Right to repair news is one of the few headlines in this industry where the independent shop is the good guy, which is refreshing, because usually we’re the ones being blamed for the noise the customer ignored since March. (It was the wheel bearing. It’s always the wheel bearing.)
Here’s the short version, and it’s duller than the press releases on both sides.
Automotive right to repair is real, it’s moving your way, and it is enforceable in exactly two states. Everywhere else, your access to diagnostic data and tools rests on a voluntary industry agreement rather than a law. Telematics (the part that matters for the next decade of vehicles) is required in those two states and working in neither.
This is for the shop owner or multi-shop operator, not the car owner. What the law says, where it applies, what it changes in your bays, and the section nobody else writes: what it flatly does not do.
Automotive right to repair is a different fight than your phone or your tractor
Most of what you’ll find searching this isn’t about cars.
Right to repair runs on four separate legislative tracks, moving at completely different speeds:
- Consumer electronics. Phones, laptops, appliances. New York, California, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, and Texas all have digital-products repair laws, the last three phasing in across 2026. This is the loudest track and it drives most national coverage.
- Agricultural equipment. Colorado passed the first farm-equipment repair law in April 2023, effective January 2024, after a decade of fighting over tractor software.
- Powered wheelchairs and medical devices. Smaller, mostly state-level, with a federal bill introduced in 2025.
- Motor vehicles. Yours. Massachusetts and Maine. That’s the list.
The automotive version asks for something the others don’t: live vehicle-generated data. Nobody’s tractor is transmitting a fault code to the manufacturer over LTE before the farmer notices it. Your customer’s 2024 crossover is.
That’s why automotive right to repair has three layers (service information, tools, and telematics) and why the first two are largely settled while the third is still a knife fight.
Where right to repair stands right now
Status as of July 28, 2026. Reviewed quarterly, because it moves.
| Where | What it covers | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | Repair info + telematics platform | Law since 2013, expanded 2020, on appeal |
| Maine | Same, plus explicit tool and software access | Law since Jan 2025, unenforced |
| REPAIR Act (federal) | Data, tools, owner consent | Not law. Text set aside in committee |
| Industry MOUs (2014, 2015) | The info and tools dealers get | Voluntary. Excludes telematics |
| FTC | Warranty-voiding claims | Enforced, but not on vehicle data |
| Georgia | Nothing automotive | No motor-vehicle law |
Massachusetts: the one with 14 years of case law
Massachusetts voters approved the original ballot question on November 6, 2012, 86% to 14%. The legislature reconciled it with its own bill and signed the result into law on November 26, 2013, creating Chapter 93K of the Massachusetts General Laws: manufacturers must give owners and independent shops the same diagnostic and repair information they give franchised dealers, through a standardized non-proprietary interface from model year 2015 on.
In November 2020, voters passed a second question, 75% in favor, extending the law to telematics: an interoperable, standardized, open-access platform on model-year-2022-and-later vehicles, so an owner can authorize an independent shop to pull mechanical data.
Then six years of trench warfare. The Attorney General began enforcing on June 1, 2023, after a court declined to block the law. Days later NHTSA told automakers the state law conflicted with their federal safety obligations. Then it reversed itself that August, once Massachusetts explained compliance could run over short-range wireless from close to the vehicle instead of long-range connections.
In February 2025 the district court dismissed the automakers’ remaining claims. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation appealed to the First Circuit, and at oral argument on February 3, 2026 conceded its members could safely comply as the district court read the law. The Attorney General declined mediation. No decision yet. The Auto Care Association’s right to repair page is the aftermarket’s own tracker.
Maine: the law that passed and then couldn’t find anyone to run it
Maine voters approved their initiative in November 2023 with about 84% support, effective January 5, 2025. It’s the more useful statute of the two if you actually hold a scan tool. Title 29-A, §1810 requires manufacturers to sell diagnostic tools, parts, and software to owners and independent shops on fair and reasonable terms for 2002-and-newer vehicles, requires 2018-and-newer access to work from an off-the-shelf PC over SAE J2534, SAE J1939, or ISO 22900, and routes immobilizer and security-module resets through the National Automotive Service Task Force’s secure data release model.
It also requires the Attorney General to designate an independent entity, not controlled by manufacturers, to set access standards and manage secure data.
That entity was never designated. Automakers sued the Attorney General in January 2025 over exactly that. The legislature then passed LD 1228, which would have swapped the independent entity for a commission with no rulemaking authority, extended manufacturer compliance by 24 months, and let manufacturers decide how telematics data gets shared. Governor Mills vetoed it on January 7, 2026, saying it departed from what voters asked for. The House voted 96-44 to override; the Senate sustained the veto 24-10. Nelson Mullins has the clearest write-up of the veto.
