Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 establishes common technical requirements for the type approval of motor vehicles (vehicles) and replacement parts with regard to their emissions and lays down rules for in-service conformity, durability of pollution control devices, on-board diagnostic (OBD) systems, measurement of fuel consumption and accessibility of vehicle repair and maintenance information.

The risk of tampering with and total failures of diesel particle filters (DPFs) necessitates the monitoring of DPFs, regardless of the exceedance of the applicable OBD threshold limit.

Due to its permanent nature, the monitoring of electric circuits should be exempt from the reporting resulting from the in-use-performance-ratio requirements on the OBD system.

The limited frequency of driving situations during which monitors of the boost control system or monitors requiring a cold start can be operated requires special performance requirements for these monitors.

The statistical conditions under which compliance with in-use-performance-ratio requirements is assessed by default should be harmonised.

If tampering of the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system is identified by direct monitoring of nitrogen oxides (NO_x) emissions, the conditions under which its driver inducement system is activated should be better defined.

The recording of activation of the driver inducement system should be clarified with regard to possible future use of this information during roadworthiness inspections.

The protection of the emission control computer against tampering should be open for technical improvements due to innovation.

Recording and reporting of data are essential parts of a mandatory OBD monitor and should not be waived by alleged deficiencies, in particular not in a systematic manner where the manufacturer opts for certain standards for on/off board communication.

In order to ensure effective competition on the market for vehicle repair and maintenance information services, and in order to clarify that the information concerned also covers information which needs to be provided to independent operators other than repairers, so as to ensure that the independent vehicle repair and maintenance market as a whole can compete with authorised dealers, regardless of whether the vehicle manufacturer gives such information to authorised dealers and repairers directly, further clarifications with regard to the details of the information to be provided under Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 are necessary.

Considering the proportionality principle, while vehicle manufacturers should not be forced to collect data on modifications of individual vehicles from third parties exclusively for the purposes of Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 and its implementing acts, in order to ensure a competitive repair and maintenance market, independent operators should receive updates to vehicle component data to the extent the updates are available to authorised dealers and repairers.

Work units are important technical repair and maintenance information for independent operators. Clarifying that work units are covered by Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 is expected to provide commercial certainty to the market players.

Where vehicle manufacturers provide that repair and maintenance records are no longer kept in physical format — which vehicle owners can also make accessible to independent repairers for the latter to introduce a statement of the repair and maintenance work carried out — in the vehicle, but kept in the vehicle manufacturers’ central data base, these records must, with the consent of the vehicle owners, also be accessible by the independent repairer in order to allow them to continue to produce such complete record of the repair and maintenance work carried out and to enable vehicle owners to have a single document proving all such works.

More flexibility should be given for the re-programming of vehicle control units and the data exchange between vehicle manufacturers and independent operators in order to allow for innovations and to save costs.

It should be ensured that vehicles approved in accordance with the relevant Regulation from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) equivalent to the emissions-related requirements of Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 and Regulation (EC) No 692/2008 and fulfilling the requirements of those Regulations on access to information are approved in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 without administrative burdens.

Since there is currently no common structured process for the exchange of vehicle component data between vehicle manufacturers and independent operators, it is appropriate to develop principles for such an exchange of data. A future common structured process on the standardised format of the data exchanged should be developed by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) formally, whereupon the mandate given to CEN does not predetermine the level of detail this standard will provide. The CEN’s work should, in particular, reflect the interests and needs of vehicle manufacturers and independent operators alike and should also investigate solutions such as open data formats described by well defined meta-data to accommodate existing IT infrastructures.

Regulations (EC) No 715/2007 and (EC) No 692/2008 should therefore be amended accordingly.

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Technical Committee — Motor Vehicles,