Basic rule to work on is this: Whoever pays the bill has the right to choose where the vehicle is serviced. Therefore servicing or routine maintenance that is paid for by the vehicle owner can be at any independent repairer and cannot invalidate manufacturers warranty. Any warrantly fault however is being paid for by car manufacturer or dealer and they can therefore dictate where the warranty repair is carried out. Two grey areas however. 1.Manufacturers warranty i.e. 2 years, then this comes under Block Exemption rules which allows servicing within warrantly to be outside dealer network. However, vehicle may have been sold with extended warranty (effectively insurance) and unless this has changed recently, it can be regarded as a private contract or warrantly and could therefore dictate where the vehicleis serviced. Brussels were looking at this problem previously but I havnt been over for a while so I will try to find out what the latest position is. Note that many manufacturers sold vehicles e.g. with 3 year warranties, the first 2 years being manufacturer and the third being insurance based warranty! gets a bit messy. 2. Any serving should be carried out with parts etc that have equivalent specifications, this is very difficult to assess because it means that parts suppliers even the OE supplier must get certificate to state that part is effectively equivalent to OE, this hasnt happened in most cases so it becomes a difficult issue. However, if something fails that has not in any way been influenced by previous work, then this does not invalidate the warranty for the failed part. All owners hand books were changed (under pressure from Office of Fair trading) in last couple of years to reflect the Block Exemption regulation, therefore no owners handbook or any dealer literature should mention invalidation of warranty if vehicle is serviced outside of dealer network. If there is any documentation or reference to invalidation of warranty becuase of servicing by independent, the OFT should be very interested. If you are member of RMI or similar, they should also have an interest inthis typoe of issue. Regards Peter Coombes
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