How to properly apply for car warranty repairs

If you encounter a problem (car malfunction or breakdown) that was not your fault, and the car is still under warranty, you should contact an authorized dealer for free repairs. The article explains how to obtain warranty repairs legally, and what to do if you are refused to have your car repaired under warranty.

Before and after the changes take effect

Until 2021, insurers compensated for damage in two ways.
The first is by directly paying the amount that was named by expert appraisers during the inspection of the damage to the vehicle. The second option is that the funds were sent directly to the service station, where repairs were carried out using these funds. The warrior had the right to refuse repair services and receive the money in hand. This vulnerability was often exploited by some scammers. Lawyers actively took on such cases, receiving a percentage of the payment under compulsory motor liability insurance, often increasing its amount. Accidents were deliberately created in order to obtain compensation in a similar way. The new amendments eliminated this omission.

Citizens of the Russian Federation with a passenger car registered in the Russian Federation are now required to undergo repairs at a service station offered by the insurance company. Those drivers who do not fall into this category still have the opportunity to receive cash compensation.

Direction: what is it?

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With the improvement of legislation, such a document has appeared as a referral for repairs under compulsory motor liability insurance. This paper has full legal force and allows the driver to receive compensation on all grounds for damage received during a traffic accident. The result of the mechanics’ work should be a complete (note, not partial) restoration of the car. Additionally, the document clearly specifies the period for repairing a car under compulsory motor liability insurance.

In fact, this direction is a full-fledged replacement of the funds that you would have allocated for car repairs. The innovation should make the procedure easier for drivers, but in practice several unpleasant nuances remain:

What else to read:

• My car was scratched in the yard, what should I do?
• Europrotocol 2021
• How to get money instead of repairs under compulsory motor liability insurance: a detailed review

• There remains the need to contact the insurance company. This is a mandatory stage, since it is the IC that issues the direction after the work of the appraisers.
• Sometimes you don't have the right to choose a car service. This falls on the shoulders of the insurance company.
• You will have to wait for the completion of work in the specified service without the opportunity to change it, which is inconvenient for many. Some drivers would be able to do their own repairs much faster after receiving cash.

It is far from a fact that the chosen insurance service station will qualitatively eliminate faults, not to mention the need to comply with the repair deadline under the compulsory motor liability insurance policy.

Procedure for receiving a referral

As soon as you are involved in an accident and you are guaranteed compensation under compulsory motor liability insurance, you must follow the following sequence of actions:

1. Collecting a package of documents required to contact the insurance company and receive compensation.
2. The company's appraiser conducts an inspection, and specialists decide how compensation will be carried out. In most situations, they choose to restore the car at CTO.
3. If your insurer offers several options, you can choose one of the approved service stations.
4. You are given directions. With it, the victim goes to the workshop and waits for repairs.
5. If the quality does not satisfy you or the maximum period for repairs under compulsory motor liability insurance has been exceeded, then file a claim or resolve the issue through the court.

Warranty car engine repair

Many motorists were faced with the need to carry out one or another repair under warranty. Most often, there are no problems with this - and the dealer takes the car to its service station, and then returns it to the owner in good condition.

According to statistics, in most cases we are talking about minor breakdowns.

Of course, the dealership is interested in a good reputation, and it is more profitable for it to meekly carry out a small repair of the car “at its own expense” than to try to “extract” extra money from the client, be branded a fraudster and lose new customers, and, therefore, much more money. Things are a little different when something expensive in the car, for example, the engine, fails. Here, two main approaches are often observed: On the part of the seller - the desire, by hook or by crook, to shift responsibility onto the car owner: they say, he “fed him the wrong gasoline”, did not change the oil on time, operated in difficult conditions - all in deserts and swamps. On the other hand, the buyer, seeing the “check engine” warning light come on or hearing that the engine has started to “trouble”, becomes paralyzed with horror, stops thinking adequately and demands from the seller to immediately replace the faulty engine, and sometimes the car itself.

