Posts Tagged ‘right to repair’

Accidental cars during warranty have no choice

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

The after sales service market is very clearly divided into OEM dealer and Independent car workshops and garages globally. For the first three years, you go to the dealer because you have a warranty. Then you search for other neighborhood car service center, auto repair shop because they are so much cheaper than dealer.

During warranty period, car owners have no choice except asking dealer to help if his car met an accident. Even in case of small running repairs you can not go to small workshop or dealer will consider your car warranty void. This phenomenon is followed all across the world. Auto repair is a skilled based business and mechanics want to run their workshops dealing with all kind of cars. Why they should not do a repair to a new car? The independent repair shops loose their business catering to new cars.

Car manufacturer has established a network of dealers to provide car servicing and repair during warranty period. They train them and believe modern vehicles are very complex machines and the independent repair shops can not provide quality services.

In USA, a survey of 1,000 aftermarket repair shops performed by Opinion Research found that over $5.8 billion in service and parts sales is being lost annually because independent repair shops are unable to readily access the necessary repair information and tools from car manufacturers to properly diagnose and repair vehicles. The survey also found that independent shops turn away 1.8 million consumers each year because they do not have the information and tools to get the job done.

There are many some organization supporting Right to Repair Act in favur of independent car service center in USA, which states that the need for Right to Repair legislation has become a necessity in order to protect the rights of car owners to decide where and how they have their vehicles serviced, whether at a new car dealer or an independent service facility. Right to Repair ensures that the person who bought the car and not the car company, can decide where that vehicle is repaired and maintained.

Next time when you have any problem with your new car, you have no choice other than visting to same OEM dealer (even if you do not like him ;)

Related Sources :
http://righttorepair.org

http://www.themoscowtimes.com

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Posted in car repair, car service, car service center | No Comments »

Bottleneck in the Indian automotive aftermarket growth

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

The Indian automotive aftermarket is expected to grow to around $9.4 billion by 2015 from its present estimated size of $3.7 billion.

Car technology is changing rapidly and to keep pace with latest systems, there is a need for a specialist service provider. Large groups are investing into machinery and equipment along with training manpower. Building own workshops to cater demands is not feasible even large group invested heavily building infrastructure. Majority of people are still visit to road side workshops for car servicing.

Bottleneck in the Indian automotive aftermarket

- Untrained Manpower

The automotive aftermarket industry is one of the largest employers of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workforce in the country, and there is a shortage of skilled workforce. Survival of small workshop is difficult when they do not have trained mechanics. There are groups like Bosch Car Service, are building network of car workshops and helping small workshops by standardizing and providing training.

- Scarcity of Spare Parts

Car manufacturer supplies spare parts to OEM dealers only. Car owners look for spare parts from small garages with same quality. Alternates and unbranded spare parts are available in the market. Car owners are happy getting cheapest spares from the outside market. Few garages claims they source from OEM dealers or same companies suuplies to OEM. Audit spare parts companies to stop supplies in the open market is not easy for OEM when they supplies same parts with different local brands. There is a need to increase supplies of spare parts.

Indian auto industry is investing heavily in developing facilities for design and manufacturing of auto spares parts. This investment will attract global auto giants to start outsourcing quality spares at competitive price from India. It is estimated that in next 5/6 years the spares parts industry for automobile will be a $14 billion investment.

- Monopoly of OEM dealers for warranty car service

Globally all OEM dealers are allowed to provide car servicing during warranty period. No other car workshop and service centre can provide that service. It has stopped car manufacturer sharing technical information about car technologies to others. In USA and European countries, garages and small car workshops has filed petition for “The Right to Repair”. Some of the states has approved it and community is still working on this to get it approved globally.

The need for Right to Repair legislation has become a necessity in order to protect the rights of car owners to decide where and how they have their vehicles serviced, whether at a new car dealer or an independent service facility. Right to Repair ensures that the person who bought the car and not the car company, can decide where that vehicle is repaired and maintained.

—————- About MeriCAR.com ———-

MeriCAR.com is doing efforts to bring all small workshops on one platform to rank them for quality and customer satisfaction.

Ads:
Find discount parts covering Audi to Volkswagen parts and more (MeriCAR ads)

Source:
http://www.thehindu.com
http://www.getmoneyrich.com/
http://www.righttorepair.org
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com
http://ciiautoserve.in

http://automotivehorizon.sulekha.com/

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Posted in aftermarket, car manufacturer, car repair, car service, car servicing trends | 1 Comment »

The Right to Repair Act- Car owners to decide where car is serviced or repaired

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

The car manufacturers sell and service cars through franchised dealers. The car dealers have large infrastructure and they charge heavily. It increases cost of car maintenance. Car owners have no choice during warranty period. Usually car owners prefer get their service done by independent auto repair shop, garage to reduce car maintenance expenses. That is possible once car warranty gets expired.

With advancement of car technologies and complexity of new car systems, there is insufficient information available to independent repair shops. In USA, some car manufactures claim to provide technical information and car manuals with some cost, but still there is a demand of The Right to Repair Act.

Right to Repair Legislation Introduced to US Senate which says:

“The act would require car manufacturers to provide diagnostic and repair information, plus other data, to independent auto repair facilities.

“Consumers should have choices about where to take their cars for repair or maintenance,” says Boxer.

“This legislation is beneficial for smaller, independent auto repair shops that are currently unable to access some information about the cars when that data is held exclusively at the (automobile) dealership”

The need for Right to Repair legislation has become a necessity in order to protect the rights of car owners to decide where and how they have their vehicles serviced, whether at a new car dealer or an independent service facility. Right to Repair ensures that the person who bought the car and not the car company, can decide where that vehicle is repaired and maintained.

The act has not been passed fully in USA yet, but you can see trends globally. You can guess growth of independent auto repair shops in the near future globally.

In India, we can not imagine similar kind of act soon, as car servicing industry is still unorganized and there is no common association which can raise similar demands, but YES, yes…. scenario is changing.

Presently car mechanics change their job frequently, they join independent auto car workshops (or open their own) with a greater role of responsibility and use their experience. Upgrading car mechanics skills is not easy but Indian believed to be smart enough to understand technology (that is not easy though). India needs associations which can train them and raise similar demands of Right to Repair as in another countries. I am looking forward India grow faster >>>>
Source:
RightToRepair.Org
About.com

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Posted in car manufacturer, car repair, car service, car servicing trends | 3 Comments »