger is at least a foot tall. Needing to download something like that, one page at a time, and paying them for the pleasure is obscene.

 

[sgtsandman]

It looks like ford does still sell a hard copy of the wiring diagrams, and a CD with electronic copies of everything else. Not all auto manufactures make it that easy.

I know Subaru makes it extremely difficult to get a copy. They don't sell copies. You can only get access online, and it's subscription based. You can download the manual from the online portal, but the way the portal is designed you can only download one page at a time.

My stack of manuals for my 2011 ranger is at least a foot tall. Needing to download something like that, one page at a time, and paying them for the pleasure is obscene.

I have the same manuals. They are quite big. I still prefer them over CD/DVD manual I have for the 2019.

In any case, you might be right and I might have been lucky. The only other vehicles I’ve had OEM manuals for is Hondas and Nissan. I did have to get creative with Nissan but I did get a manual.

 

[PMitchell08]

I apologize for all of the confusion, I realize now that I didn't provide sufficient background. I made a bad assumption that the issues surrounding the right to repair and some manufacturers' moves to undermine the right to repair were pretty well-known in most forums.

Maintenance information and access to vehicle generated data is already available. Is this bill wanting all this to be provided for free?

On rangers, yes it is all available, on some newer vehicles, it is not. No, the bill does not require anything to be provided for free. For manufacturers who make this data available, they will not have to make any changes.

Aftermarket parts and getting your vehicle serviced at an independent garage are already available. Are they wanting the vehicle warranty to cover this?

Again, for Rangers, sure this is available, for all new vehicles, no. There are some brands that make it very difficult to access basic service information like torque specs. This would require that service information be made available to independent shops, 3rd party parts manufacturers, and vehicle owners.

If your vehicle is under warranty, dealer determined parts and service are dictated by the warranty but the option to get work done elsewhere and using aftermarket parts are available outside of warranty coverage at the customer’s cost. Expecting the vehicle warranty to cover work and parts by an independent shop is unreasonable. You want the costs covered, go to the dealer or a manufacturer approved facility and expect OEM parts to be used.

Again, this is not what the bill addresses at all, it's hard to tell where you're getting this idea from. There is no requirement for allowing 3rd party shops to do warranty work, that wouldn't make any sense.

I have heard that about John Deer.

People have mentioned being able to access and work on their systems in new Fords with forscan. OEM service manuals are also available.

But if this is addressing more than road vehicles, I can see the logic behind it.

The problem with John Deere is present in road vehicles as well, manufacturers and dealers are becoming increasingly protective of their service information for late-model vehicles. For example, BMW Motorrad recently stopped offering any type of service manual, digital or otherwise, for any of their new models released after 2019. They require a valve clearance check three times during the warranty period, but only the dealer can do that check because they won't publish the specs for the valve clearance, or for the torque of all of the fasteners needed to do the service. The valve clearance check costs $850 each time (that's a quote from last year, probably more now) on a vehicle that costs $8995 new, and if you don't have it done, your warranty is void. When I bought the motorcycle, I specifically asked about buying a service manual with it, the salesperson told me it was usually six months to a year after a new model came out that they started selling their service DVD for it, and that I would likely be able to buy one before my first service. Instead, they quietly stopped selling what was previously offered for existing models, and never published anything on their new models. While most car manufacturers aren't doing this yet, they are all well within their rights to. That is the problem this bill is addressing.

Electrics might be a big component to it also. Tesla in particular has worked hard to make their stuff proprietary. Hopefully other manufacturers won't follow that lead.

Yes, some people are concerned about electric vehicles because service information on many of them is very hard to get, which has made some people believe that it's not possible to work on them.

It looks like ford does still sell a hard copy of the wiring diagrams, and a CD with electronic copies of everything else. Not all auto manufactures make it that easy.

I know Subaru makes it extremely difficult to get a copy. They don't sell copies. You can only get access online, and it's subscription based. You can download the manual from the online portal, but the way the portal is designed you can only download one page at a time.

My stack of manuals for my 2011 ranger is at least a foot tall. Needing to download something like that, one page at a time, and paying them for the pleasure is obscene.

I have the Haynes and Clymer manuals for my Rangers, they have been invaluable to me over the years. I agree the electronic subscription model is bad, but it's infinitely better than having the entire manual be a guarded secret and just hoping that what everyone on the forum says they heard from their dealer is correct, that's the situation I'm in right now with my 2021 BMW motorcycle. I realize this is a Ranger-specific forum and this isn't currently a problem for Rangers, but most forum members are enthusiasts of more than one type of vehicle, and most do like to be able to do their own service and repairs when needed. This bill isn't asking for anything extreme or misguided, it's just requiring that service information that is already documented by the manufacturer be made available in some way to others who want to see it, which is the way things have been done without a second thought for all of automotive history until very recently.

Hopefully this helps to clarify what is going on and why I think it's worthy of your attention. If you're not interested in writing to support this, I understand, but if having access to service information is important to you, I wouldn't take it for granted that you always will.

 

[sgtsandman]

@PMitchell08 thank you for the clarification. It has not been an issue here but people own more than Ford Rangers here. So it is a concern, even if not a direct one.

The information is appreciated and sorry if the questioning seemed to rough. Brand new people posting things somewhat out of the realm of standard topics tends to be viewed with a bit of skepticism, especially when it involves politics.

Your patience is appreciated.

 

[PMitchell08]

Thanks for the reply, I completely understand the raised eyebrows. I'm not an activist or keyboard crusader, but I can see how it might look that way with a post like this in a mostly technical forum.

I am not a frequent poster at TRS simply because in the 12 years I've been a member, everything I've needed has already been asked and answered, requiring only some lurking and searching from my end. I am much more active on forums for my less-common vehicles where I have more questions to ask and more answers to contribute.

I try to never bring 'politics' to any forum, but I thought this specific bill was particularly relevant to the interests of this group, is truly non-partisan, and likely won't get much attention elsewhere. I don't think it's a particularly contentious issue, except maybe in the eyes of protectionist dealer-group lobbyists who see enthusiast groups and independent repair shops as threatening to highly profitable dealership service departments. I could see it being argued that it could be a burden on manufacturers, but realistically they all have service documentation, the only burden this adds is that they can't hide it from paying customers or competing shops, which was never a problem in the past. I hope the community here finds this information of some value.

 

[1990RangerinSK]

I'm sorry, but I cannot support this.

 

[KevinSonOfDad]

I haven't read the actual bill yet, but I believe a big component when they were initially working toward creating this bill was to make software available to consumers and independent repair shops. The complaint was that proprietary software was either unavailable or expensive enough it may as well be unavailable so consumers were forced to use dealerships for service. Autos were only a small portion, it was also geared toward ag and commercial vehicles and equipment. This is a big thing with Deere.

Again, I haven't read the actual bill yet. I'm hopeful the original intent made it through to the actual written bill, but that's not usually the case.

my understanding is the goal is to put the bill into place so that those rights are guaranteed in the future

 

[pjtoledo]

I've been hearing about the repair act for some time now.
I think it's needed.

having been on both sides of the issue, as a consumer and a manufacturer trained & employed technician, I see no legitimate reason for a manufacturer to deny anybody the
ability to purchsase/obtain the information or products needed to service my stuff.

 

[superj]

i filled out the deal and sent it in support. i think everyone should be able to access info to work on their own stuff

 

[97RangerXLT]

I'm sorry, but I cannot support this.

Well forward this bill to your representative and ask them: "do you want America to be one up on Canada? Make this happen!"

AJ