Free-software advocates, when arguing their views, have a favorite question they like to ask: Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut? While this question is meant to be rhetorical, it's closer to true than one might think.
As cars become increasingly computerized, the shade-tree mechanic's days are undoubtedly numbered.
"There are some vehicles with 20 different computer systems on the car," said Ken Roberts, a spokesman for the Automotive Service Association. "You can throw away the old stereotype of auto mechanics, because a late-model car is a highly sophisticated vehicle."
But even highly skilled mechanics say they're unable to work on many cars' computer systems -- not because they don't have the ability, but because automakers don't give them the information they need.
Thanks to the Clean Air Act of 1990, manufacturers are required by law to provide diagnostic tools -- usually a handheld computer -- for checking emissions. Whether they provide auto shops with anything else is entirely up to them, making anyone who wants to work on a computerized car dependent on the manufacturer for the necessary diagnostic and repair tools. Those tools aren't cheap, coming in anywhere between $500 and $2,000, according to Roberts -- and you need a different computer for every make of car.
"By the time you multiply purchasing tools and information from various manufacturers, it becomes cost-prohibitive," Roberts said.
For the most part, independents claim, automakers haven't exactly been making those tools readily available to them or the aftermarket businesses that sell diagnostic and repair tools at prices considerably lower than those of automakers.
"Some non-emissions information simply isn't available. Sometimes a skilled technician can work around that," Roberts said. Other times, they're forced to bring the vehicle into the dealer shop. For example, after a car that's been in a wreck is repaired, the computers have to be reset. You have a "wonderfully, newly repaired vehicle, and you can't start it," Roberts said. The collision shop is usually forced to take the car to the dealer to have the computer reprogrammed.
Independents' complaints culminated in the Motor Vehicle Owners' Right to Repair Act of 2001, legislation proposed last August that would require manufacturers to make available all information needed to diagnose and repair a car. The bill is fairly vague as to what this would specifically entail, and it's been languishing in committee since shortly after it was proposed.
Mike Stanton, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, called the legislation "unnecessary." He said the necessary diagnostic tools, which pinpoint the problem and how to fix it, are and have always been available. "It's just a question of hooking up the right people with the right information," Stanton said.
In response to the legislation, last October 12 AAM manufacturers publicly promised to provide independent repair shops with the same diagnostic and repair tools provided to their dealerships.
"It's not in the manufacturers' interest to have the repair of their vehicles be restricted in any way," Stanton said. "We're making sure that everyone out there knows the information is out there, and it's the same information we give to the dealers."
Even if automakers do make tools available to work on their vehicles, as with Microsoft and DVD software, you're forbidden from delving into the source code or tinkering with it to make it do things other than it was programmed to do. As computers become equipped with ever more complicated computers like GM's On-Star Navigation system, privacy experts are growing alarmed.
"If you have to rely on an expert or manufacturer, you have less ability to understand or verify things for yourself," said Seth Schoen, a technical expert at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "If people aren't computer experts, then they won't be able to tell what their computer is doing to them."
Echoing the now familiar concerns of software and consumer electronics companies, Stanton said the language of the bill is broad enough to result in automakers being forced to turn over proprietary information and intellectual property, in spite of the fact that it explicitly protects trade secrets.
"What we think is behind (the Motor Vehicle Owners Right to Repair Act) is that people want to reverse-engineer the parts or use parts that don't meet manufacturer's specifications and then reprogram the vehicles to accept the parts," he said.
Roberts denies that reverse-engineering is the intention behind the bill, but in the end says working with manufacturers may still be the most effective way to get independent shops the information they need to do their jobs.
"ASA is continuing to work with manufacturers," Roberts said. "We're pretty confident that repair information is going to be more fully available to the public in coming months."
