Minnesota's Truth in Repairs Act Used to Stop at $7,500. In 2024 the Legislature Deleted the Ceiling.

Until recently, Minnesota’s Truth in Repairs Act had a hole in exactly the place a consumer needed it most.

The Act defines the repairs it covers, and that definition used to read: work performed for a total price of more than $100 and less than $7,500. A $400 alternator job was covered. A $9,000 transmission-and-engine job — the one where the customer has the least leverage, the largest bill, and the strongest incentive to have gotten a written estimate — was not.

Laws 2024, ch. 114, art. 3, § 48 deleted the words “and less than $7,500.” The companion section deleted the corresponding language from the sign every shop must post. The amendment carried no effective-date clause of its own, so it took effect August 1 next following final enactment under Minn. Stat. § 645.02 — August 1, 2024.

The current definition:

“Repairs” means work performed for a total price of more than $100, including the price of parts and materials, to restore a malfunctioning, defective, or worn motor vehicle, appliance, or dwelling place used primarily for personal, family, or household purposes and not primarily for business or agricultural purposes. Repairs do not include service calls or estimates.

Minn. Stat. § 325F.56, subd. 2 (emphasis added).

A floor, no ceiling. That is the single most important change to Minnesota consumer repair law in a generation, and almost nobody has noticed.

What does the Act cover — and what does it not?

Three categories of property, defined broadly, plus a use limitation that does most of the exclusion work.

• “Motor vehicle” means a vehicle which is self-propelled. § 325F.56, subd. 3. Not “automobile.” A boat with an inboard, a riding mower, a snowmobile, an RV.
• “Appliance” means any electrical, mechanical, or thermal device or machine. § 325F.56, subd. 4. That is an extraordinarily wide definition — a furnace, a water heater, a washing machine, a compressor.
• “Dwelling place” means a room, apartment, or structure in which one or more persons live or any fixture thereof. § 325F.56, subd. 5. Home repair work is inside the Act.

The limiter is in the definition of “repairs” itself: the item must be used primarily for personal, family, or household purposes and not primarily for business or agricultural purposes. § 325F.56, subd. 2. A contractor’s work truck is out. A farm tractor is out. The family minivan is in.

A “shop” is “an individual, corporation, partnership, or any other form of business organization which derives income, in whole or part, by engaging in the business of repairs.” § 325F.56, subd. 6. The “in whole or part” phrase matters — a dealership’s service department qualifies, and so does a one-person operation that fixes furnaces on the side.

One drafting curiosity worth knowing before you cite the Act: the title section provides that “[s]ections 325F.56 to 325F.65 may be cited as the ‘Truth in Repairs Act,’” § 325F.66, while the scope and remedy provisions inside the Act refer to “sections 325F.56 to 325F.66.” §§ 325F.56, subd. 1; 325F.63, subd. 3. Cite the range you mean.

Does the shop have to give me a written estimate?

Only if you ask. This is the provision consumers most consistently get wrong, and the Legislature made the shop tell you so.

Upon the request of a customer for a written estimate and prior to the commencement of repairs, a shop shall provide the customer with a written estimate.

Minn. Stat. § 325F.58, subd. 1.

The duty is customer-triggered and time-bound: request it, and request it before work starts. The shop’s obligation is not merely to write down a number — the same subdivision requires it to “include in the estimate all the parts and materials and labor which in the standard practice of the trade or industry would normally be included in the repairs for which the estimate was requested.” A lowball estimate that omits what the trade would normally include is not a compliant estimate.

Section 325F.56, subd. 8, then specifies what a written estimate must contain: the shop’s name and address; a description of the problem as the customer described it and any specific repair the customer requested; charges for parts or materials listed with reasonable particularity, indicating whether parts are new, used, rebuilt, reconditioned, or replated if known — and, for new parts other than window glass, whether or not they are original equipment parts; any storage fee; labor charges; tax; any delivery charge; any other charges; and the total estimated price.

