The REPAIR Act Is Not About Your Mechanic
by Ken Miller, AASP/NJ President
The REPAIR Act is being promoted with a simple and emotionally compelling message: Without this bill, consumers will lose the ability to take their vehicles to their local repair shop, independent repairers will be locked out of critical information and choice will disappear.
It is an effective message. It is also misleading.
Independent collision repair facilities are not struggling to find repair information. OEM repair procedures, diagnostic software, wiring diagrams, calibration instructions and technical service bulletins are widely available and used every day by professional repairers. The real issue facing collision repairers is not access to information. It is being properly reimbursed for the repairs that information requires.
That distinction matters, because it exposes the central flaw in the REPAIR Act. The bill is built on the premise that manufacturers have locked repairers out of the information needed to fix vehicles. In practice, that premise does not reflect the day-to-day reality of collision repair. The dispute is rarely about locating a required procedure. It is about whether that procedure is recognized, accepted and paid for once it is identified.
This issue looks different on the mechanical repair side of the industry. In many mechanical applications, the information already exists and is accessible, but awareness and education lag behind. That is an education problem, not an access problem. Yet, the REPAIR Act deliberately blurs these two very different realities, using fear of future lockouts to justify sweeping changes that do little to address the actual challenges facing collision repair today.
That leads to a basic question that is rarely asked publicly: What repair information is not currently available to repair vehicles?
In a closed door meeting, I had the opportunity to ask two representatives from the Auto Care Association, sponsors of the REPAIR Act, that exact question. What specific data is unavailable today that prevents a vehicle from being properly repaired?
There was no answer. No examples. No identified procedures. Only familiar talking points about future risks, locked down data and consumer choice. Fear-based messaging, not evidence.
If this bill is truly about ensuring a consumer can continue using their local mechanic, it raises another important question. Why are automobile insurers explicitly written into the legislation?
Insurers are granted a seat on the Fair Competition After Vehicles Are Sold Advisory Committee and positioned as stakeholders in shaping how repair access, data use and future recommendations are defined. That inclusion has little to do with whether a local shop can repair a customer’s vehicle.
This is where the REPAIR Act begins to resemble a Trojan horse. It appeals to consumers’ fear of losing repair choice while quietly inviting parties with powerful financial incentives into the vehicle data ecosystem. Once inside, those parties gain access to information that can be used in ways that have nothing to do with repair quality.
Vehicle-generated data is not neutral. How it is used, interpreted and applied matters. Giving insurers expanded access to detailed vehicle data foreseeably enables its use to narrow repair scope, challenge required procedures or limit claim reimbursements. That is not an accusation of intent. It is a recognition of an issue that already exists within the claims process that one can easily see becoming worse as a result.
Inviting insurers into this space is akin to inviting the fox into the hen house. Insurers influence not only collision repair outcomes, but the cost and availability of insurance for every driver on the road. Expanded data access can shape claims handling, reimbursement decisions and even underwriting in ways that directly affect consumers, often without their awareness.
By framing reimbursement and accountability disputes as access problems, the REPAIR Act offers a solution to the wrong issue, a non-existent issue, all while expanding data access for actors whose interests are not aligned with repair quality or consumer safety.
Access to data does not repair vehicles. Skilled technicians do. Safe and proper repairs depend on hands-on inspections, disassembly, measurement, calibration and verification. Those steps are governed by repair procedures, not by data availability alone.
The REPAIR Act may reshape how vehicle data is shared in the future. But it is not accurate to describe it as a consumer protection bill designed to ensure repair data access or preserve the relationship between a customer and their local repair shop. That data and the relationship already exist.
What is actually being debated is who controls vehicle data and how that information will be used.
Those are two different issues and two very different conversations that have little to do with the stated objective and how this bill is being sold to the general public.
Want more? Check out the February 2026 issue of New Jersey Automotive!