A MULTI-CASE REVIEW BY JOE JANKOWSKI Managing Member, Armatus Dealer Uplift Introduction In California, conversations around warranty reimbursement are increasingly tied to a broader challenge dealers face every day: the shortage of certified technicians and the rising cost of retaining them. At the 2026 Dealer Day and in ongoing discussions with dealers across the state, one theme continues to surface. If warranty work is not compensated at a level that reflects current market pricing, it becomes even harder for dealers to attract and keep the skilled technicians their service departments depend on. While California’s retail warranty reimbursement framework is among the strongest in the country, achieving that outcome is often more complex. Over the past several years, discrepancies have emerged in how manufacturers evaluate and approve dealers’ warranty parts and labor rate adjustment requests. Dealers have observed inconsistent applications of rules and policies, shifting interpretations of “warranty-like” qualifications, and contradictory inclusion and exclusion decisions across submissions for a given store year over year, within parts and labor submissions for the same store and between similarly situated dealers. These inconsistencies constitute what can only be described as disparate treatment. This article presents multiple documented examples illustrating how identical or near-identical repair orders Disparate Treatment by Manufacturers in Warranty Parts & Labor Rate Increase Evaluations 11 California New Car Dealer Quarterly
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