The shop must post a sign telling you all of this. Section 325F.62, subd. 3, prescribes the exact text, and it is worth reading because it is the only place most consumers will ever encounter the rule:

“Upon a customer’s request, this shop is required to provide a written estimate for repairs costing more than $100 if the shop agrees to perform the repairs. The shop’s final price cannot exceed its written estimate by more than ten percent without the prior authorization of the customer. You must request that the estimate be in writing. An oral estimate is not subject to the above repair cost limitations.”

That last sentence is the shop’s defense in most disputes, and the sign is required to say it out loud.

Three related points:

• A shop may charge for the estimate — including disassembly, diagnosis, and reassembly — but only if it tells the customer there will be a charge and how it is calculated before making the estimate, and receives authorization. § 325F.58, subd. 2.
• The shop must disclose that storage, service call, and estimate charges are on top of the estimated repair price, at the time it provides the estimate. § 325F.58, subd. 3.
• A shop is not required to estimate work it does not agree to perform. § 325F.58, subd. 5.

There is also an oral-compliance path. Under § 325F.58, subd. 7, the written-estimate requirement “is fulfilled if a shop orally communicates the contents of a required writing to the customer prior to commencing repairs and provides the writing to the customer upon completion of the repairs” — but only if the shop notes on the writing “the date, time, and telephone number called, if any, and the name of the person who receives the information and orally authorizes the making of the estimated repairs.” A shop that claims phone authorization without that notation has not complied.

How far over the estimate can the bill go?

Ten percent, and then only with your say-so:

If a shop provides a written estimate of the price of repairs, it shall not charge more than 110 percent of the total price stated in its estimate for the repairs…

Minn. Stat. § 325F.58, subd. 6.

The exception is narrow and has two conditions. If the shop, after commencing repairs, determines additional work is necessary, it may exceed 110 percent only if (a) it “did not unreasonably fail to disclose the possible need for the additional work when the estimate was made,” and (b) it “immediately provides the customer a revised written estimate pursuant to this section and receives authorization to continue with the repairs.” § 325F.58, subd. 6.

If you do not authorize the continuation, the shop must return the vehicle, appliance, or dwelling place “as close as possible to its former condition or place it in a mutually agreed-upon condition” and release it on payment of charges for repairs actually performed, not exceeding 110 percent of the original estimate. And the subdivision closes with a backstop: “Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to authorize repair charges in excess of reasonable charges for parts and materials and labor.”

There is a parallel right at the front end. Under § 325F.58, subd. 4, once the shop provides a written estimate, the customer chooses: have the repairs done, or have the item returned “as close as possible to its former condition” on payment of estimate or service-call charges. You are not committed by asking.

And under § 325F.58, subd. 8, the right to demand a written estimate for additional repairs exists “regardless of whether the customer requested a written estimate of the price of the original repairs.” A customer who did not ask at the outset can still ask when the shop calls with bad news — which is exactly when it matters.

Can a shop charge for work I never approved?

No, and the prohibition is two-sided:

No shop shall charge for unauthorized repairs. No shop shall perform repairs it knows or has reason to know are unnecessary to the restoration of a motor vehicle, appliance, or dwelling place unless the customer authorizes the repairs after the shop informs the customer that they are unnecessary.

Minn. Stat. § 325F.59.

The second sentence is the underused one. It is not limited to repairs the shop knows are unnecessary — “has reason to know” is enough — and it does not permit the shop to cure by getting authorization first. The shop must tell the customer the work is unnecessary and then obtain authorization.

The shop is holding my car. Do I have to pay the whole bill to get it back?

This is the provision that makes the Act worth something, because it is aimed squarely at the shop’s real leverage.

A repair shop in Minnesota has a possessory lien. Under Minn. Stat. § 514.18, subd. 1, a person who at the owner’s request contributes to personal property’s preservation, care, or enhancement of value “shall have a lien upon such property … and the right to retain possession of the property until such lien is lawfully discharged,” and § 514.19(4) supplies that right of detainer for “making, altering or repairing any article.” That is why the disputed-bill conversation almost always happens with the customer’s car on the shop’s lot.

