Right to Repair: What’s the future of the automotive aftermarket? Zainal Abidin, 22/09/2024 2:09 Stellantis halts construction of Ontario electric vehicle battery plant Wally Dingman hates having to turn away customers. It’s what’s kept him in the auto repair business for 40 years. Like the 371,000 Canadians working in the aftermarket industry, Dingman is more than qualified to repair a vehicle. Yet, in the modern age of repair, just knowing how to do so is not enough. “Every day it’s getting more difficult to carry out repairs,” Dingman said. “Our scan tools and our repair software have limited access to information because it’s being held by the manufacturer.” Dingman owns Caughill Automotive in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. His shop is one of 10 aftermarket repair shops that service the town of just under 10,000. As vehicles become more digitized, so, too, become the tools required to diagnose a vehicle for a repair. Older vehicle models would provide information directly to a technician, so long as they have a tool to access the On-Board Diagnostic port, whereas newer models share certain information only with the dealer. The problem? Dealers aren’t in turn sharing that information with the aftermarket. It has put in jeopardy a $15.7 billion aftermarket industry, a cornerstone of Canadian society for decades. This … Continue Reading