Let us remind you that the return of the goods to the seller is provided only if any defect is detected within 15 days from the date of delivery of the goods to you, or the defect is significant, or the time frame for eliminating the defect exceeded 45 days, or in each year of operation due to a defect you could not use goods for more than 30 days. This is where many people remember the point about the “substantiality” of the defect: they say, the engine is faulty, and this is a very essential component of the car - urgently issue a new one! Meanwhile, if this defect was discovered for the first time or, say, does not require repairs comparable in price to the cost of the car itself, you cannot claim more than warranty repairs. What does it take for the seller to carry out warranty repairs of the car engine in the event of a problem? The documents that will be required from you are no different from those required for warranty repairs of any other component - those that can confirm your compliance with the manufacturer's requirements for operating the car. First of all, a service book with notes on all maintenance performed. Actually, the dealer's database usually stores all the information about the car sold to you. Therefore, you do not need to provide documents confirming your right to a guarantee. If the car was serviced in a timely manner, the car should be accepted for repair without any questions. But if you miss the next maintenance, if it is performed by a third party, or if you installed additional equipment that does not have the required certificate, you may be denied warranty repairs. For more information on what to do in this case, see the section “Refusal of car warranty repairs.”

What documents will be needed?

But the list of documents that should be provided to you after warranty repair of a car engine is more extensive.

You should have in your hands:

1. acceptance certificate or repair request indicating date, mileage, reason for application
2. diagnostic report with a description of the malfunction, its cause and conclusion - is this a warranty case?
3. work order for warranty repair work
4. certificate of work performed indicating the exact actual date of delivery of the car to you.

All these documents - if the defect appears in the future - will serve as a basis for you to demand this time the replacement of the car itself with all due compensation, since the newly manifested defect acquires the status of “significant”.

If you are denied warranty engine repair for one reason or another, request written confirmation of the refusal. If you disagree with the refusal, the issue may have to be resolved in court. The court will operate with the documents you have, but “you can’t attach words to deeds.”

In any case, if you have friction with the dealer regarding car warranty repairs in general and engine repairs in particular, it would be a good idea to enlist the support of legal professionals. Contact us and experienced auto lawyers will help you protect your consumer rights guaranteed by law.

Nuances

Insurers are always aimed at minimizing their costs, so they resort to various tricks at the stage of registration of a referral. This is expressed in the need to “sign additional documents.” Drivers must leave their signatures on only two pieces of paper: a notification of an accident and an application to the insurance company. The latter is written in free form, so we recommend doing it at home yourself. If the insurer provides its own application form, read each line carefully. Most often, they try to catch drivers using the described consents:

• For additional payment if funds from the insurance company are not enough. At the same time, the payment is underestimated by insurers.
• You can choose any workshop from the list, although there is a limitation on this point.
• For the use of used spare parts.

In the worst case, they will slip you an assignment agreement. This paper resells the right to claim compensation to the auto repair shop, during which time the repairs will be performed as part of a normal service. Naturally, it will no longer be possible to challenge the quality of work or neglect of deadlines. If your car is less than 2 years old, then all repairs must be carried out by the dealership. Accordingly, the insurer cannot choose a third-party service station to repair the car under warranty.

The driver’s task is not to sign anything unnecessary, not to write consents in any fields, and to carefully read all the documentation. This will eliminate the chance of fraud on the part of the insurance company.

Repair times under compulsory motor liability insurance and their calculation

Let's move on to the most important question. The repair period under compulsory motor liability insurance according to the law is exactly 20 days, excluding non-working days and holidays. Regular weekends are included in this period. This applies to both car repairs and payment of compensation in monetary terms. This is legislatively enshrined in the Federal Law (Clause 21, Article 12).

