Right to repair breakthrough

Right to repair vehicles becomes law in Australia

AUSTRALIAN MOTOR INDUSTRY EMERGES VICTORIOUS IN A LONG LEGAL BATTLE TO ACCESS VEHICLE DATA FROM OEMS

Following nearly a decade of campaigning by the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association (AAAA), the new law will make it illegal for car companies to withhold information from qualified independent mechanics.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have long been tightening their grip on the repair industry, seeking to lock car buyers into dealership service and repair under warranty and beyond. There’s also a corollary effect of making cars, and other electronically controlled equipment, harder to repair after the warranty period and driving customers to replace rather than repair.

It’s been a hot topic in the industry for years in the US, which has also introduced legislation. The new Australian rules resulted from the Australian senate passing the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Information Sharing Scheme) Bill 2021.

The CEO of the AAAA, Stuart Charity, said the mandatory scheme will require all motor vehicle service and repair information to be made available for purchase by independent repairers at a fair market price.

MAJOR WIN

Charity said it is a major win in keeping the cost of replacement parts, vehicle maintenance, and repair affordable.

“It has been a long time coming but will be welcome news for the automotive industry. We started campaigning for this law a decade ago and have been through two government enquiries and even through a voluntary agreement in 2014, which was a complete failure,” he said.

In Australia, the motor vehicle servicing and repair industry involves nearly 35,000 businesses employing more than 106,000 Australians.

Charity explained that around 1 in 10 motor vehicles taken to repair workshops are affected by a lack of access to service and repair information.

“This can often lead to higher service costs for consumers. What this law means is that the service and repair information that car manufacturers share with their dealership network must also be made available to independent repairers.”

Charity singled out the Federal Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar. “He has personally steered this through government, and we thank him for his leadership.”

DOMINANT POSITION

Speaking in support of the bill in the Australian parliament, Fremantle Labour MP John Wilson said, “It essentially takes away what could be rightly described, up to a point, as a monopoly. It’s probably better to describe it as an ineffective and obstructive kind of vertical integration. We essentially had a situation where car manufacturers and related dealers ... denied the ability for independent repairers to undertake that work.”

Wilson quoted a member of the industry as saying: “The modern motor vehicle is just basically a computer on wheels. Even simple things like changing a tyre, changing a component on that vehicle, checking the oil level, and what have you is all now computerised. The car companies are controlling the computer gateway into and out of the vehicle and how you communicate with that vehicle. And at the moment, they’re shutting independent local mechanics out.

“It started off with intermittent issues on older vehicles, but as each model year has come out, the situation is getting more and more dire. Our industry is having to use workarounds. Sometimes it might take them four, five hours to find the information for an issue they should have got in 10–15 minutes. That’s a loss of productivity and a loss of profitability.”

Wilson also said that properly effective and fair markets don’t naturally occur. “If you want fair, open, and competitive markets, you need to have carefully, rigorously, and properly overseen markets.”

The new scheme will be monitored for compliance by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

New Zealand is going to follow the lead set overseas on this issue. The right to repair is an issue that’s much wider than motor vehicle repair. It applies to everything from phones to vacuum cleaners.

Former chief executive of Consumer NZ, Sue Chetwin, told Stuff in 2019 that Consumer supported ‘right to repair’ rules as too many appliances were being thrown out because there was no way to repair them.

“We have been saying for some time that appliances should be repairable rather than having to be scrapped before the end of their useful life,” Chetwin said.

“Those who are authorised to do repairs should be broadened so that consumers don’t lose their rights if an ‘unauthorised’ repairer does the work.”

Commerce minister Kris Faafoi said in 2019 the potential for longer lasting products could only be a good thing for New Zealand.

“Bringing consumers longer lasting products and reducing costs by enabling an aftermarket for repairs would benefit many New Zealanders, and the effect on the environment is another positive,” Faafoi said.

“However, as a small country it makes sense to see how these developments are working in jurisdictions ahead of us in implementation and to learn from that.”

Faafoi said as New Zealand was at the end of the global supply chain, consumers were likely to benefit from business moves towards new international requirements.

How to repair PUR bumpers

URETHANE-BASED BUMPERS DO NOT MELT AND RESET. FOLLOW THESE FIVE STEPS WHEN WELDING THIS OLDER-STYLE BUMPER MATERIAL

Bumpers made from PUR, or thermoset polyurethane, are less common today but the material was common on car bumpers from the ’70s through to the ’90s. Most plastic bumpers today are made of polypropylene (PP) blends, which are ‘thermoplastic’, or meltable plastics. Technicians are less familiar with the ‘thermoset’ plastics, such as polyurethane, which are not meltable. They form a solid through a chemical reaction and, if you try to melt this, it breaks down chemically leaving a sticky liquid. Plastic welding rod peels right off the liquid.

1. Identify the plastic If the base material is yellow, you know it’s a urethane (PUR). However, some urethanes are light or dark gray. If you can find the ID symbol, it should say PUR or RIM. If you can’t find the symbol, press a hot welding tip into the back side of the bumper. If it’s a urethane, the plastic will liquefy, bubble, and smoke. After the heated area cools off, it will remain gummy or tacky. That’s PUR.

2. Prep the plastic for repair Clean the plastic, then grind in a V-groove about halfway through. Put a good sand scratch in the plastic with a coarse sandpaper disc, then blow it clean. Since thermoset PUR is not meltable, the only way to repair it is with an adhesive, preferably a two-component adhesive, although a thermoplastic urethane is available as a hot melt adhesive filler option.

3. Using a urethane rod Set the airless plastic welder to the ‘urethane’ setting to avoid overheating and destroying the plastic. Holding the welder’s tip slightly off the surface of the plastic, melt the rod into the V-groove. Don’t overheat the base material; simply melt the rod onto the surface. Again, don’t try to melt the rod and the bumper together; the bumper material is not meltable! Lay down no more than 5cm of welding rod into the V-groove at a time. Remove the rod from the welder tip and, before the melted rod has time to cool down, go back over it with the hot welder tip and smooth out the well. You can touch the bumper with the welding tip, but keep the tip moving so you don’t overheat the base material.

4. V-groove and weld the opposite side After the first weld cools, repeat the V-groove and welding process on the opposite side.

5. Grind, flush, and apply flexible filler Using coarse sandpaper, grind the weld to a smooth contour. The urethane welding rod will not feather very well, so it will need to be covered with a flexible epoxy filler to refinish completely. Grind the weld slightly below flush so that filler can cover the welded area completely.