Subaru buyers caught in right-to-repair fight over its cars in Massachusetts

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What’s happening in Massachusetts mirrors a broader battle over who has the “right to repair” increasingly complex electronic products — from iPhones and farm tractors to the family car:

Brian Hohmann, mechanic and owner of Accurate Automotive, in Burlington, Massachusetts, attaches a diagnostics scan tool to a vehicle.

What’s happening in Massachusetts mirrors a broader battle over who has the “right to repair” increasingly complex electronic products — from iPhones and farm tractors to the family car.sided with the auto repair industry in 2020 by passing a ballot initiative that's supposed to allow car owners and their preferred auto shops to more easily peek into a car’s trove of online data. Automakers have been fighting it in court ever since.

She's mostly frustrated with Subaru, describing its reaction to the law as “like a child that didn’t get their way and took their ball and went home.” An auto industry trade group immediately sued the state's Attorney General Maura Healey after the law's passage to stop it from taking effect, arguing that the timeline was unreasonable, the penalties too onerous, and that automatically sharing so much driver data with third parties presented cybersecurity and privacy risks.

The Federal Trade Commission and state legislatures have also been eyeing regulatory changes. Under scrutiny are restrictions that steer consumers into manufacturers’ and sellers’ repair networks, adding costs to consumers and shutting out independent shops, many of which are owned by entrepreneurs from poor communities. U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, introduced a bill this month to enable car repair shops to get the same data available to dealerships.

 

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