From January 1 this year, the "Provisions on the Responsibility for Repair, Replacement and Return of Household Automobile Products" was officially implemented, and the original "Regulations on the Responsibility for Repair, Replacement and Return of Household Automobile Products", which has been implemented for many years, was discontinued. A private car is one of the large expenses in household consumption, what if you encounter major problems when buying? Under what circumstances can I benefit from returns and exchanges? If the loss caused by the return and replacement of the goods due to the three guarantees, who should bear it?
The "three guarantees" are not completely unconditional
On July 22, 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation promulgated the Provisions on the Responsibility for Repair, Replacement and Return of Household Automobile Products (hereinafter referred to as the "Three Guarantees" Regulations). The first article is to clarify that the three guarantees provisions are "to clarify the responsibility for repair, replacement and return of household automobile products (hereinafter collectively referred to as the three guarantees)". Its target is family cars, that is, private cars, specifically passenger cars and pickup trucks purchased and used by consumers for their own living needs, excluding cars or special purpose cars for business purposes.
According to the judge of the Fengtai District People's Court of Beijing Municipality, as a mature industrial chain product, the production and sales process of the vehicle often involves multiple parties such as manufacturers, importers, dealers, and retailers. As a consumer, disputes arising from vehicles may involve contract disputes or product liability infringement disputes, which involve different legal liabilities and the liability of different entities.
From the contractual level, the Civil Code stipulates that a contract established in accordance with the law is only binding on the parties, so if the consumer pursues the responsibility of the contract, the signatory party to the contract should be held responsible as the object. From the perspective of product liability infringement, the Product Liability Law makes it clear that for product quality-related damage problems, the seller should be responsible for repairing, replacing and returning the goods; if the loss is caused to the consumer, the seller shall compensate for the loss, and for the defective product causing personal and property damage to others, the victim may claim compensation from the producer of the product, and may also claim compensation from the seller. The Product Liability Law is the legal basis for the legislation of the three guarantees provisions, so the three guarantees provisions also stipulate that repair, replacement and return of goods are the responsibilities of the seller, that is, consumers should claim relevant rights from the seller on the issue of the three guarantees, and the seller has the right to claim responsibility from the producer or other responsible parties after bearing the responsibility of the three guarantees.
In practice, many consumers will be the three guarantees commonly known as "package repair, replacement, package return", this kind of popular generalization is actually easy to cause ambiguity, "package repair, replacement, package refund" is not completely unconditional, only in line with the statutory or agreed three guarantees policy, the car sales party has the obligation of three guarantees. Specifically, there are three situations in which the responsibility of the three guarantees is assumed: first, quality problems, which refer to the quality of household automobile products that do not conform to laws, regulations, mandatory national standards, and standards expressly adopted by enterprises or explicit quality conditions, or there are other situations that affect normal use; second, serious safety performance failures, refer to the quality problems that endanger personal and property safety of household automobile products, resulting in unsafe use, including the situation that safety devices cannot play their due protective role or there is a danger such as fire Third, if the business operator makes a three-guarantee commitment that is stricter than the provisions of the three guarantees and is more conducive to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, it shall bear responsibility in accordance with the commitment.
Interpretation of the judge of the Fengtai District People's Court of Beijing Municipality:
Five major legal changes to the new three-guarantee liability
Highlight 1: The starting date of the three packs is calculated from the date of delivery
Compared with the original, the agreement on the validity period and the repair period stipulated in the new three guarantees has not changed, that is, the validity period shall not be less than 2 years or the mileage of 50,000 kilometers shall be traveled, whichever comes first; the warranty period shall not be less than 3 years or the mileage of 60,000 kilometers shall be traveled, whichever comes first. However, the original three guarantees clearly stipulate that the validity period and the warranty repair period are calculated from the date of issuing the invoice for the purchase of the car, and in practice, it is often difficult to require the invoice date to be absolutely consistent with the delivery date of the vehicle, and in practice, disputes over the determination of the three guarantee period are prone to occur. Therefore, the new three guarantees provisions are further supplemented and clarified on the basis of the old regulations, if the date of the consumer's car purchase invoice is inconsistent with the date of delivery of the household car products, it will be calculated from the date of delivery.
Highlight 2, there are major problems within seven days can be returned
At present, most daily necessities have been included in the three-pack regulations, within 7 days from the date of sale of the product, performance failure occurs, consumers can choose to return, exchange or repair. But there are still some goods that are not included, and cars are one of them.
