The New Jersey Assembly passed the Motor Vehicle Owners’ Right to Repair Act (A.B. 803) Monday by a vote of 49 in favor, 22 against and 8 abstaining. The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration. Introduced by Assemblyman Reid Gusciora (D-Mercer), the legislation is designed to ensure that New Jersey independent repair shops have the same access to service information, tools and software that vehicle manufacturers make available to their new car dealers.

Passage by the Assembly came only days after the Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee approved the bill by a 3-2 vote. During the hearing, independent repairers testified about problems they’ve experience in obtaining access to information and tools needed to repair their customers’ vehicles. Shop owners claimed that they often are forced to tell their customers that the dealer is the only place to go for certain repairs or, in some cases, they will take the vehicle back to the dealer themselves rather than tell the customer they cannot complete the repair.

Aaron Lowe, vice president of government affairs for the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA), testified that the service and parts business is becoming a growing percentage of car companies’ profits and therefore, independent repair shops are becoming more dependent on car companies and their dealers for tools and information.

“The commercial interests at stake in the vehicle repair market demand that right to repair legislation be enacted to ensure a level playing field where consumers continue to have a choice of where they have their vehicle serviced,” Lowe stated.

The Automotive Service Association (ASA) and the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) oppose Right to Repair legislation. The two groups contend that independent repairers do have equal access to vehicle information.

In a letter to the U.S. Congress sent last year, ASA said, “The service information, diagnostic tools and training needed are already available in the marketplace. Therefore, legislation forcing the disclosure of proprietary data would be unnecessary and counterproductive. NADA and ASA assert that the information necessary to diagnose, service and repair vehicles is already being made available to all parties in the automobile repair industry through third-party private sector companies and automobile manufacturers.”

Other groups testifying in favor of the bill included the Alliance of Aftermarket Service Providers of New Jersey (AASP-NJ), New Jersey Gasoline-Convenience-Automotive Association (NJGCA), Citizen’s Action, National Federal of Independent Business (NFIB) and AAA.

For more information, visit www.righttorepairnj.org.