Refusal to repair a car under warranty

Concept of refusal in car warranty repair
Reasons for refusal of warranty car repairs
At what point do you consider that you have been denied warranty repairs?
Procedure in case of refusal of warranty repair of a car
Claim for refusal of warranty repair of a car
Sample complaint to the dealer for refusal to repair a car under warranty
What to do if there was no refusal of warranty repair, but the repair was not done?
When can a dealer actually refuse warranty repairs?
How to challenge an unlawful refusal to provide warranty repairs
Judicial practice regarding refusals of warranty car repairs

Refusal to repair a car under warranty is a refusal to satisfy a claim, or the seller, dealer, or manufacturer ignores the car owner’s request to eliminate a defect in the car under warranty.
Refusal to carry out repairs under warranty can be expressed either in written or verbal form, or it can consist in the fact that your request for warranty repairs of the car is not satisfied within the period established by law. Nikita Kharitonov tells what to do if warranty repairs are denied

In fact, every time a car owner contacts a dealer with a breakdown during the warranty period, there are two possible scenarios:

or repair of the defect under warranty, that is, free of charge for the car owner
or a refusal to provide warranty repairs to the car, that is, in fact, any situation in which, after the car owner applied for warranty repairs, such repairs were not carried out.

Pay attention to how to properly contact the dealer when a defect is discovered in the car, so that there are no problems later and you can protect your rights in case of their violation.

Refusal to carry out warranty repairs is not a disaster or the “end of the world”. And this does not mean at all that now you will have to repair the car at your own expense, which, of course, the dealer really counts on.

First, you need to understand that it is part of your vehicle's manufacturer's policy to refuse free warranty repairs.

If dealerships satisfied the demands of all owners of cars under warranty for free repairs, manufacturers would suffer colossal losses. Indeed, according to statistics, only 1-3 car owners out of 10 who were refused repairs under warranty take some action to force the dealer to repair the car for free.

That is why, in the event of a dealer refusal, you just need to perform a series of certain actions, after which either your car will be repaired or you will receive monetary compensation to cover the costs of repairs.

Reasons for refusal of warranty car repairs

The reason for refusal of warranty repair of a car is the basis on which a dealer, car dealership, or manufacturer refuses to carry out free warranty repairs of a car to the car owner.

Reasons for refusal to carry out warranty repairs can be divided into two categories:

legitimate reasons for refusing repairs
illegal reasons for refusing repairs

According to the law, the reason for refusal of warranty repair of a car can only be the fact that a defect in the car has been established through an independent examination due to violation by the car owner of the rules of operation, storage, transportation of the car, actions of third parties or force majeure.

Illegal reasons for refusal of warranty repair of a car are any other reasons besides the above.

For example, if a dealer, refusing to carry out repairs under warranty, refers to the fact that you operated the car incorrectly, but did not conduct an examination that established this, then this is also an illegal reason for the refusal.

Cases of refusal of warranty repairs are different. And the most common reason for refusing to repair a car under warranty is the absence of any basis.

In fact, the dealer does not need any reason to refuse you, or simply delay warranty repairs. This is what happens, your demands are simply ignored without explanation, or under some incomprehensible pretext.

There are situations when a dealer, hinting that repairs under warranty will be refused, offers to “chip in” for repairs, that is, the car owner must compensate part of the repair costs from his own funds.

The logic is simple: a person, fearing a complete refusal of repairs, for example, for 150,000 rubles, thinks that it would be more profitable to pay half, but the repairs will definitely be carried out. And it seems like it’s not entirely at his expense.

In fact, the cost of repairs at a dealer station is usually several times more expensive than at any other certified station, so in fact it turns out that a person not only saves nothing, but also incurs real losses. Which, by the way, no one will reimburse him.

The most common reasons for refusal of warranty car repairs:

violation of vehicle operating rules
Carrying out repairs or maintenance of a vehicle other than at a dealership
use of low-quality fuels and lubricants (fuel, oil, etc.)
repair of a failed component or assembly is an exception under the terms of the manufacturer’s warranty

At what point do you consider that you have been denied warranty repairs for your car?

From the point of view of legislation on the protection of consumer rights and from the point of view of the consumer himself, who, by definition, should not have any special knowledge in the field of automotive technology or jurisprudence, the fact of refusal of warranty repair of a car can be considered to have occurred in two cases.

at the moment when you were informed in some way about such a refusal, for example, you were given a written refusal with or without explanation of the reasons for the refusal, or simply one of the authorized persons of the dealership or car seller orally informed you of such a decision.
at a time when such a refusal did not occur, but the period established by law for warranty repairs of the car expired, while in fact no one started repairs. That is, they didn’t seem to refuse, but at the same time they didn’t do anything

Warranty car repair is the elimination by the seller, dealer, car manufacturer, at the expense of the car manufacturer, of defects of the car discovered by the consumer during the warranty period that arose for a reason that arose before the transfer of the car to the consumer

If we consider any repairs at the expense of the manufacturer as warranty repairs, then warranty repairs can also include the elimination by the manufacturer of significant defects in the product discovered after the expiration of the established warranty period, but within the service life of the vehicle.

