Can you service an in-warranty car at an independent workshop? What the rules actually say

Yes. Since 1 July 2021, South African law has recognised your right to have your car serviced, maintained and mechanically repaired wherever you choose, including while it is still under the manufacturer’s warranty. The rules that make this possible are the Competition Commission’s Guidelines for Competition in the South African Automotive Aftermarket, and there is a good chance nobody has ever explained them to you properly.

That is not an accident. In 2021, Right to Repair South Africa sent people into eight Western Cape dealerships to test whether the new rules were being followed. One of the eight was compliant. Salespeople told them the Guidelines were “not yet in force” or “not set in stone”. Most of the dealers expressed doubt about whether they would honour a warranty on a car serviced at an independent workshop.

So if you have been told your warranty depends on servicing at the dealer, you were not imagining it. You were also not being told the truth.

Here is what the rules actually say, in plain language, and what both you and your workshop need to do to stay on the right side of them.

What you are allowed to do

Clause 5.4.1 of the Guidelines is the one that matters most to you. It says that manufacturers “shall recognise and not obstruct a consumer’s choice to seek service, maintenance and mechanical repair work for their Motor Vehicles at a service provider of their choice, regardless of whether that service provider is an Approved Dealer or an ISP”.

“ISP” means independent service provider. Your local workshop. The one that has looked after your car for years.

Read that again, because the important word is “regardless”. The manufacturer does not get to make dealer servicing a condition of your warranty. You can take your in-warranty car to an independent workshop for a service, for maintenance, or for a mechanical repair, and the manufacturer is not entitled to void your warranty in its entirety for that reason.

There are three more things the Guidelines give you that most people do not know about.

Manufacturers have to share the technical information. Diagnostic codes, service data, repair information, even the software needed to work on the car, all have to be made available to independent workshops on terms no less favourable than those offered to their own dealers. Your workshop is entitled to the information it needs to do the job properly.

Original parts have to be available to independents. Manufacturers cannot restrict original parts to their own dealer network.

Your workshop may use matching-quality parts, not only original ones. A matching-quality part is one that meets the same specification as the original. Well-known aftermarket brands supply plenty of them. Using one does not, by itself, cost you your warranty.

The one big exception, and it is worth understanding

There is a carve-out, and it catches people out because it sounds like it should apply to servicing. It does not.

Clause 7.8.5 deals with body repair after an accident. It says that insured vehicles still under warranty will only be allocated for repair to manufacturer-approved motor-body repairers. So if you crash your in-warranty car and claim from your insurer, the panel work goes to an approved body shop. That is still the position.

But that clause is about collision and body repair. It has nothing to do with a service, a cambelt, a gearbox, a clutch, a suspension repair or a diagnostic. Mechanical work is open. Body repair on an in-warranty insured claim is not. Two different things, and they are worth keeping separate in your head, because dealers and workshops both mix them up.

What changed in 2025

The Guidelines were amended in late 2024, and the new obligations took effect on 27 March 2025. Two of the changes are worth knowing about as a vehicle owner.

Part numbers now have to appear on quotations and invoices. The obligation sits with the manufacturers, and approved dealers have to pass that information on to you. In practice this means you should be able to see exactly which part you are paying for. If you cannot, ask.

Service and maintenance plans have to be unbundled from the price of the car. When you buy a new, demonstration or second-hand vehicle, the cost of the service or maintenance plan has to be shown separately from the price of the vehicle, and that obligation binds manufacturers, approved dealers and the finance houses.

That second one is worth real money. In the 2021 audit, the embedded plans that dealers were refusing to unbundle ranged from R30,000 to over R60,000, and because they were rolled into the vehicle price, they were financed. You paid interest on them for the length of the loan. You are now entitled to see that number on its own and to decide about it on its own.

What your workshop has to do

The rules are not a free pass. They come with obligations on the independent workshop’s side, and a good workshop will already be doing all three.

Record the work in the service book. The Guidelines specifically contemplate that a service record may be kept electronically or in the cloud, rather than only as a stamp in a paper book. What matters is that there is a proper record of what was done, when, at what mileage, and by whom.

Tell you about the risk, honestly. Your workshop should disclose that if a part it fitted, or work it performed, causes a failure, the manufacturer may decline a warranty claim on that specific component. That is a fair and narrow risk, and it is very different from losing the whole warranty. A workshop that pretends there is no risk at all is not being straight with you, and one that tells you the warranty is gone entirely is not either.

Carry proper commercial insurance. And be able to show it.

If your workshop does those three things and keeps the paperwork, you have both a working car and a defensible position if a claim is ever disputed.

What to do, practically

If you are the vehicle owner:

• Ask your workshop to record the service properly, with the mileage, the date, the work performed and the parts used, including part numbers. Keep a copy.
• Ask what quality of part is being fitted. Original, matching quality, or something cheaper for an out-of-warranty repair are all legitimate choices, but they should be your choice.
• If a dealer tells you that servicing elsewhere voids your warranty, ask them to put it in writing with reference to the Guidelines. That question usually ends the conversation.
• When you buy your next car, ask for the service or maintenance plan price to be shown separately before you sign anything.
• If you believe the Guidelines are not being followed, complaints can be made to the Competition Commission.

If you run a workshop:

• Your service records are the whole argument. A photograph of the odometer, the part numbers you fitted, who did the work and a signed approval turn a dispute into a five-minute conversation. Without them you are relying on memory, and memory loses.
• Say the disclosure out loud, and write it down. It protects you as much as the customer.
• Get comfortable explaining this to customers, because they are going to keep asking, and being the workshop that can answer it clearly is worth more than any advertisement.

Why this matters more than it looks

South Africa’s car parc is old. The average passenger vehicle on our roads is around ten years old, and roughly two out of three vehicle transactions are used cars. That means most of the cars being driven in this country are outside the dealer network already, and the ones that are still inside it are increasingly being kept longer than the plan lasts.

The workshops that keep those cars running are mostly small, independent businesses. They employ people in every town in the country. The rules that opened this work to them have been in force for five years, and a lot of the industry still speaks as though they have not been.

Knowing what you are entitled to is the first part. Making sure the record exists is the second.

SymplTorque builds workshop management software for South African independent workshops. This article is general information about the Competition Commission’s Guidelines and is not legal advice. If you have a specific dispute, speak to a qualified attorney or contact the Competition Commission directly.

Simplify. Empower. Thrive.

Sources: Competition Commission, Guidelines for Competition in the South African Automotive Aftermarket (10 December 2020) · Right to Repair South Africa, Navigating the Guidelines · NADA, key changes to the amended Guidelines · Right to Repair SA raises red flag on non-compliance, 2021