I know what you may be thinking. Yeah right, illegal to fix my own car. That will be the day when they pry my monkey wrench out of my cold dead fingers.
The thing is, having laws that say you cannot work on your own car, even though you bought it and even if you paid it off in full, may not be a thing of science fiction very shortly. These may actually come true.
Yes, we know; it’s already bad enough that so much of the equipment you need to work on newer cars is proprietary. It really makes you feel like they’ve got you bent over a park bench.
Plus, if you’ve been around for a while you know the reason they do that. It’s the same reason a silly little o-ring for a spacecraft is sold to the Government for a reported but not verifiable £2,450. That same exact o-ring can be bought at nearly any car parts store for between 30 and 90 pence.
Correlating that back to the auto parts, it’s the same; it’s all about the profits. Some of the markups on proprietary parts and equipment are just insane. So, there you have it; that’s why they do it. It’s massively profitable.
And make no mistake about it, that’s why…
The Car Manufacturers Want To Pass Laws That Make It Illegal For You To Work On Your Own Car!
We know that might take a little time to sink in, but it’s absolutely true. As we will explain below, they are pushing lawmakers very hard with their lobbyists to get a series of laws passed that will make working on your own car or truck on your own property illegal.
Not only that, but they are also attempting to make any 3rd party modifications illegal as well. So, you would not be able to take your car down to your mechanic or a specialty shop and have them modify it for you either.
To the best of our knowledge, this would not have anything to do with external modifications such as custom paint or a spoiler. It would have to do with the engine and anything associated with any of the mechanical or electrical parts.
As absolutely nuts as this sounds, here’s why they say they need these laws.
They Say They Need These Laws Because Of Copyright Infringement
Their reasoning for wanting to pass laws that stop you from working on your cars and any 3rd party modifications is from a provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Section 1201 of the DMCA contains the provisions regarding circumventing technology that protects copyrighted work.
The lobbyists for the automakers have come right out and said that; cars have become too complex for the home repair enthusiast to be able to work on any longer. They cite that; the computer systems that run many of your car’s functions are copyrighted, and they cannot allow them out into the hands of the public or their competitors.
They have filed for this year’s hearing to have their case come up on the docket. Their initial steps are weighted by saying; the risks of allowing home auto enthusiasts access to sensitive areas such as steering, throttle control, and braking are just too great.
They say that the risk to their copyrighted systems is so great that it far outweighs any benefit that the automotive enthusiast might derive.
They also cite the safety concerns of the number of automotive accidents that are caused by mechanical failure.
The truth is, those numbers don’t really add up. Roughly 12% to 13 % of accidents are caused by mechanical failure. However, the majority of those were not due to people working on their cars but from a lack of preventive maintenance. As per previous blog posts, this is imperative. If you don’t already have a workshop manual, ensure to pick one up from here.
Another portion is from failures that would be blamed on the original manufacturers. You quite often hear of recalls from all most every manufacturer for one part or another that failed. So, the majority of those percentages don’t come from home auto enthusiasts at all. They came from the other sources we listed.
Will They Be Able To Pass This?
With that part, we don’t know. It’s nearly impossible to know what the Government will or will not pass.
The only thing we can do is wait and see together.
But you can bet that we’ll be on it, digging up the real information and then letting you know as fast as possible.
Download your car maintenance manual here!
Re car maintenance,
If car manufacturers get there way then surely thay could be held responsible for any accadent caused by mechanical failure as their tecknitions would be the only ones able to service your vehicle. I have had my vehicle serviced at a main dealer and they have cocked up on many occasions, whoops i see a law suit coming, they can’t have their cake and eat it,
Couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately manufacturers have us folk by our ball bags!
I too have had major damage done by a dealer. They did make the repairs both times, thanks goodness they were not able to blame me; the owner.
@michael&teri, crazy that the dealers are the ones doing the damage, but atleast they were able to fix it.
It’s already becoming hard to work on car engines yourself, I can remember when you lifted the bonnet of a car you could see the road through the engine, now when you open the bonnet of a car you’re greeted with a sea of plastic! You need a degree in engineering just to remove the engine cover! Let alone start spannering, car’s today don’t need tools to fix them, just a laptop and a lead.
Shocking hey. I remember the days of my AE86 4AGE powered Corolla (on throttle bodies of course).
