Ask ten drivers whether they have a “right to repair” their own car, and most will assume the answer is obviously yes. It’s your car. You bought it. Of course you can fix it. Then they take it to an independent shop for a check-engine light, and the shop shrugs because it can’t pull the same data the dealer can, or it can’t reprogram a module without a subscription that costs more than the repair. That’s the gap between what people assume and what the law actually guarantees.
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Here’s the uncomfortable truth that gets buried under all the political noise: for cars specifically, there is exactly one state with a right-to-repair law on the books that has real teeth, one state that just voted for a similar one, and a whole lot of states where the “right to repair” you keep reading about doesn’t cover your vehicle at all. Let’s sort out where you actually stand.
First, understand what “right to repair” even means for a car
Modern cars are computers with cupholders. Nearly every system talks over an internal network, and diagnosing a fault means reading data off that network through the OBD-II port under your dash. The fight was never really about wrenches and gaskets. It’s about data and software access: who gets the diagnostic information, who gets the reprogramming tools, and who controls the wireless telematics feed that increasingly bypasses the physical port entirely.
That last part is the whole ballgame. A shop can plug into your OBD-II port all day, but if the manufacturer routes the useful diagnostic and repair data over an encrypted cellular telematics link straight back to the mothership, the port becomes a decorative relic. That’s the loophole automakers have been quietly driving through.
Massachusetts: the only state where it’s actually settled law
Massachusetts is the reason this topic exists. Voters there passed the original automotive right-to-repair measure in 2012, and it became Chapter 93K of the state’s General Laws. The statute forces any manufacturer selling cars in the state to make the same diagnostic and repair information and the same diagnostic tools available to owners and independent shops that it gives its franchised dealers, “upon fair and reasonable terms,” on daily, monthly, or yearly subscriptions.
Two technical details in that law matter enormously and almost never get explained. First, since model year 2018, manufacturers must provide access to onboard diagnostics through a non-proprietary interface built to industry standards, specifically the SAE J2534 and J1939 pass-through standards and ISO 22900. In plain terms: an independent shop shouldn’t need a brand-specific black box to talk to your car. An off-the-shelf laptop and a standardized interface device should do it.
Second, and this is the part that turned a settled question into a decade of trench warfare, in 2020 Massachusetts voters approved an amendment adding subsection (f) to the law. Starting with model year 2022, any manufacturer using a telematics system has to equip its vehicles with an “inter-operable, standardized and open access platform” across all its models, capable of transmitting the car’s mechanical data, and directly accessible by the owner through a mobile app. With the owner’s authorization, an independent shop gets the same access, “including the ability to send commands to in-vehicle components” for maintenance and repair. That was the industry’s nightmare scenario, because it closes the telematics loophole rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.
The law does carve out one sensible exception. Under subsection (e), manufacturers can withhold the information needed to reset an immobilizer or security module, routing it instead through the National Automotive Service Task Force’s secure data release system. That’s the anti-theft compromise, and it’s a reasonable one. Nobody wants the recipe for defeating a factory immobilizer sitting on a public subscription server.
What followed was years of litigation. The automakers’ trade group sued to block the telematics provision, and the fight pulled in the federal government. In June 2023, NHTSA sent a letter to automakers effectively telling them the Massachusetts telematics law conflicted with federal vehicle-safety authority, prompting Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey to fire back with a formal letter to the Department of Transportation and NHTSA demanding the agency explain why it was, in their words, telling manufacturers not to comply with a law Massachusetts voters had passed twice. The agency later softened its position, accepting that the law could work if access happened over short-range wireless rather than long-range telematics. The practical upshot for a Massachusetts owner today: this is the one place in the country where the right to your car’s repair data, including the telematics stream, is written into law.
Maine: the newest addition, and an even bigger margin
In November 2023, Maine became the second state to put automotive right-to-repair directly to voters, and it wasn’t close. According to the official tabulation from the Maine Secretary of State, Question 4 passed with 341,574 votes in favor against just 63,208 opposed, with 5,258 ballots left blank. That’s roughly 84 percent support, a landslide by any measure and a signal that this is one of the rare issues that isn’t tribal. People across the political spectrum apparently agree that they’d like to fix the thing they paid for.
