Automakers' Biggest Fear About Vehicle Repairs Just Got Exposed

[00:00:00]What if I told you some of the biggest car companies in America are lobbying Congress right now to make sure your favorite mechanic can't repair your vehicle? Not because they don't know how, not because they're not qualified, not because it's unsafe, but because controlling who repairs your car may become one of the most profitable businesses in the automotive industry.

[00:00:21]And if you think I'm exaggerating, wait until you hear about US House of Representatives bill called HR 7389.

[00:00:30]You'll probably want to look it up, HR 7389.

[00:00:34]Now, if you're like most people, you probably never heard of it. Don't feel bad. Most vehicle owners haven't. And most vehicle owners, they'll never hear about it until they go to their favorite mechanic. And that's exactly part of what caught my attention. But before we continue, make sure to like, subscribe, and click the bell for notifications because this one is only the beginning of the story. I've spent decades covering the automotive industry. I've covered bankruptcies, recalls, government regulations, tariffs, EV mandates, kill switches, dealership battles, emission scandals, supply chain issues, and just about every major controversy that has hit this industry.

[00:01:09]Yet somehow, a bill that could affect the future of vehicle ownership was introduced in February, moved through committee in May with a 48 to 1 vote, had key provisions stripped out before advancing, and most Americans have absolutely no idea it exists.

[00:01:26]That immediately made me curious.

[00:01:28]Because when something moves that quickly in government and that quietly, I start to ask questions. Who wrote it?

[00:01:35]Who supported it? Who opposed it? And who benefits from the change? And perhaps most importantly, what happened between the day it was introduced and the day it left committee? Because that's often where the real story is.

[00:01:49]The story isn't always what's in the bill. Sometimes it would disappears before the vote. This all started when President Trump met with the leaders of Ford, General Motors, dealer groups, and automotive industry organizations.

[00:02:02]Afterwards, President Trump publicly expressed surprise that automakers appeared to oppose consumers repairing their own vehicles. He even told a story about someone he went to school with who was a genius on working on cars. So, why would we want to take that away from consumers? Forget politics for a moment.

[00:02:19]Focus on the meeting itself. Think about who's sitting around the table. Ford, GM, industry trade groups, dealer organizations, and lobbyists. People representing billions of dollars upon billions in future revenue. Nobody walks into the White House because they're worried about someone changing spark plugs in their garage or brake pads or whatever. Nobody assembles that kind of firepower because a guy wants to replace his own alternator. That's not what's happening here. And the more I dug into it, the more obvious it became the fight isn't really about repairs. Repairs are simply where consumers notice the problem first. The real battle is over information and over the control. And the real battle is over who profits from that control. Now, let's look at HR 7389, because on paper, it sounds harmless. Actually, it sounds pretty good. The Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026. Isn't that nice how these titles of these bills always sound nice?

[00:03:19]The infrastructure bill. We're here to help you. Everything's going to be good.

[00:03:23]Until it passes, and then you read the small print, and it's never what they say it is.

[00:03:28]Who doesn't want modernization? Who doesn't want safer vehicles? And who doesn't want regulations updated to keep pace with technology? That title sounds great, and the summary sounds great, and the press releases sound great, and the mainstream media makes it seem fantastic. And that's usually when I start reading the fine print. The bill was introduced by Representative Brett Guthrie of Kentucky in February. Within days, it was already moved through the legislative process, subcommittee review, and committee review, amendments, industry discussions, and then by May, it passed committee by a 48 to 1 vote. 48 to 1. Think about that for a moment. Congress can't agree on lunch most days, yet somehow this moved overwhelmingly bipartisan support right on through. Again, that doesn't automatically mean something is wrong, but it did make me curious. Because whenever I see that kind of momentum, I start looking at the people pushing from behind the curtain, and that's where the trail gets very interesting. As I began looking through the statement from industry groups, repair organizations, aftermarket associations, and automakers, one thing became clear.

[00:04:36]Everyone was talking about right to repair, but they weren't talking about the same thing. Consumers hear right to repair and think it means something simple. If I buy a vehicle, I should be able to repair it. If I don't want to go to the dealership, I should be able to go to an independent mechanic. And if the mechanic has the training, the equipment, and the expertise, they should be able to work on my vehicle.

[00:04:58]That's what most people think the debate is about. The industry conversation is very different. It revolves around telematics. And if you're wondering what telematics is, don't worry.

[00:05:09]Most consumers don't know that either.

