Short answer, no. Not in Australia, not for your standard warranty, and not just because we'd like it to be true.
It's the question we get asked more than any other by people with a newish car, and there's a lot of confusion around it. Plenty of people spend the first five years of ownership driving past us because they think they have no choice.
So here's how it actually works.
What the law says
Two separate things protect you, and it's worth knowing the difference.
The first is your consumer guarantees under Australian Consumer Law. Those are automatic, they apply to every new car, and they can't be signed away or taken off you by anything anyone says or writes. The ACCC is clear that these rights apply regardless of who services your car.
The second is the manufacturer's warranty. That's the one people worry about. In Australia these generally don't require you to service at a dealer to stay valid. What they require is that the car gets serviced properly, on time, to the manufacturer's schedule.
Where you have that done is your call.
And it got easier in 2022
There used to be a genuine problem here. Manufacturers held onto the technical information and software that independent workshops needed, so there were some jobs we simply couldn't get the data for.
That changed in July 2022. There's now a mandatory scheme that requires car makers to sell service and repair information to any Australian repairer at a fair price. Same information the dealer network gets.
It's a big deal, and most people have never heard of it.
What you do have to get right
This is the part that matters, because the warranty isn't unconditional. To keep it intact, the servicing needs to be:
Done to the manufacturer's schedule. The right service at the right interval, whichever comes first, kilometres or months. Not near enough.
Done with parts that meet the manufacturer's specification. Oil to the correct grade, filters that meet spec, the lot.
Done by someone qualified. A licensed workshop with qualified people in it.
Written down. Your logbook stamped, and the invoice kept. If you ever need to make a claim, the paperwork is what proves the car was looked after.
Get those four right and you're covered. Get sloppy on any of them and you've handed someone a reason to ask questions.
Where it can genuinely go wrong
We're not going to tell you nothing can ever be knocked back, because that isn't true either.
If a fault is actually caused by poor work or by the wrong part going in, a manufacturer can fairly decline that particular claim. That's reasonable. What they can't do is void your whole warranty because you didn't come to them.
There's also a difference people miss. Servicing and warranty repairs aren't the same thing. If something fails and it's a genuine warranty job, that repair usually still goes back through the dealer network at the manufacturer's cost. We'd tell you that and point you in the right direction rather than charge you for something you can get done for nothing.
The one catch: extended warranties
Some brands now offer a longer warranty on top of the standard one, but only if every service is done through their dealers. Mitsubishi's 10 year warranty works this way, and the ACCC has allowed it.
Service somewhere else and you don't lose your warranty, you just drop back to the standard one. Your consumer guarantees don't change either.
So if your car came with a 7 or 10 year deal, have a read of the fine print. Whether the extra years are worth sticking with the dealer for is your call. We'd just rather you knew which one you've got before you decide.
Why we don't fit customer supplied parts
This is where that policy comes from, and it's worth explaining because it puts a few noses out of joint.
We supply the parts we fit so we can stand behind the work. If we don't know where a part came from or what it's rated to, we can't warrant it, and we can't tell you hand on heart that it meets your manufacturer's spec. That's not a sales tactic. It's the thing that keeps your logbook servicing genuinely to standard.
Same reason we don't do the cheapest possible version of a service. We don't discount, we add value.
What it looks like here
You book in, we service it to your manufacturer's schedule, we use parts to spec, we stamp your logbook and you get a proper invoice for your records.
You also get the thing you don't get everywhere, which is a full report on the rest of the car sorted into work required ASAP, work required before next service, work required at next service, and items to monitor. So you know what's coming and roughly when, instead of finding out the hard way.
No pressure to do any of it on the day.
If you're still not sure
Grab your warranty booklet and have a read of the servicing conditions, or have a look at the ACCC website. It's your car and it's worth knowing where you stand rather than taking anyone's word for it, ours included.
And if you want to bring the booklet in, we'll go through it with you and tell you straight whether we can service it without causing you any grief. If for some reason we can't, we'll say so.
Book online at busseltonautorepairs.com.au/contact and mention you've got the warranty booklet with you.