The starting point is the day when the insurance company accepted the package of documents. Pay attention to this. Many drivers mail in all the paperwork and begin the countdown. It is far from a fact that the documents reached the insurer; the latter may deliberately say that he did not receive anything. To avoid such situations, you must obtain confirmation of receipt:

• registered letter with delivery report;
• personally deliver the entire package, leaving it to the authorized employee against signature;
• by making copies of incoming letters with your documents from the insurance company and having this copy certified.

When going to court, you will be able to prove that the insurer actually accepted your application, but did not consider it within the specified period.

To prevent the insurer from issuing a refusal, prepare a comprehensive package of documents:

• application for compensation under compulsory motor liability insurance,
• notification of the accident from the State Traffic Inspectorate;
• identification document;
• vehicle registration document;
• OSAGO policy.

The countdown of the 20-day period begins regardless of the date of appointment of the damage assessment.

If the driver brought the documents to the insurer on April 1, then the insurance company must issue a referral, compensate with money or send a refusal by April 21.

In this case, the inspection by the appraiser can take place even on the 19th day of the term. This preserves the insurer's obligations to meet deadlines. If the period includes holidays and non-working days (for example, March 8 and 9 are declared holidays), then they are subtracted from the 20-day period.

We send the car for repairs

Having received the direction, you need to transfer your car to the specified workshop or dealership (if the car is new). This is the second half of the matter, which has its own characteristics. We will talk about them further.

Deadline for contacting the service station

The referral usually indicates the number of days in which you are required to come to the service center and hand over the car for repair. Usually this is 5-21 days, but the period is not regulated in any way by law. Don't panic if you've missed this deadline. The driver can contact the insurance company to obtain a new valid referral. Insurance company employees do not have the right to refuse policy holders; this becomes a direct violation of the law when the insurer refuses to compensate for damages.

If no deadlines are specified, do not delay the matter and try to contact the service station within one week. For example, the term “reasonable period” is described in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and is equal to 7 days. Of course, it is unacceptable to apply it to this issue.

How long does it take for repairs?

The period for restoring the car at a service station is also described similarly to the legally established period for consideration of the application. It is 30 working days. Drivers often have their car delayed due to queues, lack of spare parts or mechanics being busy. We emphasize that this should not worry you. When choosing a workshop for repairs, the insurance company must take into account all the difficulties and workload so that the workshop can cope with the task within the allotted 30 days. Your task is to make sure that the service station accepted the car for repairs, have confirmation of this and count 30 days.

If the service station requires an additional payment

A common situation is when a workshop requires additional funds from the driver due to a lack of insurance coverage or offers to supply used parts in such a situation. According to the current law under compulsory motor liability insurance, the insurance company must completely eliminate damage received as a result of an accident without any additional payments from the victim. It is very important that when using the method of sending the car for repair, the wear and tear of the vehicle is not taken into account, as is done when paying for money.

Lack of funds is purely a problem for insurance employees. You can record a video of the refusal in the workshop with justification for the reason, and then go to the insurer with this material. It is in the interests of the insurer to quickly find a new service station, and the 30-day period will not be paused.

Additional papers

Drivers can also encounter pitfalls in the workshop. This includes:

• Signing additional agreements. According to current legislation, to contact a service station you only need a referral. There is no need to sign any other documents. In most cases, they put drivers at a disadvantage.
• Additional inspection. The service station may request it to increase the insurance amount; the appraisers may well have missed any hidden damage. You can give consent if this does not increase the period of 30 days.
• Preparation of estimates. Don't sign because it's not your concern or problem. The main thing is to receive the restored car within the allotted 30 days.

Any additional documentation in a car service is a way to put you at a disadvantage. Remember that body work is guaranteed for 12 months and all other repair work is guaranteed for half a year.

How to return a defective car back to the dealer?

Return within two weeks after purchase

You can return a new car within 14 days after purchase if any defect, even a minor defect, is discovered within this period.
According to the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights, if deficiencies are identified, if they are not specified in the contract, within 14 days from the date of receipt of the car (not sale), following the day of transfer of the vehicle, you have the right to return the new car to the car dealership and demand a refund. In addition, you have the right to demand an exchange for a similar car, but in good working order. You have the right to replace it with another car with recalculation of the cost. In this case, the malfunction may be very minor, for example, the windshield wiper does not work.