So Maine’s law stands, intact and unenforced, with the lawsuit stayed and 90-day status reports. If you want one image for automotive right to repair in 2026: a law with 84% of the vote and no steering wheel.
The federal picture: two versions, zero laws
The REPAIR Act (H.R. 1566, sponsored by Rep. Neal Dunn, with a Senate companion at S. 1379) would put equal access to vehicle data, diagnostics, and tools into federal law, with the owner deciding who gets their data.
It cleared the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on February 10, 2026 by voice vote. Then on May 21 the full committee set the REPAIR Act’s text aside and adopted a narrower right-to-repair subtitle inside H.R. 7389, the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026. H.R. 7389 is a broader vehicle bill introduced on February 5, 2026 by Rep. Brett Guthrie, who chairs the committee. That substitute codifies the 2014 light-duty and 2015 commercial-vehicle industry MOUs, hands the FTC enforcement authority, and orders an FTC study of repair barriers. It leaves out the telematics mandate that was the point of Dunn’s bill. He called it a watered-down version.
Neither version has had a floor vote. Nothing here is law.
The MOUs, and why a handshake isn’t a right
In 2014, the aftermarket associations and the automaker groups signed a memorandum of understanding modeled on the Massachusetts law, committing manufacturers to give independent shops the same service information and tools as dealers, in all 50 states. A 2015 companion covered commercial vehicles over 14,000 pounds. In July 2023, automakers signed a further data-sharing commitment with two repair associations, promising not to use telematics to route around the 2014 deal.
The 2014 MOU is genuinely why you can buy service information for most platforms today. Credit where it’s due.
Now my one strong opinion here: a memorandum of understanding is a handshake with a press release stapled to it. It excludes telematics. It has no enforcement mechanism and no way to compel a manufacturer to participate. The Auto Care Association wasn’t a party to the 2023 version and called it a thinly veiled attempt to confuse lawmakers and drivers. Then in May 2026, a congressional committee looked at a bill written to fix all of that and codified the handshake instead. If your ability to service a car depends on a voluntary agreement, you don’t have a right. You have a courtesy, and courtesies get withdrawn.
The FTC: real teeth, aimed somewhere else
If you got here from an FTC right to repair news headline, calibrate.
The FTC has been active since its May 2021 Nixing the Fix report to Congress and the July 2021 policy statement in which it committed to ramping up enforcement against illegal repair restrictions. It brought cases against Harley-Davidson, Westinghouse generator maker MWE Investments, and Weber in 2022, with final orders that October, and warned eight more companies in July 2024.
Every one of those actions was about the same thing: warranty language telling customers their coverage was void if they used an independent shop or a non-branded part. That’s illegal warranty tying, and the FTC enforces it. It is not vehicle data access. The FTC protects your customer’s right to bring you the car. It hasn’t been the agency that gets you into the module.
Georgia: the answer is “it isn’t about cars”
Worth clearing up, because plenty of people search it. Georgia has no automotive right to repair law.
The statute actually named the “Right to Repair Act” in Georgia code is O.C.G.A. § 8-2-35 et seq., and per the Georgia Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division it governs disputes between homeowners and contractors over construction defects in houses. A separate Georgia bill titled the Right to Repair Act, SB 243, covered digital electronic products and died in committee.
Two different things, one shared name, neither about cars. In Georgia, your access comes from the 2014 MOU.
The four things your shop needs, ranked by how often you get stopped
Strip the legislation away and a repair job needs four kinds of access. Right to repair covers all four on paper and delivers them very unevenly.
- Service information and repair procedures. Wiring diagrams, TSBs, torque specs, published procedures. The settled layer, thanks to the MOU and the two state laws. You pay for it, but you can get it.
- Module programming and software calibration. J2534 pass-through works on a lot of platforms and not all of them. Some flashes need an OEM tool, an OEM subscription, and an internet connection that doesn’t drop halfway through. This is where most shops actually hit the wall.
- Immobilizer, key, and security module access. Carved out of the statutes on purpose and routed through vetted credentialing rather than open access. Maine’s law says so explicitly. A defensible security decision, but it means right to repair doesn’t mean open door.
- Telematics. The vehicle’s own live data stream. Required in two states, delivered in none.
Notice the pattern. Access gets worse as the technology gets newer, so the gap follows your customers’ newest vehicles. It isn’t shrinking with time. It’s moving with the car parc.