We as drivers know that modern cars contain computers that control much of the cars maniacal parts and difficult for main agents to correct the problem never mind Joe blogs. But what about the guy who drives one of our beloved classics, can we as ordinary drivers say change a wheel, alternator belt, wiper blade, headlamp bulb. Talking about qualifications who issued the Wright brothers a Flying licence
Had a problem recently with the retraction of a convertible roof on a Jag. Told part would have to come from UK at a cost of $112 for a new solenoid. Looked into the problem turns out a $2 magnet would solve the issue. Solenoid failed only because the computer said it didn’t receive feedback from ‘missing magnet’, but that was the problem identified, it was the solenoid!! Poor little mechanic couldn’t work that out, had to order new $112 part. When that would have ultimately failed I would have been asked to pay $785 for a complete convertible carriage assembly to solve the $2 magnet problem. Thank God I can still work on my car. Total possible cost would have been $897.
Unfortunately there are many mechanics out there that can’t use a bit of common sense!
me to cold dead hands
god help us all if it is left to main agents, most of which can not even identify oil leak
Can’t work on my 78 MG Midget? Well no one else can. I’ll be calling UBER, etc. and ridding myself of all cars. Gee, no taxes for the cities, states, feds, etc. and a lot of small businesses will close. Keep up the good work, GM/FORD/whoever.
The Midget sounds like a car to tuck a way in the garage! It is crazy on the reduction of taxes to local governments, as well as less new car sales for the manufacturers. Already happening in countries across Europe it appears.
Much farm machinery is that way now and has been for several years. The companies say they own the technology, of which there is a lot, and you cannot do anything to that technology on your own. The company is the only one that can service or modify the technology.
The classic car collector world will be negatively affected.
Will the same rationale be used for motorcycles and three wheelers? What about bicycles?
Manufacturers are using crazy arguments to their benefit.
Does anyone know the bill number and which congressional member introduced the bill.
Thanks
Hi!
As far as I can tell, I don’t think this proposal ever passed the “proposition” stage. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers was pushing really hard at the time, trying to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to say vehicle owners should not be allowed to work on or modify their own car — you can find a short brief regarding their intention here: Short Comment Regarding a Proposed Exemption Under 17 U.S.C. 1201 (Proposed Class #17)
However, it doesn’t seem like they were able to turn this into an official bill or even reached a point where it had to be officially introduced by a congressional member.
Indeed, at the time of writing this article, Massachusetts had just passed the United States’ first Motor Vehicle Owners’ Right to Repair Act in 2012, and The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers was really fighting hard to prevent it from being widely accepted. Fortunately, their objections don’t seem to have gained enough traction to materialize since the major automobile trade organizations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in January 2014 using the Massachusetts’ law as the basis of their agreement for all 50 states starting in 2018.
Unfortunately, while we were quite confident the debate was closed once and for all, it surfaced again in 2021 after several industry analysts highlighted that the means to make complete repairs had not been made properly available to the public. As a result, Nebraska State Senators behind “LB543 – Right-To-Repair Act” held their bill in committee, pending a negotiation with the manufacturers over these broken promises.
As of April 20th, 2022, the process has been indefinitely postponed and LB543 may be pushed ahead in 2022.
To be continued…
So let’s say we agree to this then that would mean since you can’t work on your own vehicle. Then it would be on the dealer to provide a wider variety of option other than just cheap factory made parts for one we all know most dealers go with the cheapest option secondly and since this is about money the car companies would need to offer longer and better warranties that cover way more parts of the vehicle. Not to mention take responsibility for what ever goes wrong with the vehicle and repair or fix absolutely free of charge . And while your at it insurance and vehicle protection from theft or natural disasters or what ever happens let put that on the car companies as well since we are manipulating things let’s go all the way don’t bullshit with or here’s an option people can just stop buying your cars and you can go belly up for being stupid . Your not going to tell me what to do with anything if I paid for it
I would tend to agree with you; carmakers (or any other company for that matter) should be held responsible for whatever’s wrong with the products they sell… But we all know it’s very unlikely to happen…
It’s really a question of supply and demand — people need cars and will buy some no matter how bad the warranty is… they just can’t do without and manufacturers know that very well…
You can also see the same problem with the planned obsolescence of appliances and small electronics — people need smartphones and refrigerators and will buy them even if we all know they will break right after the warranty is over… they could make them better by using better materials and longer-lasting components but why would they? People buy them anyway!
What we can do though is push for better availability of the repair documentation and better coverage of replacement parts for older models so we can fix them ourselves…
In fact, this is exactly why we started eManualOnline… Our manuals will definitely help you keep repair shops and their expensive repair bills at bay… But of course, there’s not much DIY’ers can do if manufacturers simply stop producing replacement parts or install locked software we can’t play with…
And this is why the DIY community needs people like you who make sure to get their voices heard.
The good thing, though, is that manufacturers have been trying to put a spoke in the wheels of every DIY’er for quite a long time now, to no avail…
We are still here after all this time — and we will keep fighting for the right to repair our own stuff as long as possible! ✊