Maryland Car Dealer Is Pushing Bill To Give Safety Notice To Consumers

An auto dealer in Maryland is pushing for legislature that would allow dealerships to tell car owners about known safety issues before a recall is issued, without being concerned about retaliation from manufacturers.

Jack Fitzgerald is the chairman of Fitzgerald Auto Malls, a company that operates 15 dealerships in Maryland, and he has come public about his concerns. He says that car manufacturers often don’t allow dealers to tell customers about safety problems because the manufacturers have to pay for recall or warranty repairs. Fitzgerald explains that although customers are notified about recalls, there are technical service bulletins, also known as “secret warranties,” which make dealers aware of problems that should be fixed. According to Fitzgerald, many times this information is kept confidential unless a car owner complains about a problem that is covered by one of those warranties. Therefore, there are instances when potentially lifesaving information is not passed on to car owners in a timely manner.

Fitzgerald claims that if dealers tell car owners about safety issues before a recall is issued or without permission from the carmaker, they run the risk of retaliation from the manufacturer. He explained that this can come in the form of audits, which can ultimately force dealers to cover the cost of repairs that are made to vehicles.

“If they think the dealer is spending too much money, they’ll come in with a fallacious audit and charge back,” said Fitzgerald.

The goal of several bills that are moving through the Maryland General Assembly is to provide dealers with more freedom to disclose problems to car owners without the risk of not being reimbursed for the repairs that they make. Of the legislative proposals, Fitzgerald said that “they make it legal for us to disclose things that the policy and procedures manual currently forbids.” The bills in the Maryland House and Senate would allow dealers to tell customers about all warranty information, which Fitzgerald feels would encourage dealers to do more warranty work.

However, there are manufacturers who oppose these measures. Dan Gage, of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, claims that dealers such as Fitzgerald have a business interest in having this legislation passed. “This bill proposed by this mega dealer has enormous potential to encourage fraudulent deceptive marketing of service work for repairs that are neither needed or necessary,” said Gage. Furthermore, Gage says that contrary to Fitzgerald’s claim, technical service bulletins are not secret. He says that manufacturers must file that information with the federal government and that the information is available online at safercar.gov. Gage stated that these bulletins are intended to help service technicians fix problems when vehicles are brought in for service. He says that audits are meant to make auto dealers accountable, and “to make sure the work that (the dealers) have done is appropriately billed back to the automaker.”

This is a complex question, and clearly the legislation is being opposed by some. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee is set to hold a hearing on one of the bills this week in Annapolis, and it will be very interesting to see whether it passes.