Insurers say Australia’s first “right to repair” law should be strengthened to require manufacturers to sell car parts to independent mechanics.

Qualified car repairers are sometimes unable to complete a job solely because a manufacturer will not sell a part, an Insurance Council of Australia submission warns.

Extending the Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Information Sharing Scheme to parts would help establish a level playing field and benefit consumers, it says.

CEO Andrew Hall says the issue represents the “one crucial flaw” in proposals to enhance the scheme.

“You can’t have a real right to repair while manufacturers can hold the parts hostage. There’s no point giving a mechanic the know-how to fix your car if the manufacturer can still refuse to sell them the part. When parts are locked away, repairs cost more, take longer, and good cars get written off for no good reason.

“As a result, the premiums of hard-working Australians go up.”

ICA backs all 16 proposals in the federal government’s discussion paper. But it also wants the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 amended to require the supply of original equipment manufacturer parts to independent repairers on fair and reasonable terms.

And it wants prohibition of pairing practices that prevent a part from functioning unless fitting is performed through an authorised network.

ICA says the “whole premise” of the motor vehicle information scheme (MVIS) is to allow independent mechanics to compete by requiring that technical repair information is made available.

But withholding parts “is identical to withholding the information itself, and so is [to] the consumer detriment, with fewer repairers competing for the work, longer repair times and higher repair prices.

“Manufacturers must share information but they are not required to supply parts – and a vehicle cannot be repaired with one and not the other ... A repair requires three inputs: information, parts and the ability to make the part function in the vehicle. The MVIS currently mandates only the first. 

“Where manufacturers restrict the sale of critical [original] parts to their authorised dealer networks or use software to prevent a correctly fitted part from operating until it is digitally ‘paired’ by an authorised agent, the choke point simply moves from information to parts.”

One prominent vehicle manufacturer is “particularly known” for refusing to sell parts outside its own small authorised repair network, forcing customers to send vehicles long distances, ICA says.

That car maker will also sell parts directly to owners while refusing repairers, suggesting “the restriction is a channel control measure rather than a genuine safety or quality measure”.

See the submission here.