Aftermarket Dynamics

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.