ACT NOW! Your Voice Can Move Congress To Pass The Repair Act

Stacey Miller: 0:12

Welcome to AutoCare on Air, a candid podcast for a curious industry. I'm Stacey Miller, Vice President of Communications at the Auto Care Association, and this is Traction Control, where we chat about recent news from the global to the local level and what it may mean to the industry featuring guests on the front lines. Let's roll. Today, I want to spend just a few minutes on Right to Repair. Not just where things stand at the state and federal level, but why this moment matters so much and why your voice really does make a difference right now. Right to repair isn't just a buzzword. I've said this a million times. It's real policy happening now in states across America. Dozens of bills are moving in state houses from coast to coast, and advocates are pushing for laws that would give drivers and independent shops real equal access to that vehicle data and the tools that they need to repair those cars. You may remember in Massachusetts, voters passed a strong telematics data access law in 2020. And after years of litigation, a federal judge finally upheld it. That's a huge victory for consumer choice and competition. In Maine, voters did the same, but lawmakers and stakeholders are still working through how the new law would get implemented. These state-level efforts show both the progress being made and the hurdles that remain, and why we have to keep up the pressure federally as well. Hopefully, you know by now that there's currently a federal bill that has been introduced in both the House and the Senate, that's HR 1566 and SB 1379, also known as the Repair Act. As the second year of the 100th and 18th Congress unfolds, the calendar is tight, priorities are being finalized, and decisions are being made right now about which issues move forward and which ones quietly fall off the table. Right to repair is obviously one of those issues. And the hard truth is that when lawmakers don't hear from constituents like us, silence can be mistaken for agreement. They may think that everything is fine. So let's talk about what right to repair actually means, plain and simple for those who are new to the podcast. And hopefully this is something that you can share and get engaged with. Right to repair is about making sure that when someone buys a vehicle, they, as well as the repair shop they trust, can access the tools, the data, and all the software needed to fix it safely and affordably. Without those protections, consumers don't have as much choice. They may have to pay more, and they may face longer wait times if they have to go to a dealership, for example. Independent repairs risk being locked out, not because they lack the safety or the skill to repair the cars, but because they lack access to the tools and the manuals in order to diagnose and fix the vehicle. And this isn't theoretical. It's actually happening as vehicles become more connected, more software-driven, and more complex. So once that data and that access is restricted, it's very hard to get it back. According to several third-party surveys that we conducted, check out these stats, 84% of shops rank right to repair as their top issue. 63% of shops surveyed experience issues accessing repair data daily or weekly. Over half of shops are sending up to five vehicles back to the dealer each month due to data access issues. And an estimated $3 billion is lost annually from local businesses as well as driver pockets due to vehicle diagnostic or code issues. So clearly, it's a big issue if I want to take my vehicle to get it repaired and I can't repair it where I choose at a place that's convenient and affordable for me, right? I deserve that choice. You should have that choice as well. But here's the part that I really want to emphasize. The AutoCare Association's communities are some of the most active, engaged, and passionate members of this industry. We are so lucky because all of you show up, you participate, you care deeply about the future of the aftermarket. And that matters more than you might realize. Lawmakers pay attention to engaged constituents, people like you, especially when they hear from them in numbers. So when messages are coming in from people who live and work in their districts, who are informed and who take the time to speak up, it changes the conversation. That's why participation right now is so critical. Auto care has made it so easy to take action on right to repair if this issue gets you fired up. And it should. There's a pre-populated letter that you can send to your legislators in about 30 seconds. It's at repairact.com, exactly as it sounds. You can personalize it or you can send it as is. But either way, if you visit that site and fill out that form, a letter will go directly to your elected official as a clear message that Write to Repair Matters, urging them to support. Now, if you've done this before, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. It means everything to us. And you've been a crucial part of this fight and getting this bill this far. It hasn't gone this far ever before. So this is an amazing milestone. But we have to push it one step further. So whether you've done the letter or not, sign the letter again, but also run your own campaign, right? Share it with your employees. Post it in your internal challenge, in your internal channels, rather. Send it to your colleagues, your peers, your networks, post it on social media. We have a whole toolkit on the website where you can print out posters and flyers and put banners in your shops, brochures and handouts and magnets and hand tags, right? We've provided all the resources necessary for you to get engaged and to help us spread this message further. Communities like ours have power, not just because of their size, but because of our passion and our participation and what we do for the American motoring public, it matters. And if just one voice matters, a handful of voices get noticed, and hundreds and thousands of voices are impossible to ignore. So this is how awareness turns into action. This is how issues move from nice to have to must address. And this is how we protect the future of repair. It's a pretty amazing thing to sit back and see other industries emulating our right to repair law and learning from our right to repair law being pretty much the first right to repair law to have passed in 2012. And now here we are in 2016 trying to protect the future of repair again. So we have to get this done this year. The window is closing, the tools are ready. The letter takes 30 seconds. So here's my ask sign the letter at repairact.com, share the letter at repairact.com, and help bring more people into this fight by visiting repairact.com. Because right to repair isn't this abstract concept. It's personal. It affects drivers, it affects businesses, and it affects communities in every single congressional district. So I really want to thank you for listening. If you have questions about the resources, if you don't know how to run a company campaign, if you need help finding the social media graphics and posting the social media graphics, reach out to me because we're here to help and we're really looking forward to getting this done this year. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care on Air. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review that helps others discover our content. AutoCare On Air is a production of the Auto Care Association, dedicated to advancing the autocare industry and supporting professionals like you. To learn more about the association and its initiatives, visit autocare.org.