Geoff, I think you will find that it is only the dealers who say that the warranty is affected if non-dealers do any work on your car. This is completely untrue, providing that parts used are Renault or whatever the make of car is. I have mentioned this before, that a good friend of ours owns a very busy independent, good garage and he gets tired of hearing this nonsense from dealers. He gets all sorts of cars to service, repair, etc and obviously has to use genuine Renault parts for those cars.
What he finds extremely annoying, is the fact that he can buy generic parts for cars, which are identical in every way and even have the manufacturers name on, for half the cost of the identical looking part that says Renault on it. He says that the whole business is a rip off and if the warranty has expired, he will use the cheaper costing, but identical parts, which saves the customer a lot of money, but although the very same part, would, according to Renault (or whoever) would invalidate the warranty! NONSENSE.
The guys at this garage mostly have sporty cars and motorbikes and really enjoy lowering customers sporty cars, changing the wheels, putting on bigger exhausts etc and charge half of what dealers charge, both for the parts and labour.
I think that from October, the ruling over this warranty business etc is going to be officially changed.
