RIGHT TO REPAIR LAW

Where automotive right to repair stands

Automotive right to repair is not one law. It is a 2013 Massachusetts statute, a 2014 industry agreement that took it national, a 2020 telematics law still in court, an FTC enforcement policy, a federal warranty rule the FTC has backed for more than forty years, and a federal bill that has not passed. Here is each one on a single sheet, dated, before the detail.

If you only need the counter answer: the repair information is for sale, the warranty cannot be tied to the dealer, and wireless vehicle data is the open question. The rest of this page is the why, for the day a customer or a dealer’s service writer asks.

What right to repair means at the counter

For an independent shop, “right to repair” is not a slogan about phones. It is four very practical questions: can you get the procedure, can you read the car, can you run the function the job needs, and can you fit the part you chose. The REPAIR Act text lists the same four things when it bars a manufacturer from putting a “technological barrier” in front of owners, aftermarket parts makers, diagnostic tool makers and repair facilities.

Most of the fight over the last decade has moved from the first item to the second. Repair information has been for sale since 2014. Data that leaves the car wirelessly is where the law is still being written.

Massachusetts, 2012: where it started

In 2012 the Auto Care Association and other aftermarket groups put a right-to-repair question on the Massachusetts ballot. Voters approved it by a margin of 86%, and it became law in 2013, codified at chapter 93K of the Massachusetts General Laws. That is the finding of the federal court that later heard the telematics case, and it is the cleanest summary of the history on the public record.

The 2013 law did one thing that matters later: it largely excluded telematics. At the time, wireless vehicle data was new, and the statute left it alone except for telematics diagnostic information that dealers got and independents could not otherwise reach.

The 2014 Memorandum of Understanding

Faced with copies of the Massachusetts bill appearing in other states, two automaker trade groups and two aftermarket trade groups signed a Memorandum of Understanding on January 15, 2014. The FTC’s 2021 report sums up the bargain: manufacturers agreed to sell car owners and independent shops the diagnostic and repair information they make available to their dealers, and in exchange the repair-side groups agreed not to fund or support new state right-to-repair bills.

In practice this is why factory service information is sold to independent shops at all, and why a third-party library like Mitchell 1 or ALLDATA can carry factory procedures. The same report, citing the FTC’s 2019 repair workshop, records that every car manufacturer except Tesla had signed on.

Question 1 (2020): the telematics law

The 2020 ballot question, now called the Data Access Law, rewrote the telematics carve-out. Starting with model year 2022, a manufacturer selling cars in Massachusetts that uses a telematics system must equip them with an “inter-operable, standardized and open access platform” across its makes and models. Access to the on-board diagnostic system must be standardized and cannot require the manufacturer’s authorization unless that system is the same across all makes and run by an entity the manufacturer does not control.

One manufacturer’s response shows what this means on the ground: the court found Subaru chose not to offer its STARLINK telematics service to Massachusetts buyers of model year 2022 cars rather than open it.

In February 2025 Judge Denise Casper found the automakers’ group lacked associational standing, and held that even if it had standing, neither the Vehicle Safety Act nor the Clean Air Act preempts the law. The automakers appealed.

The FTC: “Nixing the Fix” and the 2021 policy statement

In May 2021 the Federal Trade Commission sent Congress a report on repair restrictions across every kind of product, from phones to tractors. Its central finding is the line independent shops quote most: on the record the FTC gathered, “there is scant evidence to support manufacturers’ justifications for repair restrictions.” The same report singles out cars as the exception that worked, noting the car industry “has taken important steps to expand consumer choice” through the 2014 agreement while other industries had not.

Two months later, on July 21, 2021, the Commission voted 5–0 to adopt a policy statement making illegal repair restrictions an enforcement priority, under the antitrust laws and the FTC Act’s ban on unfair or deceptive practices. Chair Lina Khan said such restrictions can “close off business opportunity for independent repair shops.” A policy statement sets what the agency will chase; it is not a new statute.

Warranties: what Magnuson-Moss actually protects

The most useful piece of federal law for your front counter is older than any of the above. Section 102(c) of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, the anti-tying provision, stops a warrantor conditioning its warranty on the customer using a brand-name article or service, unless that article or service is provided free or the FTC grants a waiver. The FTC’s own report spells out the car case: the provision “bars an automobile manufacturer from voiding a warranty if a consumer has scheduled maintenance performed by someone other than the dealer.” The FTC’s consumer page puts it in one sentence: a manufacturer “can’t require you to use specific parts or services to keep the warranty coverage.”

It has been enforced against a carmaker. In 2015 the FTC settled with BMW over MINI warranties that it alleged were conditioned on MINI dealers and genuine MINI parts, and in 2018 FTC staff sent warning letters to companies, automakers among them, that told buyers they needed specified parts or service to keep a warranty.

The REPAIR Act in the 119th Congress

The federal bill is the Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair Act, introduced in the House as H.R. 1566 on February 25, 2025 by Rep. Neal Dunn of Florida. As introduced, it would require manufacturers to give owners and their chosen shops access to vehicle-generated data through the OBD port and, where the car has it, over telematics, and to sell critical repair information and tools to independents on the same manner, time, method and cost terms they give dealers. Outside recall and warranty work, a manufacturer could not mandate a brand of part, and any brand recommendation would have to carry a notice that owners can choose their own parts, tools and equipment.

The live vehicle is H.R. 7389. According to SEMA’s report of the markup, its repair language writes sections 1 through 5 of the 2014 MOU into federal law for vehicles under 14,000 lbs and makes the agreement enforceable with FTC civil penalties, but drops the broader telematics and direct wireless-access provisions of the original REPAIR Act. Rep. Dunn said the committee version “does not fully reflect the original REPAIR Act.”

What to do in the shop now

None of this needs a law to pass before it changes how you work. Four habits cover most of it.

1. Pay for the information. The 2014 agreement made dealer-level procedures purchasable; a shop guessing without them is choosing to. Price the libraries in the shop software comparison and the free options roundup.
2. Treat the code as the start. Open OBD access gets you a reading, not an answer; the check engine light codes guide covers the gap between the two.
3. Say the warranty sentence out loud. Customers who think the dealer is mandatory under warranty are the ones Magnuson-Moss protects. Pair it with the honest parts choice from OEM vs aftermarket parts and the rate gap in dealer vs independent labor rates.
4. Put the gap on the estimate. When a job needs a function you cannot reach on that make, say so in writing and send that one step out, rather than finding out with the car in pieces. What the estimate itself must say is state law; see the written estimate laws guide.