Many car manufacturers do not have standard warranty facilities.

Standard maintenance facility ensures consumer rights

According to Article 4 of Decree 116, automobile manufacturing, assembling and importing enterprises must perform automobile warranty responsibilities in accordance with the provisions of the law on consumer rights protection. Accordingly, enterprises are responsible for publicizing information on the warranty period, content and conditions; maintenance cycle and content; address of warranty and maintenance facilities with sufficient capacity according to regulations...

This regulation applies to automobile importing enterprises from January 1, 2018 and to domestic manufacturing and assembly enterprises from April 2019.

Up to now, only 30 out of hundreds of genuine warranty and maintenance facilities have been granted certificates according to the new regulations.

Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong - Deputy Head of the Department of Motor Vehicle Quality Inspection (Vietnam Register) said that this is a regulation to ensure the rights of consumers. Accordingly, automobiles must be warranted and maintained to ensure the safety of users, traffic participants as well as maintain the value of the vehicle that customers buy. This regulation only applies to genuine warranty and maintenance facilities, not to outside service workshops.

To meet the conditions of the Decree, genuine warranty and maintenance facilities must ensure minimum conditions regarding factories, equipment, human resources, origin of components and spare parts, and have a commitment to technical support from the manufacturer.

In fact, there are vehicles that without the manufacturer's support commitment, the workshop cannot perform warranty and maintenance because the vehicle has special equipment that only the manufacturer can provide.

Previously, the Ministry of Transport issued Circular 19 regulating warranty and maintenance services. Decree 116 has raised some conditions and expanded some equipment to ensure that a vehicle after warranty and maintenance meets safety and environmental protection standards. Therefore, the equipment of warranty and maintenance facilities will now be similar to that at inspection stations.

For example, the old Circular only stipulated brake and headlight testing platforms, but Decree 116 has added items for steering, exhaust, paint, chassis inspection... to ensure that after warranty and maintenance, the vehicle can be safely operated," said Mr. Phuong.

According to some experts in the automotive field, currently the warranty, maintenance and repair of a car still lack many factors that create trust for customers. For example, a new car after being repaired and maintained does not necessarily ensure technical safety factors. Service owners as well as customers do not know whether the car after repair is guaranteed braking force or not, what is the current state of the headlights, and whether it meets the requirements for traffic participation.

There are still many companies that have not been certified.

Although Decree 116 has been in effect for more than 4 months, many businesses are still slow in submitting documents, registering for appraisal, and issuing certificates of warranty and maintenance services as prescribed.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong, up to now, out of hundreds (nearly 400 facilities - PV) of genuine warranty and maintenance facilities, only 30 facilities have completed the certification process, 59 facilities are in the process of being inspected and 118 facilities have submitted documents for assessment.

Specifically, according to Mr. Phuong, up to now, some major car manufacturers have basically implemented the issuance of certificates for warranty and maintenance facilities such as: Honda Vietnam has 5 service workshops, Toyota Vietnam has 3 certificates, Mercedes Vietnam has 2 workshops, Thaco has 1 workshop for each imported car line... Some other large enterprises are still slow. Even some completely imported units such as: Jaguar Land Rover, Kamaz... still do not have any facilities that have been granted certificates. In these cases, if there is no certificate, they will not be granted a license to import cars to Vietnam.

The director of an authorized car dealership in Hanoi said that the dealership has now ensured adequate infrastructure to meet the requirements of Decree 116. However, because the mandatory deadline has not yet come, the request for certification has not yet been made.

During the working process of the interdisciplinary working group implementing Decree 116, many enterprises were concerned about the scale and number of warranty and maintenance facilities. According to the working group, the Decree does not require each enterprise to have a certain number of warranty and maintenance facilities. However, enterprises must be responsible for publicizing the list of qualified warranty and maintenance facilities to consumers.

If you want to build a brand and ensure your reputation with customers based on the number of warranty and maintenance facilities that meet national standards, your business must do this. If your business publishes a list of warranty and maintenance facilities that have not been certified, it is wrong and will be punished.