What the jobs you turf are actually costing you
Right to repair sounds abstract until you price the alternative.
Illustrative math, not a benchmark. Say three jobs a week leave your shop because you don’t have the data, the software, or the credential to finish them. Ordinary ones: a module that needs a flash, a key you can’t originate, a system you can’t put to sleep to do the mechanical work.
At the average repair order of roughly $702 from accounting firm Paar Melis’s 2025 benchmark report (built on 2024 shop financials), that’s about $2,106 a week, or roughly $110,000 a year of revenue handed to a dealership. At the same report’s 52.3% gross margin, call it $57,000 a year of gross profit you never had a shot at.
Per that same report, independents perform more than 70% of post-warranty repairs in the U.S. And in the 2026 Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey of 430-plus shops, access to OEM repair information ranked as the third-largest industry challenge, at 16%.
Most shops have never counted their turfed jobs. That’s the problem. It’s a loss that leaves no paperwork behind.
What right to repair does not do
This is the part the advocacy pages skip, and if you plan your year around their version you’ll be disappointed.
It does not make OEM information free. Massachusetts, Maine, the MOU, the REPAIR Act. Every one of them says “fair and reasonable terms.” That’s a right to buy, not a right to receive. Per-OEM service and programming subscriptions are a permanent operating expense, and the shops that handle it well budget them as a line item instead of expensing them in a panic on a Thursday afternoon. Staying current on scan tools, OEM updates, and subscriptions is a spending discipline, not a legal outcome.
It does not hand you the tool. A statute requiring a manufacturer to sell you software doesn’t put a J2534 device, a capable laptop, or a stable connection in your bay. It also doesn’t buy the targets and the level floor for ADAS calibration, which is where data and tool access bite hardest right now. That’s a capital decision, and no legislature is making it for you.
It does not fix the training gap. Access to a procedure nobody in the building can perform is a PDF. With the technician shortage sitting at the top of the industry’s challenge list, “we have the right to the information” and “we can do the job” are two very different sentences. Hiring and keeping technicians is the constraint that outlives the legislation.
It does not clear the security gate, or apply backwards. Immobilizer and key work still runs through vetting, by design. And these laws work forward by model year. The cars on your lifts today were built under whatever rules existed when they were designed.
What to actually do about it this quarter
Five things, none of which require a lobbyist.
- Count turfed jobs. Add a decline reason: “no data, tool, or credential access.” One line per occurrence. In 90 days you’ll have a number instead of a feeling.
- Write the blacklist down. Which makes, model years, and systems can you genuinely not service today? Put it where whoever answers the phone can see it. Turfing at the counter is free. Turfing after the car is on the lift costs you a bay and a customer.
- Price the subscriptions you actually need, by OEM, at the day, month, and year tiers. Compare that against the number from step one. Nine times out of ten the subscription is cheaper than the work you’re sending away.
- Get properly credentialed for immobilizer and security work if you do any of it. No law shortcuts that. What that credential actually involves is a document checklist, two references, an insurance minimum and a fee, and almost nobody publishes it in one place.
- Join the association doing the lobbying (Auto Care, SEMA, or your state association), then read the bill text, not the press release. May 2026 is the example: two organizations described the same committee vote as progress and as a giveaway, and both press releases were technically accurate.
Then watch two things: the First Circuit’s ruling, which tells you whether a state can mandate telematics access at all, and whether any right-to-repair language survives to a House floor vote. Everything else is noise. The auto repair industry news roundup tracks where this sits next to consolidation, labor, and parts costs.
For a group, this is a capex question, not a political one
Three group-level decisions fall out of this. Service mix: if two of your five stores can’t program modules, you’re either fixing that or routing the work internally on purpose. Subscriptions: buying OEM access five separate times because nobody compared invoices is a classic multi-location leak. And hub-and-spoke: one properly equipped, properly credentialed store handling programming for the group usually beats five half-equipped ones. That’s the same logic that governs the rest of your cost and regulatory exposure.
The single-store owner asks whether right to repair will pass. The group asks which stores can service which platforms 18 months from now, and budgets for it. The second question is answerable today, the same way you’d answer any other question about where your shop’s money actually goes.
Right to repair is a genuine tailwind. It’s just a slow one, it’s enforceable in two states, and it still bills you monthly. Count your turfed jobs, budget the subscriptions, and let the lawyers argue about the telematics platform that doesn’t exist yet, preferably somewhere with better coffee than a First Circuit hallway.