Interpretation ID: nht72-6.12

DATE: 03/14/72

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Lawrence R. Schneider; NHTSA

TO: Automotive Service Industry Association

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in reply to your letter of February 23, 1972, concerning the requirements of section 573.6 (Owner lists) of the Defect Reports regulations (49 CFR Part 573).

In your letter you describe a situation where manufacturers perform modifications to heavy duty vehicles for dealers and may have difficulty, for competitive reasons, in obtaining the name of the ultimate purchaser. You ask that in this situation, these manufacturers be permitted, in meeting the requirements of section 573.6, to list the dealer as the "first purchaser," ". . . so that if a defect arises, the owners of record will be notified -- and, where applicable, the owners of record could notify the ultimate owners (usually warranty holders) of the defective vehicles."

The requirement that an owner list be maintained under section 573.6 does not arise until a defect notification campaign is undertaken. The compilation of such a list at that time, however, would of necessity be based on some existing source of all owner names. One such source could be, and probably will be in most situations, a list compiled at the time of sale for warranty purposes. This is apparently the situation you have in mind.

If a manufacturer has only the name of his dealer as the first purchaser, then we would consider using that name in his compilation as meeting the owner list requirement. The manufacturer would still be responsible for maintaining and updating the list as specified in section 573.6, and for obtaining the updated information from the dealer if it is the latter who is correcting the vehicles in question. If the manufacturer is making the corrections, of course, the updated information will be readily available to him.

With regard to your assumption," . . . so that if a defect arises, the owners of record will be notified -- and, where applicable, the owners of record could notify the ultimate owners (usually warranty holders) of the defective vehicles," the requirement for notification of owners (Section 113 of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act) is separate from the requirement for compiling owners lists, and specifically excludes notification of dealers. While manufacturers may make arrangements with dealers and distributors for conducting notification campaigns, the ultimate responsibility for conducting the campaign lies with the manufacturer, and he does not meet this responsibility by merely notifying dealers.

At the same time, we would expect to be notified at once should a dealer both insist on keeping his customer list confidential from the manufacturer and refuse otherwise to cooperate with the manufacturer, so that notification letters cannot be sent.