You can demand it, and the commission can order it. Whether it will depends on whether you can show a manufacturing defect rather than a run of repairable faults, and on what the car has done since. The two things to gather today are every job card the workshop has ever opened for the vehicle and a written complaint to the manufacturer, not just the dealer, describing the recurring fault with dates.
What counts as a manufacturing defect?
The product liability chapter of the 2019 Act, Sections 82 to 87, is where the manufacturer's exposure is spelled out. Section 84(1) makes a product manufacturer liable if the product contains a manufacturing defect, is defective in design, deviates from manufacturing specifications, does not conform to the express warranty, or lacks adequate instructions or warnings. Section 84(2) then removes the manufacturer's usual escape, because it says he is liable even if he proves he was not negligent or fraudulent in making the express warranty. Section 86(c) separately catches a dealer who gave his own express warranty independent of the manufacturer's. Section 87(1) is the limit, and it is the argument you will meet: no product liability action lies against the seller if at the time of harm the product was misused, altered or modified.
A gearbox that fails three times at low mileage, an engine that loses power on the same fault code after each service, a steering fault the workshop keeps replacing parts for, these are the pattern that reads as a defect in the product. A tyre bubble, a rattling door and a dashboard noise, each repaired once under warranty, read as teething faults, and the National Commission has said so.
Does the warranty card limit what I can claim?
No. The warranty is a contract that typically promises repair or replacement of parts, and the manufacturer will say in its version that replacement of the whole vehicle was never promised. That is true of the warranty and irrelevant to the statute. Section 39(1) lists what a commission may order once a defect is proved, and clause (b) is replacement with new goods of similar description free from any defect, clause (c) is return of the price with interest, and clause (d) is compensation for loss or injury caused by the opposite party's negligence, with a proviso allowing punitive damages. Section 2(47)(i)(g) also treats as an unfair trade practice a warranty of performance or length of life that is not based on an adequate or proper test, and it puts the burden of proving the test on the party relying on the warranty. The out-of-warranty defect answer deals with what changes once the warranty period has run.
How do I prove it, and why do these cases fail?
They fail on evidence, almost every time. Section 38(2)(c) provides that where a complaint alleges a defect in goods which cannot be determined without proper analysis or test, the District Commission shall obtain a sample, seal it, and refer it to the appropriate laboratory with a direction to report within forty-five days. Clause (d) requires you to deposit the laboratory fee, and clauses (f) and (g) give both sides the chance to object to the report and be heard on it. Use this procedure. Ask for the reference in your complaint and offer to deposit the fee, because a complainant who resists an independent test invites the inference that the test would not help him.
The National Commission's order in Tata Motors Ltd v Sharad (19 May 2016) is a useful map of the terrain. The District Forum in Dharwad had ordered replacement of an Indica that went back to the workshop nine times in a year. The National Commission set that aside. It found the complainant's technical evidence was an affidavit from a mechanic who had never inspected the car and had opined from the pleadings, it recorded that every fault had been rectified under warranty, and it held that a car which had run 35,000 kilometres in its first year and more than 90,000 by the hearing could not be suffering from a serious manufacturing defect. It awarded compensation for the inconvenience instead. In the same order it noted its own earlier decisions directing refund of the full price where the defects in a new car could not be rectified at all. That is the line: repeated but repairable earns compensation, unrectifiable earns replacement or refund.
| What you produce | What it establishes | Provision it serves |
|---|---|---|
| Every job card, in date order, with the fault code and the part replaced | The same component failing after each repair, which is the signature of a defect in the product | Section 2(10), Section 84(1)(a) and (c) |
| The odometer reading on each job card | Low mileage between failures, answering the argument that the car has run too far to be defective | The reasoning in Tata Motors v Sharad |
| A written inspection report by a qualified automobile engineer who physically examined the vehicle | A technical opinion the commission can weigh, unlike an affidavit from the pleadings | Section 38(2)(c) and (g) |
| Your complaints to the manufacturer and its replies | Notice of the defect and the failure to cure it, and the cause of action dates | Section 2(11)(i), Section 69 |
| The brochure, the warranty booklet and the invoice | The standard the trader claimed, and the express warranty | Section 2(10), Section 84(1)(d), Section 86(c) |
Where do I file and how long do I have?
Section 34(1) fixes the forum by the value of the consideration paid, which is the price of the car, and on the current bands a car priced up to Rs 50 lakh goes to the District Commission. Section 34(2)(d) lets you file where you reside or personally work for gain, so you do not travel to the manufacturer's registered office. Name the manufacturer and the dealer both, because Section 83 allows a product liability action against the manufacturer, the product service provider and the product seller, and the workshop that kept repairing the fault is a product service provider under Section 85. Section 69(1) gives two years from the cause of action. Each failed repair adds a date, but do not rely on the latest one, because the argument that the cause arose at the first failure will be made. Our note on filing a consumer complaint covers the form, the fee and the hearing.
- Invoice, registration certificate and delivery note, showing the date of purchase and the odometer at delivery
- Every job card and service invoice, including the free services
- Photographs or video of the fault occurring, with dates
- Written complaints to the dealer and to the manufacturer's customer care, with ticket numbers
- An independent inspection report by an engineer who examined the vehicle
- Proof of loss caused by the fault, such as taxi bills or a breakdown tow, for the compensation claim
What I tell owners is to stop accepting verbal assurances at the service counter and to write to the manufacturer after the second occurrence of the same fault, asking in terms for replacement and for an inspection by its own engineer in your presence. If they refuse the inspection, that refusal is evidence. If they carry it out and repair again, you now have a third job card on the same fault and a company that has admitted the pattern in its own paperwork. Plead replacement first, refund with interest in the alternative, and compensation in any event.