Apologies if this subject appears in another post and I’ve missed it.

At the moment the car industry has to comply with Block Exemption Regulations which place a lot of controls on the way it operates. Most of the clauses don’t have much effect on the ordinary car owner, but one part definitely does. Under these Regulations, car manufacturers and importers are obliged to provide repair information to independent garages and repairers. They are allowed to charge for this, but have to supply just the information the repairer needs, not an entire workshop manual.

Next year the Block Exemption Regulations are up for renewal and there is talk in Europe that the car industry is working very nicely in terms of complying with the Regulations so there isn’t any need to renew them.

The AA is supporting the Right To Repair Campaign as we are concerned that if the Regulations are not renewed car manufacturers will no longer supply repair data. This could mean your local independent garage won’t be able to work on your car and you’ll have to take it to a main dealer where you’ll pay a much higher labour rate. This certainly isn’t a campaign against franchised dealers, but without independents, repairs on many older cars may become too expensive to justify.

The lack of repair data will also affect publishers of data manuals and motoring organisations. If the Regulations are not renewed then we need a guarantee that technical information for all cars will be available.

Full details of the Campaign can be found at www.r2rc.co.uk Please sign the online petition so we can help protect the independent garage trade.