Section 325F.61 cuts into it:

A shop shall return to a customer, upon reasonable demand, the customer’s repaired motor vehicle or appliance if the customer pays the shop’s bill except the proportion of the bill which represents:

(a) repairs, service calls, or estimates which were performed but not authorized;

(b) charges for service calls or for making estimates which exceed the charges disclosed to the customer prior to the service call or estimate; or

(c) charges for repairs which exceed 110 percent of charges authorized for repairs by the customer pursuant to section 325F.58, subdivision 6…

Minn. Stat. § 325F.61 (emphasis added).

So the customer pays the undisputed portion and takes the property. The shop cannot hold the car hostage to the disputed portion.

Two limits on this section. It runs to a “motor vehicle or appliance” — not a dwelling place, for obvious reasons. And, like subdivision 6 of the estimate section, it closes by disclaiming any authorization of “repair charges in excess of reasonable charges for parts and materials and labor.”

What happens if the shop refuses?

This is the remedy that should change a shop’s calculus, and it is stated in one sentence:

A violation of section 325F.61 shall entitle the customer to the return of the repaired motor vehicle or appliance without payment of the unauthorized or excess charges, or to consequential damages, reasonable attorney’s fees as determined by the court, and punitive damages not to exceed three times the total charges.

Minn. Stat. § 325F.63, subd. 1.

Read the components:

• Return of the property without paying the disputed charges at all — not merely without paying them pending suit;
• Or consequential damages (loss of use, towing, a rental, wages), reasonable attorney’s fees, and punitive damages capped at three times the total charges.

The subdivision adds a point that closes a common trap: “Acceptance by the shop of the amount offered by the customer shall not be an admission that the amount offered is the true and correct amount owing and payable.” That protects the shop from being deemed to have settled — and correspondingly means a customer who pays the undisputed portion under § 325F.61 should not expect the payment itself to resolve the dispute.

Note the punitive-damages measure. It is not a multiple of the disputed charges; the text says “three times the total charges.”

Can I get my old parts back?

Yes, if you ask before the work starts:

If a customer makes a request before repairs are commenced, the shop shall return replaced parts to the customer, except parts which the shop is required to return to the manufacturer, distributor, or other person under a warranty or exchange arrangement, is required to retain pursuant to law, or is necessary for pending litigation.

Minn. Stat. § 325F.62, subd. 1 (emphasis added).

For warranty or exchange parts that must go back, the customer “shall be given an opportunity to examine” them “for a period of five business days after completion of repairs.” Same subdivision.

The remedy for refusal is modest but automatic: “If a shop refuses return of a customer’s replaced parts in violation of section 325F.62, subdivision 1 despite a timely request, the shop shall be liable for the reasonable value of the parts.” § 325F.63, subd. 2.

For anyone building a case that a repair was unnecessary or never performed, the replaced part is often the whole proof. Ask at drop-off, in writing.

What records must the shop keep, and can I get them?

When repairs are performed, a shop shall retain for at least one year the name and address of the customer, any written estimates and the repair invoice.

Minn. Stat. § 325F.62, subd. 2.

Those records are available to law enforcement for reasonable inspection and copying on reasonable prior notice during business hours — and, importantly for a consumer, “[u]pon payment to a shop of any reasonable costs of reproduction, a customer shall have the right to a copy of documents retained by the shop reflecting any repair transaction to which the customer was a party.” Same subdivision.

One year is short. A consumer who suspects a problem should request the file well before the anniversary, and a lawyer taking the case should send the request the week the file opens.

The invoice rule is broader than the rest of the Act

Here is the provision most summaries of the Truth in Repairs Act miss entirely. Section 325F.60 opens with its own definition, and it opens by overriding the Act’s general one:

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 325F.56, subdivision 2, for the purpose of this section “repair” means work of any value performed under a manufacturer’s warranty, a service contract, or an insurance policy; or any repair work performed for a total value of more than $50 …

Minn. Stat. § 325F.60, subd. 1 (emphasis added).

Two separate expansions. Warranty, service-contract, and insurance work is covered at any value — including free warranty work. And ordinary retail repair work is covered at $50, half the Act’s general $100 threshold.

