Recently, voters in the state of Massachusetts fought to keep their right to repair by passing one of the strictest laws in support of it in the country. Now, to in order to comply with them, one automaker, Subaru, has disabled their StarLink wireless diagnostic system entirely on new 2022 vehicles sold in the state until a more permanent solution can be reached.
For some background, the whole right to repair issue stems from cars’ on-board telematics data and who it’s accessible to. As of right now, any independent mechanic shop or industrious individual can access this data in order to repair a vehicle, but recently there’s been a push for it to only be available to the manufacturers themselves, and consequently, whoever they choose to give it to.
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Obviously this raises a number of concerns as it means dealerships are the only ones able to fix their own cars, which is why the voters in Massachusetts were so dead-set on protecting the system that’s currently in place. Automakers (and their lobbyists) on the other hand, are of course opposed to this as the lack of right-to-repair benefits them,
However, there is one manufacturer that deviated from the pack, and that was Subaru, who in order to bypass the fact that their StarLink wireless diagnostic system wasn’t compliant with Massachusetts’ regulations, simply disabled it on all vehicles bound for sale in the state in order to still be able to sell there. It’s worth noting that the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, one of the aforementioned lobbyist organizations, had previously claimed in a court filing that doing something like this was a “practical impossibility“.
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The data collection covered by StarLink includes collision notification, remote ignition start, remote door lock/unlock, stolen vehicle location, enhanced roadside assistance, maintenance notifications, vehicle health reports, and diagnostic reports. And while these can all be helpful under the right circumstances, aside from all the downsides that come with locking that away from independent mechanics, if the wrong people get their hands on that kind of data, which is constantly being recorded, it could be problematic to say the least.
As for what will happen with Subarus outside of Massachusetts, as far as it is known, they will be sold normally, without any changes. Regarding those still being sold in the state, several dealers assured, with very affirmative language, that the vehicles without StarLink would still be perfectly functional and safe to drive. Interestingly, these vehicles sold without StarLink are even allegedly eligible to re-enroll in StarLink if their owner moves out of the state and a Massachusetts address is no longer associated with that vehicle in Subaru’s system.