Your car is collecting data constantly. Where you drive, how you brake, what fault codes fire, when components show signs of wear. Manufacturers have access to all of it through telematics systems — the cellular-connected modules built into virtually every vehicle sold in the last several years.
That data is useful for repair. A shop that can see your car's telematics history can diagnose problems faster and more accurately than one working blind. But according to a February 2026 industry report, automakers are systematically restricting independent shops from accessing that same data feed — reserving it for their own dealer networks.
The cost to the independent repair sector: $3.1 billion annually. That money comes from somewhere. It comes from you.
What Telematics Data Is and Why It Matters for Repair
Telematics refers to the remote monitoring data your vehicle transmits wirelessly — typically to the manufacturer's servers. This includes:
- Real-time and historical fault codes
- Component performance data (battery health, transmission data, sensor readings)
- Over-the-air software update history
- Driving behavior data
For a repair shop, access to this data means faster diagnosis, fewer wasted diagnostic hours, and the ability to spot developing problems before they become expensive failures. Dealerships with manufacturer system access have this capability. Most independent shops do not.
When an independent shop has to diagnose by working backward from symptoms — without access to the telematics data the manufacturer already has — it takes longer and costs more. And they may still not find what the manufacturer's system would have flagged immediately.
This Is Not an Accident
Automakers have an obvious financial incentive to keep repair work flowing to their dealership networks. Dealer service departments are high-margin businesses. The more repairs that have to go to a dealer — because only the dealer has the tools or the data — the more revenue stays inside the manufacturer's ecosystem.
The restriction of telematics access is a competitive strategy dressed up as a technical or security concern. The "security" argument — that opening data access would create vulnerabilities — has been examined repeatedly by independent researchers and found to be largely pretextual. Open, standardized data access frameworks already exist that could provide diagnostic capability without exposing vehicle control systems.
The real reason for the restriction is money.
What This Costs You
The $3.1 billion figure represents additional costs absorbed by independent shops — in labor time, in expensive third-party workaround tools, in jobs they have to turn away. That cost doesn't disappear. It gets passed to customers through higher labor rates, or it pushes customers to dealerships where rates are already higher.
Beyond the direct cost, restricted data access is also driving independent shops out of the market for newer vehicles entirely. If a shop can't reliably service late-model cars, they narrow their focus to older vehicles or specific brands. That means fewer options for you, and fewer competitive pressures keeping dealer prices in check.
States Are Starting to Act
Massachusetts passed a right-to-repair law that required automakers to open diagnostic data to independent shops. The automaker response was to disable some telematics functionality for Massachusetts vehicles rather than comply — which illustrates exactly how seriously they take the competitive threat.
The REPAIR Act currently moving through Congress (see our coverage: REPAIR Act Advances in Congress) would create a federal standard for data access. Without federal action, the patchwork of state laws makes compliance easy to game.
What You Can Do
The most direct thing you can do is support legislation. The REPAIR Act has bipartisan backing and is moving — contact your House representative and senators to express support.
More immediately: ask your independent shop what data access issues they're running into on your vehicle. Understanding the limitation helps you make informed decisions about where to take your car and what to expect.
And if you're being pushed toward a dealership for a repair that a competent independent shop could handle — ask why. Sometimes the answer is "we genuinely don't have the tool for this one." But sometimes the answer should prompt more questions.
Find an independent shop that's upfront about what they can and can't access: /find-a-mechanic/