The products covered by the obligation to repair currently include:
- washing machines and washer-dryers
- dishwashers
- refrigerators
- electronic displays
- welding equipment
- servers and data storage products
- mobile phones, cordless phones and tablets
- tumble dryers
- e-bikes and e-scooters batteries (from 18 February 2027)
- local space heaters
So I saw that my car offered up all sorts of useful diagnostic information for self diagnosing stuff. Was very excited and went to look at it for a generic fault without having to get software to tell me what the fault is. I thought "it’s stupid it has fully functional computer display yet tells me basically “contact a dealer, but it’s safe to drive” instead of what the problem is. Then I find out that because I’m in the USA, the company keeps it to themselves…
So if they see value in treating regions differently, they will absolutely go out of their way to screw over the regions that will let them.
Car manufacturers screwed over consumers the last 10-15 years big time! Cars used to be the big thing many could fix a lot on by themselves and were proud to do so. Then they basically just said incrementally to the DIY’ers “it’s all computers now, not your cup of tea”, purposely made cars less and less self repairable and got away with it! It’s infuriating.