Larry Fallowfield: Motor Trade Association Dealer Expert on whether you have to service your car at a dealer to maintain your warranty

Do you have to get your car serviced by the dealer to avoid voiding the warranty?  

While you don't necessarily have to, manufacturers require specific equipment and supplies to be used during the servicing process, and using alternatives can impact the warranty.

The independent mechanic also has to adhere to the servicing schedule and keep complete documentation. 

Motor Trade Association Dealer Expert Larry Fellowfield told Kerre Woodham that while dealerships often cost more than independent mechanics, it comes down to the specific training and equipment they’re required to have.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carry Wood the Morning's podcast from
News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be Larry Fellowfield, MTA Dealer expert joins us. Now,
very good morning to you. Thank you so much for
coming on so quickly.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Good morning, Kerry.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Now, when it comes to dealers saying you have to
come back here to get your car serviced during the
warranty period or the warranty is void, is that true
or not?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
That is correct the current currently that's how it stands,
and that comes down to a couple of reasons. Obviously,
you've just mentioned that the warranty period for your vehicles
seniorsn't and now they're team in a dealership situation or
from an oe IN perspective, they invest a lot of
time in training on that particular brand, whatever their brand is.

(00:54):
And obviously from an oe IN perspective or original equipment
manufacturer which is your major brands out there, you know
they have stipulated white tools and a quid should be
used in that servicing process.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
But if somebody is an MTA warranted mechanic, does it
have to be the service the service department of the dealership.
But can it Why can it not just be a
licensed mechanic.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, and that is the tricky one. It comes back
to the manufacturer's stipulation that it has to go to
one of their approved dealerships. We'd love it obviously if
it could go to any MTA mechanic. But having said that,
you know most of the dealerships that are out there
are also MPa members as well. So and one of

(01:50):
the things is that if you look at the servicing period,
an average servicing period, if you said was five years,
you know you're you're servicing it through a major dealership
and that's up until that warranty period expires, and then
from then on our general appairans would get the servicing
or the repairs on those vehicles for the next If

(02:13):
you thought about the average age of a car in
New Zealand as fifteen plus years, they would get it
for an extra ten years. But look, it's all about
work streams and workflows you know in the dealerships obviously,
that's where they you know, work hard at trying to
get those vehicles back into their dealership to look after

(02:36):
those vehicles.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
But they can charge whatever they like then. I mean,
on average, we've seen and we've heard and experienced that
the dealerships will charge one hundred percent more than your
average mechanic will, So the cost of the car is
not ninety thousand dollars, it's ninety one five hundred by
the time you've added on the extra cost for a
three year warranty period.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Can be correct, yes, And part of that goes back
to what I just mentioned before, is that the manufacturers
will stipulate training programs, so all of those staff or
employees have to be trained to a certain level to
service and repair those vehicles, and also the equipment that
they have to purchase to do those repairs. And that's

(03:23):
where the costs can come in. And and look, I
just wrote an article about this recently, exactly saying what
you've said, that you know there is a cost difference
between sometimes between servicing a vehicle at a genuine dealership
or a supplier from that side versus going through a

(03:44):
general repair.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
I think that's a bloody outrage. I mean, you know,
from what people are saying, the service is no better
than what they would get, in fact, sometimes worse from
their local neighborhood mechanic.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Look, I would hope that it would be better given
that they are the technicians that are trained to work
on those vehicles. But you are correct, I mean, just
because you know it's going to a dealership, they are
only as good as the employees that they have, and
as I say, most of them have a very stringent
training program, so I would expect that the service would

(04:24):
be as good as, if not better than, a general repairer.
But having said that, you've summed it up. You know,
sometimes you're only as good as the employees you've got,
And there's some very good technicians out there outside of dealerships,
that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
So do some manufacturers Are they not as pedantic about
getting the car back to the dealership and are some
dealerships a bit more relaxed. So it will just depend
on an ad hoc basis who you're dealing with.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
It can do for sure, Yeah, you know. And the
other thing too that happens is generally a vehicle might
be registered, say in Auckland, but in a year's time
it ends up in Wellington. Well that's now left that dealership,
and that dealership doesn't know where it's gone to, so

(05:16):
they're very much reliant on that owner of that vehicle
going into their local dealership to continue that services program.
And look, there's some very good servicing programs out there
now that are jick when I start looking at the
price they're charging, you go, man, that's very cost effective
to make sure that your car is maintained to a level.

(05:37):
And that's what it's really about. Regardless of the age
of the vehicle, you know, it should be kept up
to a minimum standard and those services should be done
every ten to fifteen thousand k's depending on the vehicle,
because yeah, if we want to improve our environment, then
that's the first place we should be starting.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Lovely, thank you so much. There you go. You do
you have to take it back to the dealership if
you don't want to avoid the warranty.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
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