In the minds of most people, there is a belief that a refusal to satisfy your legal requirements, in particular, to eliminate the defects of the car, can be considered to have taken place only after you have received a certain “refusal” or Certificate of refusal of warranty repairs for your claim.

Therefore, very often, car owners demand that the dealer give them this very “written refusal” or an act of refusal to provide warranty repairs to the car, believing that only after receiving it will some legally significant consequences occur or that they can go to court only after receiving such a “refusal” " This is wrong.

But what to do then, if, for example, you turned to the dealer about a defect in your car, the car is at the dealer, but you objectively don’t know what’s happening to it there.

According to the warranty engineers, repairs are being made, spare parts are on the way, and similar arguments. That is, it seems that you were not refused to have your car repaired under warranty, but at the same time, the repair itself never happens.

Therefore, you need to clearly understand and separate such concepts as refusal of warranty repair of a car and violation of the warranty period for car repairs and understand the legal consequences that these two facts entail.

A common misconception is that car owners wait 45 days for warranty repairs to be carried out and consider the period violated only after this period has expired. It is not right. More precisely, it is not always correct.

According to the law, vehicle defects must be eliminated immediately, that is, within the minimum period objectively necessary to eliminate the defect, taking into account the method usually used. As a rule, this period does not exceed several days even for the most complex repairs.

The delivery period of spare parts necessary for warranty repairs is not taken into account when determining the period required for repairs, which means that the warranty repair period begins to run not from the moment the spare parts arrive at the dealer, but from the moment you contact him with a repair request car under warranty.

Procedure in case of refusal of warranty repair of a car

In general, the procedure is as follows:

Show the available documents to a lawyer to assess the situation.
Checking the technical side of the issue for the reasons for the car’s deficiencies. Drawing up an expert inspection report.
If necessary, prepare a claim to the dealer for refusal of warranty repairs.
Preparation and submission of documents to the court.
A legal proceeding, during which, as a rule, the main stated requirement changes from a requirement for warranty repairs to a requirement for a refund of money for the car.

The first thing to do is to correctly assess the legality of the refusal. There are situations when misunderstanding of certain legal aspects prevents the car owner from acting correctly. These are situations when “both are right” - both the car owner and the dealer.

The legislation on the protection of consumer rights clearly defines the algorithm of actions of both the consumer and the dealer in the event that the former contacts the latter with a requirement to repair the car under warranty.

In 99% of cases, this algorithm is violated, but, as a rule, it is the car owner who suffers from this, since the dealer is familiar with this algorithm and is aware of the consequences of its violation, for example, not conducting an independent examination to determine the causes of the car’s defect, and the car owner he doesn’t even know.

When you are denied warranty repairs, there are two aspects that need to be checked: technical and legal.

Technical. To clearly understand whether there is a defect in the car and what are the objective reasons for its occurrence.
Legal. To provide yourself with the necessary evidence for the future and oblige the dealer to carry out warranty repairs or even return the car with the defect and get money for it.

Automobile warranty disputes are one of the most complex categories of cases in the field of consumer protection. And the point here is not that these are some complex cases from a legal point of view.

The point is that there are a lot of aspects to these cases that need to be taken into account, but nothing is written about in the law.

You need to be aware that for you, a controversial situation with a dealer may happen only once during the entire warranty period, but for a dealer, dealing with such requests is an everyday activity.

As you understand, dealers, or more precisely, the manufacturer, are not interested in paying for the repair of your car at their own expense, even if the defect arose through his fault.

Therefore, the policies of dealers and their actions when you contact them have already been clearly worked out and verified, starting with placing an order. Or starting from its lack of registration. This also happens often.

Therefore, the most correct advice for a person who has been denied a car repair under warranty would be to consult with specialists from the consumer protection society who have experience in resolving such issues.

The consultation is free, and it can save you from a lot of unnecessary problems.8 (812) 992-39-98

Further actions depend on what stage of communication with the dealer you are currently at and what evidence base of documents you have in order to be able to influence the dealer.

What shouldn't happen

Under no circumstances should a complaint against a car dealership (a sample is given below) contain any insults. It is unacceptable to attach “labels” or draw hasty conclusions, or use “bright” epithets and comparisons. The text should contain exclusively dry facts, presented without unnecessary emotionality.

It is important to remember that the buyer loses the right to file a claim with the seller if he gives the vehicle for repair at a service station near the house, and not at a service center. During the warranty period, it is also not recommended to tune it or modify it by other methods. All work must be carried out exclusively in an accredited workshop.

