Vehicles are regularly serviced during the warranty period – in fact, in order to maintain the
warranty, owners are obliged to service their vehicles according to the car manufacturer’s
specified cycle. This adds an additional complexity to the warranty issue. During the warranty
period, it is expected that faulty items are replaced at the manufacturers cost. However, most
of the car servicing costs will relate to ‘replacement’ parts, components of the vehicles that are
not under warranty and are designed to be replaced on a regular basis. Similar to a vacuum
cleaner – the manufacturer will require that you purchase appropriate replacement filters and
dust bags, and the warranty will not cover these replacement parts. If the vacuum cleaner
does not work, the warranty will not apply if it is owner has failed to replace these components
on a regular basis.
Much of this misinformation is caused by the car makers. Imagine if you were led to believe
that you must buy only one brand of vacuum cleaner bag, the one recommended by your
vacuum cleaner manufacturer. If you understood that using any other lower cost generic bag
would void your warranty, you would be inclined to pay the extra for the ‘genuine’ or ‘original
equipment’ bag. This is a good illustration of the market distortion in our industry –
consumers are generally under the impression that they must use ‘genuine’ parts or the
warranty will be void.
Car makers do not make many car parts and they certainly do not make replacement parts.
These parts are manufactured by the car makers supply network and delivered to the car
dealerships for use in servicing vehicles under warranty. In 2005 The Australian Competition
and Consumer Commission issued a statement that the use of independent replacement parts
will not void the warranty and the use of the term ‘genuine’ parts is not necessary