The new three guarantees implemented this year make it clear that if household automobile products need to replace the engine, transmission, power battery, driving drive motor or main parts due to quality problems within 7 days from the date of the validity period of the three guarantees, consumers can choose to replace the household automobile products or return the goods with the car purchase invoice and the three-pack voucher. The seller shall replace or return the goods free of charge. If the household automobile products are within 60 days from the date of the validity period of the three guarantees or within the mileage of 3,000 kilometers (whichever comes first), due to quality problems, steering system failure, brake system failure, body cracking, fuel leakage or power battery fire, consumers can choose to replace the household car products or return the products with the car purchase invoice and three guarantee vouchers. The seller shall replace or return the goods free of charge.
In addition, if one of the following situations occurs in the validity period of household automobile products, if the consumer chooses to replace the household automobile product or return the product with the car purchase invoice and the three guarantee vouchers, the seller shall replace or return the goods: First, the failure has been repaired twice due to serious safety performance failures, but the failure has not been ruled out or a new serious safety performance failure has occurred; second, the engine, transmission, power battery, and driving drive motor have been replaced twice because of their quality problems, and they still cannot be used normally; third, the engine, transmission, The same main parts of the power battery, driving drive motor, steering system, braking system, suspension system, transmission system, pollution control device, and body cannot be used normally because of the cumulative replacement of the same major parts due to quality problems; fourth, the cumulative repair time due to quality problems exceeds 30 days, or the cumulative repair time due to the same quality problems exceeds 4 times.
The author believes that the refundable clause within 7 days can be regarded as the most powerful clause in the new three guarantees, and the legislative purpose is to force manufacturers to strengthen the quality of household cars and assume quality responsibility. However, family cars are large commodities, and in the case of returns and exchanges, involving the handover of used vehicles and the return of large amounts of money, it is not excluded that this clause will be the main situation in which the three-guarantee dispute between consumers and sellers will occur in the future.
Highlight 3: Clarify the scope of core components of new energy vehicles
Since the introduction of the old three guarantees regulations, new energy vehicles have developed rapidly and have occupied a decisive share in the household automobile market. In practice, new energy vehicles before the promulgation of the new three guarantees regulations generally provide three guarantees of services with reference to fuel vehicles. However, the old three guarantees provisions are regulated by fuel vehicles, and in the identification of important three guarantees of responsibility involving vehicle returns and replacements, due to the lack of identification norms for core components of new energy vehicles, in practice, it purely relies on the unilateral commercial commitments of car companies to protect the interests of consumers.
The new three guarantees regulations not only formally and explicitly include new energy vehicles in the scope of the three guarantees, but also in the provisions involving return and replacement, they also list the power battery and driving drive motor of new energy vehicles as core components that are juxtaposed with fuel vehicle engines and transmissions and can lead to returns and replacements, making up for the gap in the identification of core components of new energy vehicles.
Highlight 4, three packages of reasons for the loss caused by the return and replacement of goods are compensated
The new three guarantees stipulate that the seller shall compensate the consumer for the following losses when replacing household automobile products or returning the goods for the consumer: vehicle registration fees; installation and decoration fees collected by the seller after deducting the corresponding depreciation; and related service fees charged by the seller to consumers. Relevant taxes, fees and insurance premiums shall be implemented in accordance with the relevant provisions of the State.
Generally speaking, when the vehicle is delivered, the consumer has purchased the traffic insurance and commercial insurance of the vehicle, and installed items such as film, dustproof carpet or driving recorder on the vehicle, and the related expenses of vehicle registration will inevitably occur later. In the event of vehicle return and replacement, the consumer's investment in this regard will form a loss, the previous three guarantees only unilaterally require consumers to return the vehicle should pay a reasonable fee for the use of the vehicle, and do not stipulate that the seller's compensation for the above investment of the consumer is easy to cause disputes.
While retaining that consumers should pay the reasonable expenses for the use of the vehicle, the new provisions stipulate that the seller shall pay the various losses incurred after the consumer delivers the vehicle, which embodies the principle of fairness and is also a concrete manifestation of the concept of damage compensation in contract law.
