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Ag warranty issues on ACCC agenda

Worried about after-sales repair and maintenance of your agricultural machinery? Tough warranties making you travel unnecessary distances? The ACCC wants to hear from you.

 

Concerns about competition and fair trading rules have led the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to open up an online survey for farmers to share their experiences.

Because much agricultural equipment is not used for “domestic or personal” purposes, and costs more than $40,000, it is often not covered by Australian consumer laws, the ACCC says.

Instead, a purchaser must rely on the manufacturer’s warranty or paying for the repairs themselves – but these can be limited or even place restrictions on purchasers’ access to independent repairers.

“Manufacturers have significant discretion as to what warranty protections are offered and how they apply, and we’re concerned that farmers may not be aware of these limitations,” ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh says.

“A number of barriers, including warranty clauses, may be preventing farmers from using an independent business to repair or service their equipment. We hear that this can result in delays at critical times.”

On top of this, manufacturer policies on data ownership and management could raise privacy and competition issues as more agricultural machinery items come equipped with data collection capabilities.

“Production data becomes more valuable to a farmer the more they accumulate it, so the lack of any clear rights to this data may create a barrier to switching between brands of machinery,” Keogh says.

“We are concerned by a number of issues surrounding the sale and servicing of agricultural machinery and want to better understand the extent of these.”

To do this, the ACCC is opening up a survey to anyone who has bought a new piece of agricultural machinery in the past 10 years.


Take the survey at the ACCC site here


The survey, which may take up to 30 minutes to complete, looks at whether warranties limit access to servicing, any competition concerns regarding data collection and assesses the available options for faulty machinery – including access to parts, diagnostic tools or software.

Other interested parties with an interest in agricultural machinery are able to provide a submission to the ACCC’s discussion paper on the problem here.

Submissions for both the survey and the discussion paper will close on April 5.

The ACCC will analyse information collected from submissions and the survey and will use this to determine its next steps.

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