It would be more accurately stated:

I am allowed to remove my headlights, but I'm not allowed to drive on the roads if I have removed my headlights. The restriction is on roads.

Okay, how about this one?

I own my home, but I'm not allowed to replace the GFCI outlets in my bathroom with non-GFCI outlets.

This misses the fundamental point being discussed.

Having the right to modify and repair does not mean a carte blanche to ignore and circumvent building and electrical regulations. You do have the right to remove, replace or add additional outlets providing that the regulations are complied with, and you can purchase outlets from any vendor which sells products compliant with the regulations.

Availability of first-party and third-party parts would greatly open up the market for electronic goods of all kinds. So long as they comply with the necessary regulations and perform equivalently to the original parts, it would be a vast improvement upon the current state of affairs.

Right to repair, not right to break the law and regulation.

Of course, but note that in both of your examples those limits are in place to make sure you don't inflict significant costs or damages on the rest of humankind. The limits you mention prevent you from making roads unsafe for everyone else at night and from poisoning the ground on which everyone else lives.

> I own my car, but I'm not allowed to remove the headlights and drive at night.

The issue there is driving at night on public roads. You can, with your own car, remove your headlights. The car manufacturer can't show up and sue you for that.

> I'm not allowed to pour oil on the ground even though it would only destroy my own grass

That's not the only thing it would destroy (ground water, local wildlife, etc). You are allowed to style your hedges in the shape of a middle finger, or pluck all your grass out blade by blade (save for any HOA restrictions you agreed to).

You're completely right. The distinction is that it's not the firm building your house forbidding you from pouring oil on the grass. It's government regulation. The same approach should be towards people, as an example, modifying the radio in their phones.

One distinction I see is between repair and modification.

If you own your car, and the headlight burns out, why shouldn't you be allowed to repair it back to the original factory state? Why should you be forced to pay someone else to do this?

If someone tries to argue that you're going to do it wrong, it seems like the onus should be on them to prove that your repair was bad and dangerous.

I understand what you are saying, but pouring oil into the ground or driving without headlights is against the common interests of most people.

Being able to repair things is very different, it is _in_ the common interest and likely against the interests of the manufacturers.

Well, there are potential issues with people repairing their own phones. They could use the wrong (or counterfeit) part and cause the phone to emit radiation that interferes with nearby communications. Or they could use the wrong (or counterfeit) battery or even damage the battery during replacement, potentially causing a fire hazard.

The purpose is not for you to fix your phone motherboard, a competent repair person with access to tools, schematics and repair software would do that. If bad quality of batteries are on the market the solution for fixing that is not to prevent people replacing the phone batteries, it would be like if bad petrol is sold somewhere and then car manufacturers use it as an excuse to force you to buy "genuime petrol" so your engine would continue to work.

Also if we want to prevent fires because of batteries then we should make Apple products illegal because it happened that Apple products had issues too https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall

Typically people aren't replacing the antennas or radio amps, so I'd keep the radiation issue in the theoretical bin.

As for bad parts and bad repair jobs, sure. I would think that owners are incentivized to buy parts that are safe and to install them correctly. Of course some battery batches will be bad, but that's true for authentic parts too. Remember the Samsung Note battery issues?

I think this discussion got off-track. The question is about whether the company that sold you the car is allowed to impose EULA-type limits on how you modify, use, or resell it, above and beyond safety laws that apply equally to ever person and product.

> I own my home, but I'm not allowed to pour oil on the ground even though it would only destroy my own grass.

I believe there are technical differences in how ownership of the land works in different jurisdictions throughout the world. The land or the earth below your grass might not be as yours as an article of clothing you're wearing.

You are allowed to remove the headlights, you just can't drive it on public roads

likely at night.

A more compelling argument might be -- what things are you not permitted to do to your home or car because of a private entity such as the manufacturer.