Highlight 5, "not to the 4S store for maintenance is regarded as out of insurance" is out of play
The new three guarantees regulations also make it clear that operators may not restrict consumers from independently choosing enterprises that maintain and maintain household automobile products, and use them as a reason for refusing to bear the responsibility of the three guarantees. In layman's terms, in the future, sales units such as 4S stores can no longer use consumers to "not go to the 4S store for maintenance as if they are out of insurance" to oppose the three guarantees of consumer rights and interests, which actually gives consumers the freedom to choose a vehicle maintenance agency more fully.
In the author's past judicial practice, the refusal of the seller to bear the responsibility of the three guarantees due to the consumer's choice of other vehicle maintenance agencies for maintenance is one of the most prominent reasons for the three guarantees dispute, and it is also the most important defense of the seller after the three guarantees dispute enters the judicial procedure.
The judge of the Fengtai District People's Court of Beijing Municipality reminded:
Raise awareness of rights protection and do a good job in three aspects of "homework"
In order to smoothly realize the protection of rights, consumers cannot be sloppy in three aspects of "homework".
First, it is necessary to properly keep the documents on the vehicle such as the three-pack voucher. The three guarantees stipulate that the three guarantees of vouchers, product qualification certificates and other vehicle-accompanying documents should be provided by the producer according to law, and the seller "shall establish a purchase inspection and acceptance system to verify the vehicle-accompanying documents of household automobile products", and take the seller's delivery of the vehicle-accompanying documents as one of the necessary procedures for performing vehicle delivery. Therefore, when the consumer hands over the vehicle, it is necessary to supervise the seller to provide the vehicle's accompanying documents and keep it properly. In addition, if the three-pack voucher is lost, the consumer can apply to the seller for replacement free of charge.
Second, consumers should understand the path of rights protection. Article 34 of the Provisions of the Three Guarantees stipulates that consumers can resolve disputes arising from the three guarantees of household cars through the following channels: negotiation and settlement; request mediation by consumer associations or other mediation organizations established according to law; complain to relevant administrative organs such as market supervision and management departments; submit arbitration institutions to arbitration according to the arbitration agreement reached by the parties; and file a lawsuit with the people's court.
In particular, it should be reminded that: First of all, the above channels are not single, for example, negotiation and settlement may run through the entire process of dispute resolution, and settlement has a significant effect on reducing the risk of consumer rights protection, reducing the cost and energy of rights protection, so regardless of whether complaints or litigation have been taken, settlement is still an important means for consumers to protect their rights and interests. Secondly, the supervisory function of administrative organs has the characteristics of rapid response, and in addition to coordinating the handling of economic disputes between the two sides, it also has the authority to impose corresponding administrative penalties on sellers and producers who violate relevant administrative laws and regulations. Finally, the arbitration method needs to be selected through the contract, and the legal and effective arbitration agreement will generally exclude the litigation jurisdiction of the court, and consumers should pay attention to the path agreed upon in the dispute resolution method when signing the car purchase contract.
The third is to raise awareness of evidence. The final handling of any dispute is inseparable from the principle of "taking the law as the criterion and taking the facts as the basis". Consumers want to reasonably and legally protect their own rights and interests, in addition to properly understanding the relevant legal knowledge and understanding the relevant rights protection channels, the most important thing is to be able to retain the evidence of relevant facts. Sufficient evidence is not only conducive to consumers' justified claims of rights, reducing the opportunity for business operators to shirk their responsibilities, but also conducive to the relevant departments to quickly ascertain the facts and prevent disputes and losses from expanding. The investigation and determination of disputes made by relevant state organs and arbitration institutions are based on the premise of clarifying the facts of the dispute, and the investigation obviously cannot be conjectured out of thin air, but relies on various evidences left by the parties in the course of the dispute. Although the new three-guarantee policy clearly stipulates that the operator should deliver the three-guarantee voucher and other relevant documents with the car, whether the product has a fault, the failure time and the number of repairs related to the return and replacement, etc., consumers need to have the awareness of safeguarding their rights and interests, and collect and properly preserve the evidence related to the three guarantees. Especially in the present, mobile phones provide convenience for fixing evidence, helping consumers to restore facts and protect the scene.
The promulgation of the new three guarantees regulations continues and improves hot issues such as the three guarantees of new energy vehicles, the auto maintenance record files, and the compensation for losses to consumers after operators assume the responsibility of the three guarantees. It is believed that in the next period of time, regulating and supervising household car operators to actively perform the relevant three guarantees of responsibility will become a key task of the relevant government departments, and operators should also make full use of the implementation of the three guarantees of responsibility, strive to win with quality and service, and win the trust of consumers.
Image: IC Photo