[00:05:11]That's the one reason this issue has been able to stay below the radar for so long. Telematics sounds boring, technical, complicated, and the kind of thing normal people just tune out. But telematics may be the single most important word in the entire story, because telematics is how modern vehicles communicate. It's the data your vehicle generates. It's the information your vehicle sends and receives. It's the information required to diagnose certain problems and what's needed to perform many calibrations. It's the information that increasingly determines who can repair a vehicle and who can't.

[00:05:47]Modern are computers on wheels. They know when systems fail, when maintenance is needed, when sensors stop working, when software requires updating, and how systems are performed. And increasingly, access to that information determines whether the repair can happen efficiently. That's why what happened next caught my attention. Because HR 7389 moved through committee, language dealing with the telematics access disappeared. Gone, removed, stripped out. This is where most media coverage ends and the real story begins. If telematics isn't important, why remove it? If telematics isn't central to the repair debate, why are we fighting over it? And if telematics doesn't matter, why are industry groups spending time, a lot of money, and political capital to discuss it? Nobody has ever convinced me that telematics is a side issue because the future of vehicle repair increasingly revolves around data, your data. And whoever controls that data increasingly controls the repair process. Now you see where all this is going. The realization set me down a rabbit hole. Because once I started looking at telematics, I stopped asking whether this was a repair story.

[00:06:57]I started asking if this was a business story. Follow the money. The automotive service industry generates roughly 200 billion dollars every year.

[00:07:06]Think about that number. 200 billion dollars. That's larger than the economies of some countries. For decades, manufacturers primarily made their money selling vehicles this way.

[00:07:18]We built the car, we sold the car, the customer drove the car away, the relationship was mostly over. Today's vehicles have changed that equation. Now that relationship with you and the car brand, it continues. That technology that you depend upon to operate your car is based on software updates, connected services, subscriptions, vehicle data, a huge subject, diagnostics, service programs, maintenance reminders, and remote features. The vehicle doesn't leave the ecosystem anymore. It remains connected. And that means money. That means big money. And connected customers are valuable customers. It means billions of dollars in revenue. At some point during my research, I stopped asking why automakers cared so much about repairs. Instead, I started asking whether the repairs were even the real issue. Because if you're generating revenue through the life of the vehicle, maintaining control over that relationship becomes incredibly important. And that's where the lobbyists start making more sense.

[00:08:17]Lobbyists don't show up because something isn't valuable. Lobbyists show up because something is very valuable.

[00:08:23]Lobbyists are funded from someone somewhere, and we know where the money is coming from. Car companies and car dealer groups. Because this means they keep the business. They don't give it to independent repair shops. And if they can put them out of business and have everybody only come to them, they would be very, very happy. Nobody spends millions of dollars protecting a revenue stream they don't care about. And nobody brings an issue to Congress and eventually to the White House because they're worried about a Saturday brake job. The fight isn't over brake pads or oil changes. The fight is over who controls access to that information. And information has become one of the most valuable assets in the automotive industry. Now, before someone accuses me of putting on my tinfoil hat, let's stick to the facts. We know modern vehicles generate enormous amounts of data and manufacturers increasingly rely on connected services. We know software controls more vehicle functions than ever before, and telematics have become more important. Even though sales people don't use that word telematics, this is what it really means. So, we know that HR 7389 moved rapidly and very quietly.

[00:09:31]We know telematics language becomes one of the biggest points of contention. And that's where things get even more interesting because while everyone was arguing over HR 7389, I kept finding myself pulled back to one state, Massachusetts. And once I started looking at Massachusetts, the entire story changed because Massachusetts already ran the experiment. They already passed the law and allowed you to have that access and the results didn't match the narrative we're being told today.

[00:09:59]Massachusetts is the problem nobody in Washington seems eager to talk about and the reason is simple. Massachusetts already tested the industry arguments.

[00:10:08]For years we've been told the broader access to vehicle data creates enormous risks.

[00:10:14]Another scare tactic. We've heard about cybersecurity, safety concerns, hackers, bad actors. We've heard all the reasons consumers and independent repair facilities supposedly cannot be trusted with information generated by vehicles that you own. Because when somebody makes a claim that affects millions of consumers, I think it's fair to ask for evidence, not talking points, evidence.

[00:10:37]And Massachusetts voters approved right to repair years ago, not by politicians or regulators or even lobbyists. Voters voted for it. They wanted it.

