If you thought fixing your car was expensive before, get ready…
For a long time, automakers have been trying to make it difficult if not illegal to fix your own car, truck, or SUV. The dream of too many in the industry is consumers having to go to a dealership service department for pretty much any maintenance or repair job, violating your right to repair or have an independent shop perform repairs. And it looks like the Biden Administration has just handed them the key to make that dream a reality.
Learn how police helped with a runaway classic car here.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has told automakers it doesn’t need to allow access by anyone wireless access to vehicles in order to diagnose and repair certain problems. That flies in the face of the so-called Right to Repair law passed in Massachusetts and undoubtedly will make vehicle ownership more expensive.
Safety is cited as the reason for this shift in regulatory policy. This wasn’t included in a law voted on by US Congress, but instead was just something Biden through NHTSA has mandated. And just like that, automakers can be free to not share access to unique tools and information necessary to fix newer cars.
No, this isn’t a “conspiracy theory” – the lazy way too many dismiss facts which aren’t convenient to their prefabricated narrative. Instead, this is a very real threat that could very easily cause the expenses associated with car ownership to inflate rapidly.
There is a potential solution. If Democrats and Republicans could take a moment to stop behaving like children engaging in a lunchroom food fight, they could work together and pass Right to Repair law similar to what Massachusetts has in place. We think most of their constituents would be grateful for that collaborative effort.
Images via GM
