Rural Canada’s passenger vehicle owners are expected to gain as a new standard takes effect allowing some service work on newer-model vehicles to be done closer to home.
The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers of Canada and Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, which represent vehicle makers and distributors in Canada, and the National Automotive Trades Association (NATA), which represents the aftermarket service sector, came to an agreement last fall on the new standard.
The standard, dubbed the Canadian Automotive Service Information Standard (CASIS), allows auto repair facilities — other than automakers’ own dealerships — to access automaker service and repair information.
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NATA said Tuesday that the groups have officially met their stated goal of implementing CASIS on May 1 (Saturday).
The standard is meant to provide “independent” auto service and repair providers with access to emissions- and non-emissions-related service information, diagnostic tools and training information, such as the diagnostic codes that authorized dealerships use.
Also, NATA said, “since the signing of the CASIS, several additional auto manufacturers began providing this information ahead of the May 1 deadline.”
Groups such as the Automotive Industries Association of Canada had in recent years been criticizing automakers’ “discriminatory” trade practices in making vehicles that can only be fixed with proprietary data — for example, the service codes needed to access a vehicle’s onboard diagnostic system.
Unless a local mechanic already has access to such data, some rural drivers have been left with few options other than to take a vehicle all the way back to its dealership for repair — even after a vehicle comes off warranty.
Parliament — which was set to legislate its own standards in November last year — instead voted its support last fall for the industry’s “more flexible approach to meeting the requirements of the entire aftermarket service and repair industry across Canada,” NATA said Tuesday.
The federal New Democrats’ automotive critic, Ontario MP Brian Masse, who last fall pushed forward the “right to repair” legislation in his private member’s bill (C-273), said last November that the CASIS is a “victory” for every Canadian auto owner.
Consumers, he said, will have “a choice about the repair and maintenance of their vehicles, and emission standards and public safety are now guaranteed.”
Before the automakers and sellers signed on to CASIS, about half of Canada’s automakers and distributors (by market share) provided the automotive aftermarket with this service and repair information, NATA said Tuesday.
“Since the signing of the CASIS, several additional auto manufacturers began providing this information ahead of the May 1 deadline.”
The automaker groups said they’re “confident that if any issues are identified, they will be quickly addressed under CASIS and by the respective manufacturer.”
