Aftermarket Dynamics

I spoke with Michigan Public (formerly Michigan Radio) for a piece on why consumers shouldn't be scared off by manufacturers' warranty-voidance threats — the story ran August 21. In these conversations, I keep returning to a key point mentioned earlier: the warranty-voidance tactic to discourage the use of an independent shop or aftermarket part is generally illegal under the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. But that protection is underused because many consumers, including Caoilinn who interviewed me, do not know it. The right-to-repair movement is pushing for something the law already covers: keep your products functional by accessing independent service rather than a manufacturer-controlled repair monopoly. The recent multistate/FTC antitrust win against John Deere, which forces the company to give farmers and independent shops the same repair resources dealerships get, shows what enforcement (not just new legislation) can accomplish. Although more could be improved. As I've kept pressing, awareness and enforcement, more than fresh statutes, are the levers that actually move us forward.

The memorandum, Lowering the Cost of Living by Promoting the Freedom to Fix, issued June 29, 2026, asks the EPA to clarify what repairs individuals may perform under the Clean Air Act and to expedite alternative certification pathways for aftermarket parts. More interestingly, it asks the EPA to consider deprioritizing civil tampering enforcement against owners who restore their own vehicles to the original configuration. The EPA moved in two days, recognizing SEMA's certification program as an alternative compliance route to CARB's.

A few observations:

• The framing is doing the work. The memorandum reads less like repair policy and more like a move on CARB. Emissions-system repair has drawn its share of controversy, but the Clean Air Act was not the binding constraint — as the EPA itself clarified for farm equipment. The issues that actually define the R2R fight — telematics, diagnostic tool access, parts pairing — remain untouched.
• Enforcement is the key. John Bozzella, President and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, welcomed the directive, suggesting it will "end the confusion and controversy around automotive repair once and for all," and pointed back to the industry's past voluntary commitments. But as I argued in The Conversation, manufacturers have had little incentive to comply even with existing warranty law, let alone with repair access more broadly. Warranty and repair sit with the FTC. Routing the question through the EPA muddies the water rather than clearing it.
• The sustainability tension. Much of the energy behind R2R comes from a repair-as-product-life-extension logic. Blending that with repair-as-emissions-deregulation risks splitting the movement's sustainability coalition — and slowing its progress.
• The warranty question sharpens. SEMA's "Right to Modify" posture and its new certification pathway are likely to generate more warranty-denial disputes, and more friction for manufacturers asked to honor coverage on modified vehicles. Which returns to my open question: when repair access is mandated, but manufacturers grow less willing to stand behind their warranties, what does society actually get?

I published a piece in The Conversation last month arguing that consumers are fighting for the right to repair while largely unaware of existing protections — specifically the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975), which already prohibits voiding a warranty for using independent parts or mechanics. The enforcement infrastructure exists but could be better. What's missing is consumer awareness and regulatory aggression. The piece is here.

The operations argument: manufacturers are mis-framing warranties as sunk costs rather than strategic assets. Firms most threatened by R2R mandates are likely ones that are struggling to build efficient service networks — their resistance to repair access is a symptom of that weakness, not a cause. Hyundai and Apple illustrate the alternative: strong warranty programs used to retain customers and differentiate, not just absorb costs.

The Deere settlement ($99M, April 2026) and Trump's Oval Office comments in June signal the R2R movement may be accerlerating. The question I am interesting in and will be happy to hear about is: in a world where repair market access is mandated, what would be the new role of warranties?

I'm starting this journal to track right-to-repair and warranty developments that connect to my research agenda. My 2022 M&SOM paper with Dr.Atasu and Dr.Tereyagoglu examined warranty length, product reliability, and secondary markets. Meanwhile, the R2R movement is, in many ways, a live policy experiment in what happens when repair market access is actively contested — and the outcomes have direct implications for aftermarket competition, which are similar to those we modeled for warranty decisions.

The core operations question I keep returning to: when firms have desires to control the repair ecosystem — parts, software, diagnostic tools, authorized dealer networks — what role does the strategic logic of warranty design play? Traditional models treat warranty as a quality signal or a form of insurance for buyers. But when the manufacturer also actively engages the repair market, warranty becomes part of a broader aftermarket revenue strategy. The product sale is the entry point; the service market is where profits accumulate.

The Deere case is the most recent example, but the same dynamic is visible across sectors: telematics and OBD data access in automotive, parts pairing in consumer electronics, software locks on FDA-cleared medical devices. I'll track developments across all of these, with a focus on what each case tells us about firm strategy and the operational consequences of repair market structure.