[00:10:48]Regular people looked at the issue and decided that if they owned a vehicle, they should have access to the information necessary to repair it. To me, that's what I call duh. Of course you want to be able to go where you want to have it repaired. You don't want to be forced to go to one specific repair shop. And it always keeps coming back to control. It seems like this has become a common theme.

[00:11:08]Now, having your car repaired where you want, that seems reasonable. The industry disagreed. Of course, lawsuits followed with warnings to scare people.

[00:11:16]And consumers were told terrible things could happen. Manufacturers argued that broader access to vehicle data created unacceptable risks. Again, serious claims. So, let's look at what happened.

[00:11:28]Years later, Massachusetts and independent repair shops are still there. Consumers are still driving their cars, roads still function, automotive world didn't collapse, and this wasn't a cybersecurity apocalypse. There wasn't an epidemic of hacked vehicles taking over the highways and the catastrophic way they weren't talking never arrived.

[00:11:48]And that's where I started asking a question that I still haven't got a good answer to. If broader repair access is impossible, why does Massachusetts still exist as an example everyone keeps pointing to? If it's too dangerous, why didn't Massachusetts prove it? If broader repair access creates risks that cannot be managed, why hasn't the experiment failed? At some point, I stopped listening to predictions and start looking at outcomes. Massachusetts gave us outcomes and gave us receipts.

[00:12:15]And those outcomes create a very uncomfortable problem for the people arguing that consumers need less access because the state already demonstrated that consumers can have more access without civilization coming to an end.

[00:12:28]And that's why Massachusetts matters.

[00:12:31]It's not theory or speculation, it's proof. And once I realized that, I started looking at the entire debate a little bit differently because if Massachusetts proved broader access is possible, then why are we still fighting? What exactly is the fight about? And that's when another thought crossed my mind. Maybe the fight isn't about repairs at all. Maybe repairs are simply where consumers first notice the problem. The more I looked at the modern vehicles, the more I noticed something interesting. The relationship between automakers and the consumer is changing.

[00:13:03]Like I said before, for most of automotive history, the transaction was simple. Today, the story doesn't end when you drive off the lot. Now, the vehicle remains connected. Software and services remain connected, updates remain connected, and the relationship never really ends. That changes incentives, and incentives matter. The old business model depended primarily on selling you a vehicle. The new business model increasingly depends on maintaining a relationship with you after the sale.

[00:13:31]That relationship can generate service revenue, and that's always the story.

[00:13:35]It's always about the money.

[00:13:37]It can generate subscription and software revenue. It can generate connected services revenue, and increasingly, it can generate data revenue. Selling your data? Well, we've talked about that before, and people get very upset about it because it's your data, and they're making money on you.

[00:13:53]But, this is where it all comes together.

[00:13:56]Again, none of that is inherently bad.

[00:13:58]Business, technology, and markets evolve. The problem begins when maintaining those revenue streams requires limiting consumer choice, and that's where people start paying attention and start asking questions.

[00:14:10]And that's where the story starts getting uncomfortable, because we've seen versions of this before. Not with cars, but with tractors. Remember John Deere's drama from a while ago? Farmers started complaining years ago that equipment they owned had become increasingly difficult to repair without manufacturer involvement, which meant they couldn't farm their land because they were waiting in line trying to get a repair. Many people dismissed them.

[00:14:34]Some people laughed. Others assumed the farmers were exaggerating. Then more information emerged, and suddenly a lot of people realized that the farmers had identified something important before everyone else did. Buying something and owning it were becoming two completely different things. You could purchase the machine, but someone else controlled critical access. You could possess the equipment, but software determined what could and couldn't happen. Now, before anyone starts sending me angry emails, I'm not saying that Ford is John Deere.

[00:15:03]I'm saying that incentives look familiar, and when I see familiar incentives, I pay attention because incentives often tell us more about the future than public statements do. The incentive is to maintain control over information and service revenues. Well, that's obvious. The incentive to maintain control over software and consumer relationships, that's also obvious. And once you start viewing this issue through that lens, a lot of things become lot clearer. They make a lot more sense. Now, this is the part where someone puts in the comments, "Lauren Fix has put on her tinfoil hat."

[00:15:39]Okay, fair enough. Let's talk about that because I don't think you need to be a conspiracy theorist to understand what's happening. In fact, I think conspiracy theories make people miss the real story. The real story is simpler. It's about incentives. Look around. Vehicle data collection continues expanding.

[00:15:57]Connected services continue expanding.

