Four Maine automotive technicians and one collision repair shop owner recently shared their views on OEM repair information access with a state-level working group; all of whom took issue mostly with access costs, not that they couldn’t access it.

The Maine Right to Repair (R2R) Working Group is the result of a referendum and subsequent law passed in November 2023 as is the requirement for the creation of a standardized telematics platform among automakers. The process began with a petition circulated by the Maine Right to Repair (R2R) Coalition.

Arguments have been made for several years that OEMs don’t allow independent repairers and vehicle owners access to their repair information.

Autowerkes Maine owner Voit Ritch told the group he has been in business for 40 years and was part of the initial R2R discussions. He said he’s never been barred access to OEM repair information.

“I was there during the initial framing of this initiative and the original MOU agreement that was mentioned that resulted from it, along with the manufacturers,” he said. “This was an amazing grassroots success and it still allows me near complete access to what we need to confidently and efficiently diagnose and repair even the most complex modern vehicle issues. Since this time, it has allowed my shop to own and use factory diagnostic tools and repair information to do our job.

“We ultimately won what we needed. It has been overtaken by forces seeking much more than what shops like mine need to do our jobs correctly. And furthermore, I am a firm believer in cooperation and not confrontation.”

Ritch added that the intent of the MOU, including updates made to it last year, works and shouldn’t be legislated, at least not at the state level because of high implementation and litigation costs that would result.

“When the government gets involved with litigation legislation, lawyers become involved and litigation will commence. All the good faith and history of cooperation will likely cease and the courts will take charge of a long term litigation process… How long are we willing to wait for the courts to decide on our future? We have access to 99% of what we need to fix cars today, and the MOU agreement now has language to keep this access to our future needs.”

Tommy Hickey, a working group member and Maine Right to Repair Coalition director, noted the MOU is a non-binding document that can’t be enforced.

Technician Wes Luther, of VIP Tires and Service, said foreign-based OEM scan tools and repair information subscriptions cost thousands of dollars each. Ritch said that isn’t always true of tools, costs can be minimal, and subscriptions can be paid at a daily rate for some OEMs.

Luther and a third repairer, Windham Automotive owner Brett Cartwright, said they use aftermarket scan tools to save money instead of buying each OEM’s scan tool. The accuracy of the aftermarket tools, however, was brought into question.

Luther said cost isn’t the only issue he’s experienced. There have also been times that, while running a diagnostic scan, some information wouldn’t be available to independent repairers. That data could only be accessed with scan tools dealerships have that are available for purchase, he said.

Kris Burton, owner of Rosslyn Auto Body in Virginia and Washington Metropolitan Auto Body Association (WMABA) president, was the only speaker at the meeting from the collision repair industry. Rosslyn is an OEM-certified shop.

“We are able to access all OEM information,” he said. “We’re in those sites all day, and we don’t do anything unless we have the instructions for it.

“There are third parties that you can get the information from, and there’s several different companies that provide it, but we choose as a business to go with the OEM route just because it’s more accurate. They’re the ones that made the vehicle, engineered the vehicle, and it’s a safer choice for us. To me, it’s more of an economics issue, not necessarily an access issue.”

Patrick Horan, from Autoworks Diagnostic and Repair, said the shop has nearly every OEM tool and subscription but finds it challenging to buy a new tool every time an OEM makes a switch to a different one.

Connected Vehicle Technologies General Manager Brian Romansky, on behalf of ACA, said access could be given to independent repairers through Service Oriented Vehicle Diagnostics (SOVD).

“This is a technology architecture that’s actually been developed by a group of OEMs,” Romansky said. “It uses very broadly accepted web interface standards. Basically, it works very similarly to the way you might go to your bank account over the internet or any other secure service that you access over the internet.

“It’s built on some very similar capabilities, so very widely used and widely adopted technologies. It does support direct access to the vehicle. It is portable to any vehicle that has a high-performance computer and cellular network connectivity.”

The Association for Standardization of Automation and Measuring Systems (ASAM) and Automotive Open System Architecture (AUTOSAR) support SOVD and ISO is standardizing it, he added. SOVD works now; it just needs to be standardized and adopted, according to Romansky.

Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office exchanged letters about an in-vehicle data access lawsuit against AG Andrea Campbell that suggested what they thought could be a partial solution to the debate — local Bluetooth access to in-vehicle telematics.

The lawsuit was filed by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (Auto Innovators) in 2020 over the Data Access Law that was approved by Massachusetts voters by referendum on the state’s 2020 ballot.

The law requires OEMs to create and implement an onboard, standardized diagnostic system that would be accessible to everyone with or without OEM permission.

Romansky said this wouldn’t help independent repairers because customers are already pulled to dealerships for repairs after OEMs perform wireless diagnostics.

“That’s an example of where we’re moving to and the reason for people to go directly to the dealership as opposed to the independent repair shop, even if they had a great experience last time they were at their independent repair,” he said. “If the dealership can give me this proactive information, schedule things and plan the parts ahead of time, it’s a value proposition you just can’t compete with if you’re not getting that data.”

SOVD would provide a way for independent repair shops to identify themselves and be authenticated to gain access to vehicles, preventing hackers and other illegitimate sources from gaining access, Romansky said.

“It is capable of supporting… flashing or putting software into a car so you could do that through SOVD,” Romansky said. “You wouldn’t do it remotely, so you wouldn’t do that when you can’t understand what the condition of the car is… You can communicate with certain components within the car through a two-way interface to learn more about them. When the car is in a safe condition and all the right conditions are met, you can access more advanced features like a software update…

“When the repair technician authorizes or requests their authorization to the vehicle, they’re going to identify what type of repair they’re doing so the token can identify what they’re given access to and the gateway can enforce that… We want to make sure that the vehicle owner is in charge and that the access that’s granted to any repair shop, be it from the dealership or independent, that it’s limited to a reasonable amount of time so that it doesn’t last forever.”

The group will meet next on Oct. 16. The meeting will begin with a public hearing. According to the meeting notice, comments will be limited to testimony addressing the working group’s ability to carry out its functions including the formation, structure, duties, powers, enforcement and rulemaking authority, funding, and staffing of the entity. Each person who speaks will be limited to 5 minutes.

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