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Automotive Car Service

Owner’s service record

Car servicing and repairs, stamped page by page

Automotive Car Service is a guide to servicing and repairing a car in Australia, written and published by Dotto. Like a logbook, it keeps one entry per subject, each checked against the official pages of the ACCC, the state consumer agencies and the Department of Infrastructure.

General information, not legal advice about a particular car, repair or bill.

A page from a car’s service logbook, drawn for this guideA ruled logbook page headed Service record. Five numbered rows name this guide’s entries: warranty, guarantees, repair data, licences and recalls. Each row has a blank dotted line for the odometer reading and a round workshop stamp with a tick, in amber ink, in its last column. Service record An illustration, not a real logbook No.EntryOdometerStamp 01 Warranty 02 Guarantees 03 Repair data 04 Licences 05 Recalls
Five entries, each stamped when its sources were last checked.

What sits behind a service

Some of the rules are national. The consumer guarantees of the Australian Consumer Law apply to motor vehicle repair as a service, wherever in Australia it is bought. The Motor Vehicle Information Scheme opens car makers’ service and repair information to repairers across the country. And the Department of Infrastructure regulates recalls of road vehicles under the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018.

Others belong to the states. Licensing is one: NSW and Western Australia each license both the repair business and the person doing the work. Disputes are another, and each state’s consumer agency handles its own. Where a rule is a state’s, this guide says which state.

The five entries

Each entry answers one question first, then goes through the detail, naming the official body behind each rule.

  1. Servicing a new car and the warranty

    Who may service a car under warranty, and what the warranty itself asks of you.

  2. Consumer guarantees on repairs

    What a repairer owes on the job, the lien, and where a dispute goes.

  3. The right to repair scheme

    The Motor Vehicle Information Scheme: who can get a car maker’s repair information.

  4. Motor vehicle repairer licences

    The two licences behind a repair in NSW and Western Australia, and how to check them.

  5. Vehicle recalls

    Who runs car recalls, how to check a car, and the two airbag recalls.

Who looks after what

Where each subject is regulated (read 8 October 2026)
SubjectWho looks after itReach
Repair work and the consumer guaranteesThe Australian Consumer Law; each state’s consumer agency handles disputesNational
Access to repair informationThe Motor Vehicle Information Scheme, enforced by the ACCC and run day to day by its Scheme AdviserNational, for passenger and light goods vehicles built from 1 January 2002
Recalls of road vehiclesThe Department of Infrastructure, under the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018National
Repairer licencesNSW Fair Trading; Consumer Protection WAState by state; this guide covers NSW and WA

What to write in the book

A logbook is only as useful as what goes into it. Consumer Affairs Victoria suggests asking, before you pay, for an itemised account of the work done and how the cost was worked out, and keeping the receipt somewhere safe: a clear record of regular servicing and repairs may add to a car’s resale value.

NSW Fair Trading adds a point about the repairer’s own warranty on the work. It can be enforced only if it forms part of the repair contract, with the owner agreeing to its conditions and limits, so the agency suggests asking for those conditions to be written on the invoice.