AFTER years in the making, a regulation on car warranties in China is due to come into effect in October, affording car buyers some protection against manufacturers and dealers who renege on promises of after-sales service or repairs.

Broken promises have incensed buyers, driving some to very dramatic protests that include smashing a car in public, creating a scene at an auto show and once even having a pig haul a broken-down car back to the dealership.

With government support, motorists may no longer feel pushed to violent demonstrations of their anger, but they still face what could be a labyrinth of impediments under the new rules.

Once they come into effect, buyers will have the right to seek replacement of their cars in the first two years, or up to 50,000 kilometers of use, if serious faults cannot be repaired.

If serious problems, such as cracks in the body, dysfunctional brakes or steering, or oil leaks occur, a car buyer will be entitled to return the car within the first 60 days, or 3,000 kilometers.

The new rules follow

considerable arguments among various interest groups.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine spent more than eight years drafting the regulation, soliciting public opinion and making revisions before an announcement last month that the third version was to be adopted.

Carmakers and dealers wanted shorter eligibility times for buyers to return cars or get replacements.

Free replacement

Rao Da, secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said the national quality watchdog fought very hard for the interests of consumers and "it is almost impossible for them to expect to get anything more."

Zeng Zhiling, auto research director at LMC Automotive Asia Pacific Forecasting, said China's auto industry had never lacked warranties.

Some carmakers, from either corporate pride or market competition, are already offering free replacement vehicles within 5 years or 100,000 kilometers of a car's purchase if serious problems develop.

The real focus, Zeng and others pointed out, should be on the effectiveness of enforcement.

One recurring issue has been the mechanism for resolving disputes about whether a car qualifies for free repairs, replacement or refunds under warranties.

Zeng said vehicles have very delicate, complicated internal mechanisms, and a car's performance can be affected by the driving environment and the habits of the motorist.

As a result, many abnormalities in a car's performance cannot be easily diagnosed by routine quality checks and expert advice is required.

So who qualifies as an expert? The new regulation suggests that a third-party agency should be called in to mediate in quality disputes, but currently none exists in the industry, Zeng said.

The inspection and quarantine administration plans to set up an auto expert panel to fill the vacuum, but it may take some time to build credibility with carmakers, sellers and buyers, said Ye Sheng, auto research director at market research firm Ipsos.

Both Ye and Zeng said an effective agency to resolve disputes would need its own testing labs for defective vehicles, access to confidential engineering documents held by carmakers and transparent procedures of evaluation work.

Independent body

"I think the government should have an independent official body overseeing car quality inspection, instead of assigning it to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which is already responsible for quality control over hundreds of thousands of products," Zeng said.

The United States, which has the highest ratio of car safety recalls in the world, sets a good example for China. It tasks the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to review car buyer complaints, conduct defective car investigations and initiate recalls, he said. "It is a very specialized law enforcement body with thousands of employees," Zeng said.

Car buyers seeking redress for malfunctions covered by warranties also face the risk of getting the runaround. Car producers and dealers are notorious for tossing blame back and forth.

According to the new regulation, sellers are responsible for free repairs, replacement and returns, but they can later seek a remedy from manufacturers. Unfortunately, Ye said, many car dealers don't do that because "they don't want to offend carmakers, who are the dominant partner in their relationship."

"Even if car dealers can do some simple repairs themselves, when it comes to replacement of key components or refunds, they have to get authority from carmakers beforehand," Zeng said. "Without a clear line of responsibility, there will still be buck-passing."

There are other issues complicating matters.

Do refunds include the cost of car license fees and insurance premiums, which will involve other government agencies and businesses? Do logistics systems exist to meet the requirement for 15-day deadlines on parts replacements or refunds?

Jochen Siebert, managing director of JSC (Shanghai) Automotive Consulting, said European laws place responsibility for vehicle quality problems squarely on the carmakers. Car dealers are deemed to be middlemen not directly to blame.

In the meantime, what can Chinese consumers expect from enforcement of the new regulation?

It contains a penalty clause providing for fines of up to 30,000 yuan (US$4,821) - a level not considered very punitive when it comes to carmakers and dealers who can afford the best lawyers and drag consumer plaintiffs through a long, messy legal process.

Siebert said Chinese consumer rights organizations need to take the initiative in monitoring compliance with the new regulation and should publish their findings regularly.

Public shaming of those that violate the regulation might force them to clean up their act if they want to continue to attract customers in a highly competitive market.

"I find that this kind of pressure works much better than any law," Siebert said.

"This is what a real market is all about. In the end, the government can only play a minor role, though at the beginning, it will have to help these organizations thrive."