[00:16:00]Remote software updates, they continue expanding. And subscription features, we all complain about them, they're expanding as well. Vehicle monitoring, we know about that, there's cameras everywhere and in your car. So, vehicle monitoring continues to be expanding.

[00:16:14]Manufacturer involvement after the sale continues expanding as well. Independent repair access becomes more complicated, maybe intentionally. And dealer service departments become more important. And every one of those developments can be explained individually, but at some point, you have to step back and look at the bigger picture. When every road leads to the same direction, eventually you stop calling it a coincidence. You start recognizing a pattern. And the pattern is what concerns me. The pattern points toward control after the sale.

[00:16:46]Not less and more dependence on systems controlled by somebody else, not less control. That doesn't automatically make a single entity a bad guy, but it should make consumers pay attention because history teaches us something very important. Once choices disappear, they rarely come back on their own.

[00:17:05]Competition works because consumers have alternatives. Independent repair shops create that competition and it helps keep prices under control and it improves service. Competition gives consumers options. Taking away those options and the market changes.

[00:17:21]Not overnight, but very slowly, so you don't even see it coming. Sort of like putting a frog in boiling water.

[00:17:28]A little at a time, one policy here, one restriction there, one change in access, new requirements, software gates, or approval processes. None of it sounds dramatic individually, but eventually consumers wake up and realize they have fewer choices than they used to. And that's why this matters. Not because most people are rebuilding engines in their driveway. Some people do. And not because everyone wants to become a mechanic. And most people should find a good ASE certified technician that you can trust.

[00:17:59]This matters because consumers deserve choices. You should decide who fixes your vehicle. Not a law or a regulation or be forced to go back to one specific place. If you trust your local mechanic, you should be able to use your local mechanic. If an independent repair facility has the expertise, the tools, the training, and the repairing of your vehicle, they should have the ability to compete. And if you own the vehicle, ownership should mean something. That's the heart of the debate. Not politics, not manufacturers, not dealerships.

[00:18:30]Which brings me back to HR 7389.

[00:18:33]Because the more I looked at the bill, the less interested I became in what supporters were saying. I became interested in what was missing. The telematics fight tells us where the future battle is heading. Not brake pads or oil changes or even spark plugs. It's data, information access, control.

[00:18:52]That's the next chapter. And if consumers don't pay attention now, they're going to wake up one day and wonder, "How did we get here?" And that's why I think this moment matters.

[00:19:01]The future of vehicle ownership is being debated right now. And most drivers have no idea it's happening. Most consumers don't even know what telematics are. And most people don't know what HR7389 is until you start telling them because it's a smart idea. And the real impact will be to you. And most consumers don't know what it means to have something removed from the bill. The people who do know are the people getting paid to influence the outcome. And that should concern you. So, here's the challenge.

[00:19:31]Don't take my word for any of this. Read the bill yourself. Then compare it to the Repair Act, the one that was passed, the one they're using in Massachusetts.

[00:19:39]And look at what it says. More importantly, look at what it doesn't say. Pay attention to telematics. Pay attention to vehicle data. And pay attention to who benefits. Then ask questions. Contact your representatives.

[00:19:51]Contact the Department of Transportation. Contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

[00:19:56]Tell them you support meaningful right to repair protections modeled by what Massachusetts voters already approved.

[00:20:03]The Repair Act gives consumers choices.

[00:20:06]Tell them independent repair facilities deserve the opportunity to compete. And it equals jobs. Then they'll listen.

[00:20:12]Tell them not to give away control of your vehicle because if Ford, GM, dealer groups, and industry organizations, and lobbyists are willing to take the fight all the way to Congress and to the White House, they aren't walking away quietly.

[00:20:25]There is way too much money involved and there is way too much future revenue involved. And that leads to too much control. Massachusetts voters already showed Washington what real right to repair looks like. The question now is whether Washington follows the consumer model or the lobbyist model. We all know the money talks, but our voices are much louder. The future of your vehicle ownership is being decided right now.

[00:20:49]And most Americans don't even know this conversation is happening. And if you're waiting until your favorite independent repair shop can no longer service your vehicle or they even go out of business, you've waited way too long. Because by then, the decision will already have been made. You will have zero options.

[00:21:05]And getting those choices back will be almost impossible and harder than keeping them in the first place.

[00:21:12]Let me know what you think in the comments below. If you like this video, give it a like and subscribe for more videos like this and check out our car review channel Car Smarts. You can support me by buying me a cup of coffee and if you want even more content, check out the links in the description. I'm Lauren Fix. Thank you so much for watching.