On July 22, 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation (the “AMR”) promulgated the Provisions on Liabilities for the Repair, Replacement and Return of Household Automotive Products (the Provisions). The Provisions will take effect from January 1, 2022.
The Provisions expand the scope of the three-guarantee policy to include special components of new energy vehicles such as power batteries and drive motors, and added the replacement and return policy for pollution control device of traditional vehicles under certain circumstances. The Provisions further strengthen the protection of consumers, mainly by providing that:
- the three-guarantee certificate shall include “the capacity attenuation limit of the power battery of household pure electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle products during the warranty period and the validity period of the three guarantees”, “delivery date” (added to calculate the validity period of the three guarantees and warranty period), and “use compensation coefficient” (reduced from the current 0.5% to 0.8% to no more than 0.5%);
- consumers shall be exempted from providing the three-guarantee certificate if repairers can verify the purchase information by searching through relevant databases;
- dealers shall not restrict consumers from using service providers of their own choosing for the maintenance of household automotive products, or refuse to perform three-guarantee responsibilities therefor;
- consumers shall have the right to replace or return the products if, during the validity period of three guarantees, it exceeds 30 days cumulatively to repair the vehicles for quality problems, or 4 times cumulatively to repair the same quality problem (reduced from the current 35 days and 5 times);
- sellers shall replace or return products free of charge upon request of consumers within 7 days from the starting date of three guarantees, if the engines, transmissions, power batteries, drive motors or their main parts need to be replaced due to quality problems;
- sellers who replace or return household automotive products for consumers, shall compensate consumers for vehicle registration fees, installation and decoration fees after depreciation, and related service fees;
- consumers may apply to sellers for re-issuance of the three-guarantee certificate free of charge in case the certificate is lost.
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