Almost every independent garage website tells you that Block Exemption means servicing outside the dealer network cannot affect your warranty. We went and read the law, and it does not say that.
What the Order actually is
The legislation everyone cites is The Competition Act 1998 (Motor Vehicle Agreements Block Exemption) (No. 2) Order 2023. It was made on 26 May 2023, came into force on 1 June 2023, and ceases to have effect at the end of 31 May 2029.
It is a competition measure. It governs agreements between manufacturers and their networks about aftermarket parts and repair work. Two parts of it matter to you:
- Article 5(2)(a) makes it a hardcore restriction to restrict sales of aftermarket goods to independent repairers. A manufacturer's network cannot simply refuse to sell us the parts.
- Article 6 makes it an excluded restriction to limit an independent operator's access to information, tools or training — and that access must not put an independent at a disadvantage against an authorised repairer.
Read the Order from end to end and you will not find the word warranty. It is not about your warranty at all. It is about whether a garage like ours can get hold of the parts, the data and the equipment to do the work properly in the first place.
That is a genuinely important protection, and it is the reason an independent specialist can service a modern Land Rover or Porsche to the same standard. But it is not the thing it keeps getting quoted as.
So what does govern your warranty?
Your warranty booklet. A manufacturer's warranty is a contract.
Under section 30 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a guarantee of this kind takes effect as a contractual obligation owed by the guarantor "under the conditions set out in the guarantee statement and in any associated advertising". In other words, the conditions in the document are the conditions. If it requires servicing to the manufacturer's schedule, with parts to the manufacturer's specification, recorded properly, those are the terms you have to meet.
The good news is that this is exactly what a competent independent does anyway.
Your statutory rights are separate, and cannot be signed away
This is the part that gets lost, and it is more useful than the Block Exemption myth.
A manufacturer's warranty sits on top of your rights in law, it does not replace them. Section 30(4)(b) of the Act requires the guarantee itself to state that you have statutory rights and that the guarantee does not affect them.
Those statutory rights run against the trader who sold you the car, not the manufacturer, and they include a term that the goods are of satisfactory quality — which section 9 says expressly includes durability. The remedies are set out in section 19: a short-term right to reject, a right to repair or replacement, and a price reduction or final right to reject. Section 31 stops a trader contracting out of most of it.
Nothing in the Act makes those rights conditional on where the car is serviced. Its only relevant carve-out, in section 19(2), is about materials the consumer supplies — not about who did the work.
The honest summary
- Servicing at a good independent, to the correct schedule, with correct-specification parts, properly recorded, is normally fine — but that is because it meets the warranty's own conditions, not because a competition order overrides them.
- A manufacturer cannot simply say "you went elsewhere, claim refused" on something unrelated. It would be pointing at a condition in the contract, so the question is always what the contract says and whether the work caused the failure.
- Your statutory rights against the selling dealer are a separate route and survive regardless.
- Anyone telling you an independent service can never affect any warranty is overstating it. Read your booklet.
The one that genuinely is different
Manufacturer-backed used-car warranties are not the same animal as the original new-car warranty. They are separate products with their own terms, and some of them do require servicing inside the network.
Porsche's Approved Warranty is the clearest example, and its wording has excluded claims where servicing was carried out away from a Porsche Centre. If your car is covered by one of these, check the policy document before you book anywhere — including with us. We would far rather tell you to use the dealer than cost you a claim.
What to keep, whoever services the car
- Itemised invoices showing the work, the date and the mileage
- Part numbers and the specification of oils and fluids used
- The service book stamped, or the digital equivalent your warranty accepts
- Anything that shows the manufacturer's schedule was followed, not an approximation of it
If a claim is ever questioned, that paperwork is the whole argument.
Where we fit
Mitsiland is an independent specialist in Denton, Manchester, working on Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Porsche, Bentley and Mitsubishi. We service to manufacturer schedules and document the work so that it stands up.
If your car is in its warranty period, bring the booklet or send us a photograph of the servicing conditions, and we will read them with you first.
This is general information about how the law is structured, not legal advice, and your warranty document governs your own situation.
Book it in at Denton
Mitsiland is at Tameside Business Park, 4 Windmill Lane, Denton, Manchester M34 3QS — a few minutes from the M60 and easy to reach from Stockport, Ashton, Oldham and the city centre. Call 0161 320 7788 or send us the registration and the symptoms, and we will tell you what we think is going on before you commit to anything.
