Compliance With California’s Right to Repair Law Needs Fixing, Report Finds

A different kind of report card is taking electronics and appliance companies back to school — assigning their products grades, based not on quality or aesthetics, but on how readily available they make repair materials.

Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro got an “A,” while Motorola’s razr ultra 2025 flunked according to recent findings by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization.

Its July report looked at how well companies are complying with California’s right to repair law, which went into effect a year ago this month. The law requires manufacturers of electronics and appliances to make the parts, tools and information necessary to repair their products available to consumers.

“ Our main takeaway is that manufacturers need to be doing a better job of complying with California’s right to repair law,” said Jenn Engstrom, the state director of CALPIRG, the state’s branch of U.S. PIRG.

The organization graded 25 products in five categories, including cellphones, dishwashers, tablets, gaming consoles, and laptops, and assigned them letter grades based on how well they made repair documentation and parts available to consumers.

In general, manufacturers of electronics, like Apple, which has a robust self-repair page, received higher grades than appliance makers. All five laptops surveyed got an “A” or “B.”

No dishwasher got above a “C,” meaning repair help was limited, at best, according to the report.

An “F” grade indicates that no parts or repair manuals are available.

KQED reached out to several of the companies mentioned in the report and only heard back from LG, the South Korean multinational electronics company, which got an “F” for one of its dishwashers.

“The CALPRIG grade is baffling,” said John I. Taylor, senior vice president of LG Electronics USA Inc., in an emailed statement. “Their report is incorrect. The service manual and parts for this LG dishwasher are available to consumers in California.”

A search of LG’s website produced only an owner’s manual, not a repair manual, for the dishwasher surveyed in the report. This doesn’t comply with California’s right to repair law, according to Engstrom.

When KQED asked an LG customer service representative to provide a repair manual via online chat, the technician responded: “Please be informed that only authorized technicians can use that, and we are not allowed to share it with the customer.”

Furnished with the text of California’s right to repair law, the agent advised that a customer could call a local authorized service center, which would provide a repair manual. When KQED called a local authorized service center, a representative responded, “We don’t sell repair manuals” and hung up.

According to Taylor, LG consumers can request a service manual by calling LG’s Customer Service line. He also cited a link to a website for an authorized parts distributor where spare parts could be purchased for the dishwasher in question.

“For right to repair to work effectively, it should not be so hard for consumers to get access to the repair materials needed to fix their devices,” Engstrom said of the exchange with LG.

She hopes the report calls attention to this kind of checkered compliance with the state law.

“[California] Attorney General Bonta may need to step in when companies fail to do so,” she said.

Bonta’s office has a website where consumers can file complaints against businesses that violate the law. This system has been effective in forcing companies into compliance, Engstrom said, citing a case when a company released repair materials after a YouTuber who runs a repair business filed a complaint.

The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the report.

The right to repair movement has been gaining traction nationwide. Eight states have such laws covering consumer electronics, and more states have similar laws covering wheelchairs and cars, according to Engstrom.

“Once they go into effect, a full one-third of the US population is covered by some sort of right to repair,” said Peter Mui, the founder of Fixit Clinic, a Bay Area-based pop-up clinic where volunteers help guests perform repairs.

But he acknowledged that getting manufacturers to comply was another matter. “We’re going to need enforcement action taken by state attorneys general,” he said.

The repair advocacy group repair.org maintains a “Know your rights” page for people living in right-to-repair states.