Upon completion, the shop must give the customer a dated invoice. If the customer picks up a repaired vehicle or appliance “without face to face contact with the shop, the shop shall mail the invoice to the customer within two business days after the shop has knowledge of removal of the item.” Same subdivision.

The invoice must contain: the date of repair; the shop’s name and address; a description of all repairs performed; an itemization of charges for parts, materials, labor, tax, delivery, storage or care, and any other charges; a notation of which parts are new, used, rebuilt, reconditioned, or replated if known — and for new parts other than window glass, whether they are original equipment parts; a statement of any storage, service-call, or estimate charge; the odometer reading at the time the vehicle was presented for repairs; and a statement of the symptoms as described by the customer. § 325F.60, subd. 1(a)–(h).

Those last two are the sleepers. The odometer reading and the customer’s own description of the symptoms, recorded contemporaneously by the shop, are frequently the best evidence available two years later about what was wrong and what was actually done.

A written estimate can double as the invoice “if the required invoice information is written on the face of the estimate.” § 325F.60, subd. 2.

Does the Act apply when insurance is paying?

Mostly not — but read which sections the exemption names.

Sections 325F.57 to 325F.59 and 325F.61 to 325F.66 shall not apply if an insurer or service contract company pays up to 90 percent of the charge for repairs or pays a charge for repairs above a deductible amount specified in an insurance agreement or service contract.

Minn. Stat. § 325F.64, subd. 1 (emphasis added). Subdivision 2 exempts the same sections “when repairs are performed free of charge to the customer under warranty.”

Section 325F.60 is not on that list. The invoice section sits between .59 and .61 and is conspicuously omitted from both exemptions — which is consistent with § 325F.60’s own text expressly reaching work “performed under a manufacturer’s warranty, a service contract, or an insurance policy” at any value. The reading that follows from the text is that the invoice duty survives an insurance-paid or warranty repair even though the estimate and return-of-property provisions do not.

The exemptions are also narrower than they look. Subdivision 1 is keyed to an insurer or service contract company paying “up to 90 percent of the charge” or paying above a specified deductible. A repair the customer pays for out of pocket and then submits for partial reimbursement is not obviously inside it.

What is a Truth in Repairs violation actually worth?

Two doors, and most cases should go through both.

Door one — § 325F.63. Return of the property without the disputed charges, or consequential damages, attorney’s fees, and punitive damages up to three times the total charges (subd. 1); reasonable value of unreturned parts (subd. 2). Subdivision 4 makes these remedies “cumulative in addition to those provided by the common law and other statutes of this state,” so pleading them does not cost you a warranty or contract claim.

Door two — the Consumer Fraud Act. Subdivision 3 is the multiplier:

Any violation of sections 325F.56 to 325F.66 shall be deemed a violation of section 325F.69, subdivision 1, and the provisions of section 8.31, shall apply.

Minn. Stat. § 325F.63, subd. 3.

That is a per se route into Minnesota’s Prevention of Consumer Fraud Act — no separate showing of fraud, misrepresentation, or intent required, because the statute deems the violation. And it pulls in § 8.31, whose subdivision 3a provides that “any person injured by a violation of any of the laws referred to in subdivision 1 may bring a civil action and recover damages, together with costs and disbursements, including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney’s fees, and receive other equitable relief as determined by the court.”

That door has a threshold of its own. The private attorney general remedy is subject to a judicially developed public-benefit requirement that is not in the statutory text — the subject of our separate guide to Minnesota’s private attorney general statute, which should be read before anyone assumes fees are automatic.

Finally, on local rules: § 325F.65 provides that the Act “shall be construed to supersede local ordinances regulating repairs, service calls, and estimates except for more restrictive regulation.” A city ordinance that gives consumers more than the Act survives; one that gives less does not.

Where the Truth in Repairs Act fits with everything else

A bad repair experience usually generates more than one claim, and the Act is rarely the only one.

The most useful thing a consumer can do costs nothing and takes thirty seconds at the counter: ask for the estimate in writing, and ask for the old parts, before the work starts. Both rights exist. Both are forfeited by silence.