The Maine measure closely tracks the Massachusetts model, requiring manufacturers to standardize onboard diagnostic access and give owners and independent shops a fair shot at the data. Maine’s legislature has continued tinkering with the implementation details since, which is normal for a voter initiative that lands as broad principle and then has to be turned into workable regulation. If you own a car in Maine, the direction of travel is clear even where the fine print is still being sanded down.
Everywhere else: the “right to repair” you’re reading about probably isn’t about your car
Here’s where readers get misled, and it’s worth being precise. A wave of states has passed right-to-repair laws over the past few years. New York’s Digital Fair Repair Act was signed in late 2022. Colorado, California, Minnesota, and Oregon followed with their own versions. Sounds like the dam broke, right?
It didn’t, at least not for cars. Almost all of those laws cover consumer electronics: phones, laptops, tablets, appliances. Read the fine print and vehicles are specifically excluded. Colorado is the cleanest illustration. The state has been the most aggressive right-to-repair legislature in the country, passing a law covering agricultural equipment that took effect January 1, 2024 (HB23-1011), an earlier first-in-the-nation law for powered wheelchairs, and a sweeping digital electronics measure, HB24-1121, that took effect at the start of 2026. That electronics law even bans abusive “parts pairing,” the practice of using software to reject a replacement part unless the manufacturer blesses it. And yet, in the list of exemptions written right into the bill, sitting alongside marine vessels and aircraft, you’ll find motor vehicles.
So a Coloradan in 2026 has a legal right to repair their tractor, their wheelchair, and soon their laptop, but not the software gatekeeping on their car. That is not an accident. Automakers lobbied hard to keep vehicles out of these general electronics bills, and they largely succeeded. When someone tells you their state “has right to repair,” the essential follow-up question is: right to repair what?
The parts-pairing problem is coming for cars whether the law is ready or not
That Colorado ban on parts pairing points at the next battlefield. Parts pairing is when a component, a sensor, a camera, a battery, even a headlight in some designs, carries a software handshake with the car’s computer. Swap in a functionally identical replacement and the car either refuses it or throws a warning and disables features. It’s the automotive version of a printer rejecting third-party ink.
For owners this has real consequences. It inflates repair costs by steering you toward dealer-supplied parts and dealer labor, it can total an otherwise repairable car when a “paired” module is expensive to source, and it feeds directly into your insurance premiums, because repair costs are a major input to what you pay. Every time a fender-bender requires a dealer recalibration that an independent shop legally can’t perform, that cost lands somewhere, and eventually it lands on you. It’s also why used-car buyers should care: a vehicle whose safety-system modules can only be serviced by the dealer is a vehicle with a built-in long-term cost floor.
The federal picture: lots of noise, no law
At the national level there’s been plenty of motion and no finish line. The Federal Trade Commission signaled years ago that it viewed many manufacturer repair restrictions as an unfair competitive practice and said it would step up enforcement. In Congress, the REPAIR Act was introduced to create a nationwide automotive right-to-repair framework, and it has been reintroduced across sessions with bipartisan sponsors. But introduced is not enacted, and as of now there is no federal statute guaranteeing you access to your own car’s repair data. The automakers, for their part, signed a voluntary industry commitment promising to keep sharing repair data with independents, which supporters call progress and skeptics call a way to make binding legislation look unnecessary. A voluntary pledge is worth exactly as much as the willingness to honor it.
Practical takeaways for owners and buyers
If you live in Massachusetts, you have the strongest legal footing in the country, including a claim on the telematics data, and independent shops in the state are best positioned to use it. If you’re in Maine, you’re in the second-strongest position, with the details still firming up. Everywhere else, your practical right to repair depends less on your state legislature and more on which brand you buy and how aggressively it locks down data and parts.
That makes brand behavior a legitimate shopping criterion. Before you buy, it’s worth asking whether independent shops in your area can actually service the model, whether common repairs require dealer-only tools or recalibration, and how the manufacturer handles replacement parts. A car that only the dealer can fully service is a car with a hidden ownership tax, and that tax compounds the longer you keep it.
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The larger point is that “right to repair” has become a slogan that’s outrunning the law. Two states protect it for cars. A dozen protect it for your blender. Until Congress acts or more states follow the Massachusetts and Maine model, the answer to “can I fix my own car?” isn’t a principle. It’s a zip code.
For a broader look at how vehicle regulations differ depending on where you live, see our Driving Laws By State reference.