NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I nflation remains stubbornly high, and leading the sticker shock of high prices are auto repairs. They increased by a staggering 23 percent last year, a problem exacerbated by a combination of supply-chain problems, worker shortages, and the ever-increasing prevalence of high-tech cars.
A bipartisan group of House members — who seldom agree on anything among themselves — has introduced a pro-consumer, pro-market bill to lower repair prices.
“According to the American Automobile Association, a third of American drivers can’t afford the costs of an unexpected car-repair bill without going into debt,” Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, told me. “Motor vehicles have headlamps, bumpers, and grilles that often cost hundreds of dollars more when purchased from an automaker rather than from an independent manufacturer. Consumers deserve the right to have more auto-part repair options.” Issa and his colleagues have introduced the Save Money on Auto Repair Transportation (SMART) Act.
Right to Repair is a twist on the old “Pottery Barn Rule”: If you break an item in a store, you’ve bought it. The Right to Repair idea is that if you purchased a product, you own it, and you should be able to repair it. Car companies, for instance, would be required to provide access to such items as manuals, parts, and diagnostic tools, and they would be prohibited from requiring that all repairs go through them. The satirical TV show South Park once brilliantly lampooned how software locks, voiding warranties if independent repairs are made and limiting the availability of parts — giving manufacturers a monopoly on repair.
The national interest in Right to Repair laws is being mirrored at the state level. In April, Colorado became the first state in the nation to allow farmers to fix their own tractors and combines without waiting precious days for an official factory technician to show up — often to just make a simple programming tweak.
“Farmers have had to wait three or four weeks to get repairs done to equipment when they can do repairs themselves. That’s just unfathomable,” rancher Bill Midcap told the Colorado Sun.
The Right to Repair is also winning corporate converts. Many companies are recognizing that excessively fencing off their products winds up alienating consumers. Even Apple, which is notorious for jealously guarding its intellectual property, is now providing parts and training to third-party repair shops.
A growing number of Republicans are recognizing that to be pro-market and pro-consumer does not mean blindly following business interests.
“There is a difference between being pro-business and pro-market, a point that was made centuries ago by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations,” GOP state senator Louis Blessing of Ohio told NPR.
He pointed out that business owners are often eager to find ways to maintain or expand profit margins by enlisting the government to enforce anticompetitive practices.
Reforms such as Right to Repair laws are a responsible way to enhance consumer choice and forestall calls for more heavy-handed government regulation that will slow innovation and limit economic growth. Support for a free economy can be sustained only if consumers feel that they’re being treated fairly and have real ownership of the things they buy.