Claim for refusal of warranty repair of a car

A claim is a requirement to eliminate the violation of an obligation committed by the dealer or seller of the car. That is, in other words, the dealer was obliged by law or contract to do something, but did not do it, and now you are writing a complaint to him about this and demanding that the violation be eliminated

In relation to the situation with warranty repairs: the dealer has an obligation, if you contact him with a warranty defect, to carry out free repairs.

If for some reason the dealer does not carry out such repairs, or refuses to carry them out, the question arises: it seems like the dealer needs to file a claim, but what do you demand in it?

After all, you have already contacted him with a problem with your car, and he should have already eliminated this defect. It turns out that in the claim you need to demand that the defect be eliminated again, that is, demand the same thing a second time from the dealer who already refused you the first time.

It is clear that nothing has changed since your first request and the dealer’s decision regarding your deficiency will be the same as the first time. Then what's the point of writing a complaint?

It is naive to believe that if for the first time you were refused repairs under warranty, then after drawing up a “competent claim” with references to legal norms and threatening to go to court, the dealer will get scared and rush to repair your car.

In controversial situations involving warranty repairs or refusal to carry them out, we usually understand the warranty claim to the dealer as the requirement to eliminate the defect free of charge, i.e. about car warranty repairs.

Such a requirement can be expressed in a work order, in a statement, or even verbally. Therefore, in the event of a refusal of warranty repair, the main purpose of filing a claim with the dealer is to provide yourself with proof of your appeal to the dealer with a request for repairs.

What matters here is the date of application - so that the claim is made within the warranty period established for the car, and the demand itself must be clearly expressed - to eliminate a specific defect of the car free of charge.

In order to understand whether you need to write a claim to the dealer in case of refusal to carry out warranty repairs, you need to check several circumstances:

Do you have proof of contacting the dealer with a request to eliminate the detected defect under warranty?
if there is one, then you need to check the presence of dealer powers of the person (company) to whom you addressed your demand, or in whose name the purchase order was issued (often when contacting a dealer station, documents are specially drawn up in the name of the “left” company so as not to incur any future liability to you in the event of a repair failure or other dispute)
whether the fact that the dealer received your claim or the fact that the claim was properly sent is confirmed (if one of the station employees signed and dated the copy of your claim, this is not evidence)

These and some other circumstances are usually checked by our lawyers for one purpose only: to provide yourself with proof of a certain legal fact - the fact that you contacted the dealer with a requirement for repairs under warranty, so that this evidence could later be used in court and win your case.

At this stage of your communication with the dealer, we advise you to contact the consumer society and get advice on how to act correctly, because this stage, as our judicial practice shows, is decisive - the success of the entire case depends on the correctness of your actions at this moment.

Therefore, the main advice that can be given to a car owner who is going to write a claim to the dealer is not to write it until the lawyer tells you to do this and tells you what should be reflected in it and when it should be sent.

It often happens that the car owner’s own writing of a claim or several claims later prevents us from building a position in court. Therefore, it is better to consult a lawyer at a free consultation.

We'll look at how to file a claim for refusal of warranty car repairs below.

How to file a claim with a car dealership?

There are several ways to submit a claim to a car dealership:

► one of the most reliable ways is to personally deliver the claim at the car dealership under a mark on your copy;
► You can send a claim to a car dealer by registered mail , preferably with notification; you also need to make an inventory of what you are sending. Receipt. which will be given to you at the post office, about sending a letter by registered mail with notification will help via the Internet to track the date of receipt of the claim by the car dealership until you receive the notification, which may get lost;
► you can duplicate a claim for the protection of the rights of consumers of auto services by e-mail , but the car dealer, if something happens, can say that he did not track the mail, that receiving the claim in this way is not agreed upon in the contract, so it is better to duplicate the sending of the claim in other ways to ensure receipt its addressee.

Sample complaint to the dealer for refusal to repair a car under warranty

Here you can familiarize yourself with a sample claim to the dealer in case of refusal to carry out warranty repairs on the car, as well as a claim.

Please note that this is just a general sample that we provide to give you a general idea of the claim form. But the content should change depending on the specific situation!

(indicate the name, OGRN of the dealer) From ______________________________ (indicate your full name) Address:___________________________ (indicate the address for sending a response) Tel.: ____________________________ (indicate the telephone number for communication)

CLAIM for refusal to carry out warranty repairs

I am the owner of a car brand ____ model _____, VIN No. _________________________________.

The warranty period for the car is set by the manufacturer for 3 years or 100,000 km. mileage depending on which event occurs first.

