Right to Repair Act Could Help Us All
Generally I think it's unnecessary for the government to intervene in matters of commerce, but there's been a movement growing for some years now which could make a difference in the lives of both do-it-yourself mechanics and those that pay to have a shop do the work. There is a piece of legislation called the Right to Repair Act that has been making waves on both a state and national level. It's basically the automotive version of an open records law.
You see, right now, the auto manufacturers are under no mandate to share information about their cars. They don't have to give independent shops access to things like schematics, tolerances and other details about the car's systems, so they generally don't. The Right to Repair Act would compel automakers to share this information, which would allow shops that aren't affiliated with dealerships to do expert repair work on your car. It would also mean that the info would be published, and then you would have access.
So far, it's been an uphill battle to see any movement on the law. It's biggest hurrah on a federal level came in 2005, but it didn't survive. The good news is that some states have been working on adopting versions of the Act. Currently Oklahoma is looking really good, and other states like New Jersey are on the ball. New activity on a federal level seems promising, but the lobby for the manufacturers and dealers is strong, so who knows whether it will go anywhere. They did announce some official hearings in May of last year and commissioned a study to see where the state of things are at this point in terms of the sharing of information.
If the dealerships were always on the up-and-up, and continually provided excellent, honest service across the board, I wouldn't even be mentioning the proposal. But we all know such is not the case, which is why so many of us are forced to do work ourselves or take our car to a trusted mechanic rather than leave it at the dealer. I'm not in any way trying to imply that dealership service departments are shady (not all of them anyway), but the fact that they hold a monopoly on the juicy information means that they are under no pressure to try very hard. Some do anyway, and we should support any dealership that's run by honest, hard working supporters of their brand of auto.
It's certainly something to look into, and if your state has a lobby, you should probably support it. It's up to you. For more information on the Right to Repair Act, check out RightToRepair.org where you can read all about it.
Comments
Dear Sir, I know there would be some down side to this, but after paying $350. for a front brake job, at Cloverdale Shell in Winston Salem NC, I think it is needed. Why not a web site people could report on rip offs.
Your article conering dealership and trused mechanics hit stuck a cord with me.
I owned a 1995 Ford Escort that my wife mostly drove. We bought new from adealer. It started runing like it was hitting two to three cylinders. Since it only had four it wasn’t doing very well. I took the car to the dealership where we had purchased- after 2.5 hours the service manager came told me that the had ran evry test possible and conluded that three of the fuel injectors were pluged. This was on a Monday. When I asked him what it would cost he quoted me a price of about $500.00. I asked him when he could do the repair; he said he had to order the parts which would take ten days. I said ok. After paying the $79.00 dollars for diagnostics I left. I was working on the road then and decided to drive the car that week- I poured the fuel injecter cleaner everytime I filled up with gas- all to no avail. On Friday as I was on my return trip home- I thought to myself that sometimes it is runing on two, three and four cylindeers so they cant be pluged up therefor it must be a firing problem. The local Auto Parts store, Auto Zone, was only 10 miles further down the road from where I lived so instead of going home I drove there- the car missing all the way.
At Auto Zone i purchased a set on spark plug wires and installed the in the parking, about a 10 min job. I started the car up and immediately knew I had fixed my prblem- needless to say I was furious. The following monday morning I was back in the ford dealership- with the old spark plug wires in my hand. I plopped them down on the service manager desk and asked him if he knew what they were- of course he did. I informed him that they were the problem with my escort. He said he couldn’t understand that- his to mechanic did the work. I said I paid you $79.0 for something didn’t get and would have probally forked pver an additionally $500.0- I want my $79.00 dollars back- no problem he said. I left the dealership figuering it had just been a mistake- maybe!
On wednesday of that week I received a telephone call from the dealership’s parts department- he said: The sparkplug wires you ordered for a 1995 Escort are in! Myseryed solved the dealership was intentionall trying to rep me off. I have not had a car serviced at dealership since. By the way I drove that Escort for serval more years and racked up a 150,00 miles before I got rid of it.
I think it’s rediculous that this information isn’t granted to an owner upon the purchase of a vehicle. You pay how many thousands of dollars and all you get is a little booklet that tells you when to use park and when to use drive. Maybe the manufacturers don’t need to post all the info online for anyone to see. It would be acceptable to include the service manual(s) with the car, as you should only need information pertaining to your car. That is the purpose of the bill, isn’t it? To fix your own car?
The Auto Repair industry has gained so much from communication and computer technology. We at Garagemasters, a Phoenix Auto Repair and Transmission shop, depend on industry standareds and supported information about the automobiles we repair. Small shops like us could provide so much more to our customers if we were givin accurate information.