Madgett Law, LLC

Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota consumer disputes with repair shops, dealerships, and service contractors — unauthorized and unnecessary repairs, bills that blow past a written estimate, shops refusing to release a vehicle, and missing invoices and records. Because § 325F.63, subd. 3, routes a Truth in Repairs violation into the Consumer Fraud Act and § 8.31, these claims often carry a fee-shifting remedy that makes a modest repair bill worth pursuing. Call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 325F.56, subd. 1 (scope: “sections 325F.56 to 325F.66”); subd. 2 (definition of “repairs”: more than $100, personal/family/household use, excludes service calls and estimates); subd. 3 (“motor vehicle” means a self-propelled vehicle); subd. 4 (“appliance”); subd. 5 (“dwelling place”); subd. 6 (“shop”); subd. 8(a)–(i) (required contents of a written estimate). Laws 2024, ch. 114, art. 3, § 48 (striking “and less than $7,500” from § 325F.56, subd. 2) and § 49 (conforming amendment to the § 325F.62, subd. 3 sign text); neither section carries an effective-date clause, so Minn. Stat. § 645.02 (acts take effect August 1 next following final enactment absent a specified date) supplies August 1, 2024. Minn. Stat. § 325F.57 (service-call charges; disclosure on request). Minn. Stat. § 325F.58, subd. 1 (written estimate on customer request before commencement; must include what the trade would normally include); subd. 2 (charge for making an estimate requires advance disclosure and authorization); subd. 3 (notice that storage, service-call, and estimate charges are additional); subd. 4 (customer’s option to have repairs done or the item returned); subd. 5 (no estimate required for work the shop does not agree to perform); subd. 6 (110 percent cap; additional-work exception; return on nonauthorization; reasonable-charges backstop); subd. 7 (oral communication alternative and required notation); subd. 8 (right to request an estimate for additional repairs regardless of the original request). Minn. Stat. § 325F.59 (no charge for unauthorized repairs; no repairs the shop knows or has reason to know are unnecessary absent informed authorization). Minn. Stat. § 325F.60, subd. 1 (notwithstanding § 325F.56, subd. 2: any value under warranty, service contract, or insurance policy, or more than $50; invoice on completion; two-business-day mailing; contents (a)–(h) including odometer reading and customer-described symptoms); subd. 2 (estimate may serve as invoice). Minn. Stat. § 325F.61(a)–(c) (return of vehicle or appliance on payment of the undisputed proportion). Minn. Stat. § 325F.62, subd. 1 (return of replaced parts on request made before repairs commence; five business days to examine warranty/exchange parts); subd. 2 (one-year record retention; customer right to copies on payment of reasonable reproduction costs); subd. 3 (required sign text). Minn. Stat. § 325F.63, subd. 1 (return without payment of unauthorized or excess charges, or consequential damages, reasonable attorney’s fees, and punitive damages not to exceed three times the total charges; acceptance not an admission); subd. 2 (reasonable value of parts not returned); subd. 3 (violation deemed a violation of § 325F.69, subd. 1, and § 8.31 applies); subd. 4 (remedies cumulative). Minn. Stat. § 325F.64, subd. 1 (insurance/service-contract exemption, naming §§ 325F.57 to 325F.59 and 325F.61 to 325F.66); subd. 2 (free warranty repairs, same sections). Minn. Stat. § 325F.65 (preemption of local ordinances except more restrictive regulation). Minn. Stat. § 325F.66 (short title, “sections 325F.56 to 325F.65”). Minn. Stat. § 325F.69, subd. 1 (Prevention of Consumer Fraud Act unlawful practices). Minn. Stat. § 8.31, subd. 3a (private civil action; damages, costs and disbursements, costs of investigation, reasonable attorney’s fees, equitable relief). Minn. Stat. § 514.18, subd. 1 (mechanics’ lien on personal property and right to retain possession); § 514.19(4) (right of detainer for making, altering, or repairing any article).

This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and it does not promise or imply any particular outcome. Statutes are amended; verify the current text before relying on any provision.