When Does Your Warranty Date Start?

When Does Your Warranty Date Start?

After purchasing a vehicle pre-owned I am sure you have wanted to know how much new car warranty is left before it expires. Let's find out how this works and how you can access this information to know when your new car warranty expires. Manufacturers today offer 3 year, 5 year and 7 year warranties depending on the offer at the time. It would be safe to assume that a new car warranty begins on the day the vehicle is delivered, right? There shouldn’t be much use for the warranty before the car is first driven and the warranty is usually included in the cost for the car to begin with. Whilst this may sound right, it isn’t necessarily the case.

Let us explain how it works.

Warranty usually starts when the car is first registered

The new vehicle warranty starts when the vehicle is first registered with your State Transport Department or the vehicle is RDA by the dealer prior to sale of the vehicle. The RDA refers to Retail Delivery Advice. The advice is given by individual dealers/franchisees and is intended to trigger the warranty and ownership commencement of a particular passenger or commercial vehicle. 

​How can this affect you?

Knowing when the warranty on your car began can be useful for several reasons, the most obvious being that if something needs to be repaired or replaced and could be done so under warranty, you’ll need to know if the car’s warranty is still valid.

If you bought your vehicle pre-owned from a private or dealer seller and the warranty was transferable, it’s important to know exactly when the warranty expires. 

How can you find the date your New Vehicle Warranty started?

In theory the only way to know when your New Vehicle Warranty started is to contact the Manufacturer directly. Dealers also can find out this information but Manufacturers have set up a Customer Care Centre to assist the public with this type of information. Once you have been advised the Warranty start date, then you can ask what length of time the New Vehicle Warranty was given at the time. From this information you are able to determine how much Warranty is left at the time of the enquiry.  

What is Statutory Warranty?

In Queensland any dealer that sells a vehicle must offer a Statutory warranty if the vehicle is registered at the time of sale. In QLD there are two classifications for Statutory Warranty:

Class A Statutory warranty covers you when the vehicle:

- Has an odometer reading of less than 160,000km on the day of its sale

- Has a built date of no more than 10 years before the day of its sale.

 - The 'class A' warranty expires after 3 months or the first 5,000km, whichever occurs first.

Class B Statutory warranty if you buy a vehicle:

- That has an odometer reading of 160,000km or more on the day of its sale.

- That has a built date of more than 10 years before the day of its sale.

The ‘class B’ warranty expires after 1 month or the first 1,000km, whichever occurs first.

Buyers can choose to waive the class B’ statutory warranty for a vehicle more than 20 years old that is offered for sale for restoration.

CONCLUSION

There is a lot more to new vehicle warranties than you might expect but amidst all this information the main things to remember are:

- New vehicle warranties usually begin on the day it is first registered.

- A Pre-Owned vehicle bought from a licensed QLD dealership comes with a statutory warranty and starts from the day of delivery.

- Read the fine print to understand exactly what is covered by the warranty, who the warranty covers and what you must do to keep the warranty valid.

If you have any questions concerning the warranty of your vehicle, contact the Big Box Cars Team and they can assist you with this information. Sales People at Big Box Cars will typically find out all this information prior to the sale of your vehicle. If you need more information, do not hesitate to contact the team.