Returns during the warranty period

The dealer is obliged, upon your request, to return your money for the car/exchange it for a new one, if during the warranty period:

• a significant flaw has been discovered. According to the preamble of the Consumer Protection Act, a material defect is an irremediable defect or defect that cannot be eliminated without disproportionate expense or time, or appears repeatedly, or appears again after its elimination, or other similar defects. Repeated repairs of the same part, repeated malfunctions (which were detected more than once) are considered a significant defect of the product.

• operation of the vehicle was impossible for 30 or more days of the warranty period due to repeated elimination of various deficiencies.

According to paragraph 14 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 17 “On consideration by courts of civil cases in disputes regarding the protection of consumer rights”, in relation to a technically complex product, various defects of the product should be understood as a defect of the product under paragraph 1 of Article 18 of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights, the elimination of which in total takes time, leading to the impossibility of using the product (work, service) for more than thirty days during each year of the warranty period.

Attention. This does not mean 30 days in a row, but 30 days in total. For example, your car was in repair for 4 days in April, 10 days in May, 1 day in September, 15 days in December. Total 30 days. However, if before the start of the repair you were notified in writing that the repair would be lengthy and exact deadlines were agreed upon, then under this condition the period for eliminating the defects of the product, according to Art. 20 of the Consumer Protection Law, can last up to 45 days.

The warranty period for a car is usually 2-3 years.

Unscrupulous dealers try to assure the buyer that a return requires the inability to operate the car for 30 days in each warranty year. For example, if the warranty is 3 years, then, according to the seller, the car must be repaired for a total of at least 90 days. However, it is not.

The right to refuse to execute a purchase and sale agreement in relation to a technically complex product is granted if it is impossible to use a technically complex product due to repeated elimination of its various defects for more than thirty days of each year of the warranty period, that is, in any year of such a period. In judicial practice, there are cases when the Supreme Court took the side of the buyer with such an interpretation of the law.

Be sure to keep documents confirming the date and time your car was in the service center, confirming the repair of a particular part. The countdown of the period begins from the date of application, and not from the date of commencement of repairs! The final work order must contain the actual date of return of the car from repair, and not “retroactively”. Without this evidence, you will not be able to confirm in court the fact of repeated calls to eliminate the defect or the fact that the car was under repair for more than 30 days per year.

Return after the end of the warranty period

Was a significant defect in the vehicle discovered after the end of the warranty period? You have the right to make a claim to the manufacturer during the service life of the car, in accordance with paragraph 6 of Article 19 of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights. Typically, manufacturers set a service life of 5-8 years or a certain mileage (for example, 150,000 km). If the service life is not specified, then by default it is 10 years from the date of transfer of the goods from the seller to the buyer. If the day of transfer cannot be determined, then the service life is calculated from the date of manufacture.

Compensation for delay

If the insurance company or service station violated the designated periods, drivers can demand not only compensation, but also a penalty for the penalty. It is calculated taking into account the sum insured and the number of days that were overdue. When calculating the penalty for repairs, a rate of 0.5% is used. To receive a penalty, drivers must file a claim with CK. If the insurer has not reimbursed the funds within 10 days, then you should file a claim in court and prepare documents. In court proceedings, you can seek not only penalties. It is permitted to claim legal costs.

For individuals there is a limitation on penalties. It cannot exceed the amount allocated for car repairs. If the insurance company valued the work at 250 thousand rubles, then, regardless of the number of days of delay, the maximum penalty payment will reach the same 250 thousand. There is an additional reason to go to court - a fine for failure to meet deadlines. Plaintiffs may receive funds up to 50% of unpaid damages. Naturally, in such situations it is better to use the support of experienced lawyers who will help fully compensate for all the costs of the case.

