Right to repair: Ray's opinion piece in the Washington Post

General Discussion
1

Who has read it?

2

I am not going to even sign up for a free Washington Post subscrition ( which I might have trouble cancelling) to read an article . Why not put it on the Car Talk main page ?

3

R2R isn’t about rights or information. It’s about money. With very few exceptions related to security and anti-theft systems, there is nothing limiting any customer or shop from repairing cars.

I have never seen any shop being “locked out” from any repair. I have seen untold numbers of shops refusing to buy the appropriate equipment and subscriptions and unwilling to send technicians to training and the telling the customer that “only the dealer can do this work.” Unless we are talking about farm equipment, Right to Repair is a bunch of nonsense.

Can anyone show an example of a customer being refused the right to repair their car?

1 Like
4

I didn’t read the Post article because I won’t pay for it either.

I think right to repair might be more aptly used to describe the situation with farm machinery. I understand that John Deere insists that farmers have Deere dealers make repairs and even make it almost impossible for someone else to work on their products. Maybe the subject of this thread should be: does anyone here read the Washington Post? BTW, I live in the Post’s home territory and I don’t want to read about no stinkin Commanders or Nationals or Wizards.

2 Likes
5

I’m not aware of any. But the right to attempt your own repair isn’t the same as the right to access to the needed information to effect a repair. Years ago I repaired the clutches in my truck’s differential , but would have had a difficult time doing that job as a diy’er without technical data supplied in a Mitchell’s manual, which presumably came from Ford factory service. If Ford factory service refused to supply the information to Mitchells, while no laws preventing me from attempting the job, my success would have been unlikely.

6

I read it from time to time. Good source for DC politics news. As far as right to repair, it seems like a customer should have the right to know at time of purchase under what terms the product manufacturer will provide repair information in the future. If customer doesn’t care about repair issues, then if manufacturer states at purchase time “you’ll never have access to repair info for this product” , that won’t affect the purchase decision.

btw, for some reason I didn’t have any difficulties reading Ray’s post link. Maybe you’ve already used up your free monthly article allotment? NY Times-online used to do that to me, after a few weeks into month I couldn’t view any more articles, had to wait until beginning of next month.

7

Suspect it limits how many times you can visit for free but I was able to read the article without subscribing,

1 Like
8

The Post is an excellent newspaper. I just don’t care to pay for it. If I want another paper I would probably get the digital New York Times. I can always go to the public library to read the Washington Post.

9

Long ago 2 automotive laws were passed in response to common auto manufacturer’s practices:

  1. Required manfacturers to make parts available for 10 years.
  2. Allowed owners to have maintenance work done outside the Dealership without voiding their warranty.

So if John Deere is successful in requireing owners to have all repair work done at Deere dealers, how long do you think it will be before GM, Ford, MB, Toyota, etc. will all jump on the gravy train?

1 Like
10

Not to offend but I used to read the WaPo every day. But the articles just got so one sided maybe 8 years ago I just couldn’t stand to read it anymore. Plus I like to look at general comments to try and get a feel about where people stand. The comments just became so inflamed there just was no point anymore. Plus I think that half the comments were either paid or robots.

11

That’s the key. I have yet to hear of one instance where a manufacturer refused to supply tooling or technical information to someone willing to pay for it (security systems excluded).

2 Likes
12

No need to sign up for a subscription. They allow you one free article to read (per some time period, like a month).
The washingtonpost.com monitors that via cookies, (which you control.)

1 Like
13

Additionally–IIRC–disabling JavaScript on their site allows you to read articles w/o paying, but–strangely–it blurs-out the images.

1 Like
14

And your beloved Fox ISN’T one sided? Geez.

4 Likes