At _____ km. mileage after 1 year and 3 months. During the warranty period, I discovered the following defects in the car, not specified by the seller: _______________________________________________. (describe in detail the deficiency, how and under what conditions it manifests itself)

Due to the discovery of the specified defect in the car, I contacted your dealership with a request to repair the car.

After carrying out the diagnostics, the service station employee informed me that this was not a warranty case and offered to order spare parts for repairs at my expense.

Since I believe that the defect arose for reasons not related to my violation of operating rules or other reasons for which the manufacturer is not responsible, I hereby demand:

— carry out warranty repairs of the vehicle within the minimum period objectively necessary to eliminate the existing defect.

date signature

What to do if there was no refusal of warranty repair, but the repair was not done?

“From a legal point of view, if the warranty repair of a car is not carried out by the dealer within the period established by law, this is equivalent to a refusal to carry out repairs,” this is the position taken by lawyers from the consumer rights protection society Consumer Alliance.

After all, the dealer, under various pretexts, can postpone the decision to carry out repairs indefinitely. For example, they will tell you that spare parts have been ordered to repair your car, and they are coming from Moscow, or from the country of the manufacturer, for example, England.

At the same time, your claim under the warranty is not properly recorded, and if after a month or two problems arise with the repair, then legally it will turn out that you did not even contact the dealer and everything will have to start all over again.

It also happens that the dealer forces the car owner to sign an agreement under which the period of warranty repairs is extended by the period of delivery of the necessary spare parts. That is, it turns out that the warranty repair period does not begin to expire until the spare part arrives at the dealer.

This is illegal and such agreements to extend the repair period are declared invalid in court.

We had a case when a person contacted us who had been waiting for repairs for almost 8 months, and all this time the dealer had logical explanations for why the repairs were being delayed.

In such situations, without clearly understanding the legal significance of what is happening at the moment, car owners can be in such a “limbo” for months, and only when they are completely tired of it do they begin to take some action.

Guided by their own experience of judicial work in such cases, specialists of the consumer rights protection society can already easily determine by a number of signs whether in a given situation they should expect warranty repairs from the dealer or whether they should act differently.

As practice shows, if warranty repairs are not done within a reasonable time, some problems begin (no response from Moscow, spare parts are on the way, etc.), then, most likely, the dealer will no longer carry out warranty repairs voluntarily and you need to start taking action.

Therefore, in such a situation, when the dealer constantly asks you to wait for something, it is better to take certain actions and speed up this process.

We advise you to do this: the dealer has not carried out warranty repairs within 1-2 weeks from the date of your first request - YOU NEED TO ACT!

When can a dealer actually refuse warranty repairs?

Legislation on the protection of consumer rights allows situations in which the dealer has the right to refuse to satisfy the car owner’s request for warranty repairs of the car.

A legal refusal to repair a car under warranty is a refusal to repair a car under warranty, which is based on the conclusion of an examination.

The entire procedure for the relationship between a car owner and a dealer, when the car owner has discovered a defect in the car and demands its elimination under warranty, is clearly defined by law.

So, if the car is under warranty, then the dealer has the right to refuse warranty repairs if, through an examination, he proves that the defect arose due to a reason for which he is not responsible, namely, due to the car owner’s violation of the rules for operating, storing or transporting the car, or the actions of third parties or force majeure.

It should be noted that the examination of a car is carried out according to the law only in the event of a dispute about the causes of the defects, that is, the presence of the defect itself at the time of the examination is already obvious and cannot be determined.

In what cases, at whose expense and how to properly examine a car, you can find out by clicking on the link: the procedure for conducting an independent examination of a car under warranty.

If a dealer, when refusing to carry out warranty repairs on your car, refers to the examination he conducted, this does not mean that such a refusal is legal.

As a rule, dealers have “their” experts who give opinions that are pleasing to the dealer, but the expert does not bear any responsibility under the law for such an opinion, so they are usually not taken seriously in court.

A dispute about the reasons for the occurrence of car defects is a situation when the car owner believes that the defect arose for reasons that arose before the seller handed over the car to him; roughly speaking, there is a manufacturing defect, i.e. the reasons for the defect discovered by him are, for example, some error in the design of the part or its design, assembly

If there is a dispute as to whether there is a defect in the car at all or not, this is the subject of a so-called car quality check.

In fact, everything happens completely differently. In most cases of controversial situations, examination is not carried out by dealers at all. In the best case, the “examination” will be carried out by an expert friendly to the dealer, and it is clear whose side he will take.

What to do after writing a letter

A letter of complaint requires a response, and various developments are possible: satisfaction of claims in full, in part, as well as a complete refusal to satisfy them. As a rule, the response itself is also written, in the form of a separate letter or a resolution imposed by the head of the recipient company on the received claim.

In cases where there is no answer, you should wait at least 30 days and then file a lawsuit or a complaint with a supervisory authority.