Warranty for new cars

The AutoHERMES company is an official dealer of popular brands and fully supports the warranty obligations of automakers.
Also, as part of special offers, an increase in the warranty period may be provided. Warranty car repairs will be carried out subject to the following conditions:

• compliance with the automaker's recommendations for operating the vehicle, incl. in difficult conditions;
• compliance with the regulations and deadlines for periodic vehicle maintenance;
• identification of manufacturing defects.

Each warranty case is considered individually and as objectively as possible. A detailed description of the warranty conditions is specified in the machine’s operating manual and service book.

If the breakdown is recognized as a warranty case, the part will be repaired or replaced free of charge.

As part of cooperation with manufacturers, the AutoHERMES company takes care of the mobility of its customers and helping them in emergency situations. For car owners undergoing technical and warranty service at AutoHERMES service centers, all support programs provided by automakers are available. We also offer you to take advantage of extended packages.

The warranty period for cars depends on the brand:

Good to know

Drivers often ask what to do if the restoration work is of poor quality. Here you need to file a claim with the insurance company. If you do not receive quality repairs, resolve the problem through the courts. Drivers can also receive monetary compensation in exchange for repairs at the CTO, but only in certain cases, namely:

• the car cannot be repaired at a service center;
• the victim died, and the relatives do not expect further repairs to the car;
• when both drivers of an accident are at fault;
• the victim has a degree of disability with a specialized car;
• payments under compulsory motor liability insurance are not enough for full recovery;
• when causing harm to health and the victim chooses a method of payment in money;
• The Central Bank prohibited sending cars for repairs;
• by mutual agreement of two parties, i.e. the car owner and the insurance company;
• IC does not have the opportunity to send a new car to an official dealership.

Many people try to change their windows using OSAGO. If they were damaged directly during an accident and this is proven, then the glass will be replaced in the workshop. In another case, when it is damaged by a stone or was cracked before getting into an accident, the service station will not replace the part for you.

CONSUMER RIGHTS DURING AUTO WARRANTY REPAIR

Various problems with car warranty repairs often force car owners to turn to current legislation in order to obtain information about their rights, terms of warranty repairs, etc. and, of course, in order to protect and restore their rights.

The warranty period for a car is established by the manufacturer (seller, if it is not established by the manufacturer) and represents the period during which, if a defect is detected in the car, the manufacturer (seller, authorized organization or authorized individual entrepreneur, importer) is obliged to satisfy the consumer’s requirements.

Most often, the warranty period for a car is at least 3 years and is specified in the purchase and sale agreement.

Car sellers are either official dealers (trading companies - intermediaries between car manufacturers and buyers), or ordinary car dealerships (companies that do not have a contract with the car manufacturer).

Cars belong to the category of technically complex goods on the basis of Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 924 “On approval of the list of technically complex goods”, therefore, this product is subject to certain provisions of the current legislation.

The rights of the consumer in the event of a defect in the car are regulated by Article 18 of the Law of the Russian Federation dated 02/07/1992 No. 2300-1 “On the Protection of Consumer Rights” (hereinafter referred to as the Law).

If a breakdown is detected in the car within 15 days from the date of delivery of the vehicle, then the consumer will not have difficulty returning or replacing this car with a new one if, as part of a quality check (independent examination) carried out by the car dealership, the production quality is confirmed marriage.

If the warranty period for the car has not yet expired and a defect is identified in the car, and the 15-day period provided by the Law has passed, then the consumer will be forced to hand over the car to the seller for warranty repairs.

You should know that if the car is not “driving”, then in accordance with Part 7 of Article 18 of the Law, the seller is obliged to deliver the car to the service center himself and

for free. If the seller does not fulfill his obligation for any reason, the car owner has the right to demand compensation for the costs associated with delivering the car to a car dealership or service center.

Along with the car, you must also submit the documents available for it to the service center: service book, technical passport, etc.