National Auto Group: Election Shows Automotive Right To Repair On Rise

84% Of Maine Voters Enact Law To Protect Consumer Rights To Repair Vehicles Where They Choose

WASHINGTON, DC, USA, November 8, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Maine voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted by an 84% - 16% margin for a law to protect and expand automotive Right to Repair. Maine ballot Question 4 mandates that automakers make all mechanical information needed to diagnose, repair, and maintain vehicles available to car and truck owners and their authorized independent repair shop via an open access platform.

Vehicle manufacturers opposed the ballot question and financed an opposition committee. An automotive Right to Repair ballot initiative just passed in Massachusetts in 2020 by a 75% to 25% margin where automakers spending more than $25 million to try to defeat it.

“Voters are consumers and they don’t want automakers and their dealers to acquire a monopoly on repairs,” said CARE Executive Director Ray Pohlman. “The vote in Maine shows that the right to repair movement is growing. More states or the federal government need to enact these types of consumer protections unless automakers see the light and voluntarily expand our 2013 national agreement to cover the wireless technologies now installed in
vehicles.”

The national agreement between automakers and the auto repair and auto parts industries forced automakers to provide access to repair and diagnostic codes and information but did not cover the rapidly expanding wireless technologies now installed in new vehicles.

The Coalition for Automotive Repair Equality (CARE) is the national automotive aftermarket trade association dedicated to preserving the rights of vehicle owners to continue to have the right to buy parts and have vehicles serviced where they choose and not dictated by the vehicle
manufacturers and their dealer networks. 

CARE member companies include Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone, Genuine Parts Company (NAPA), O’Reilly Auto Parts, and Bridgestone Retail Operations (Firestone).

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Rob Gray
Gray Media Inc.
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