Warranty claims, from a dealer's repair order or a contractor's failed part.

What both desks share. A failure, a record of what was replaced, a written warranty, and a manufacturer who decides. On both pages the answer key is the claim your desk filed and what came back. Underneath both sits an old rule of sale: under section 2-607 of the Uniform Commercial Code, a buyer who has accepted goods must tell the seller of a breach within a reasonable time after finding it, or lose any remedy. Manufacturers' own filing windows sit on top of that, and both desks work to them. What differs is who did the repair, who is owed the money and which body of law sits under the warranty.

A furnace in a home is a consumer product; a dozer usually isn't. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act covers tangible property normally used for personal, family or household purposes, and counts property installed in a house whether or not it stays attached. So the warranty behind a residential HVAC claim is a consumer warranty under federal law. The FTC's rules add that one buyer's use doesn't settle it, that farm machinery falls outside the Act where household use is uncommon, and that equipment normally used for home gardening falls inside it. Compact equipment that homeowners also buy is where the line blurs, and the FTC resolves doubt in favor of coverage. A claim on a machine that works a jobsite or a farm runs instead under a commercial warranty, the dealer agreement and, in many states, an equipment dealer law.

What each warranty is allowed to leave out. A company that gives a written warranty on a consumer product can't disclaim the implied warranties under 15 U.S.C. 2308. A limited warranty may only cut how long they last to its own term, in clear language shown prominently on the face of the warranty. A commercial warranty has more room: under UCC 2-316, a disclaimer of merchantability has to name merchantability and, when written, be conspicuous. Neither test reads general law into a claim. Each draft is held to the warranty terms and claim rules your reviewer supplies or describes for one manufacturer's line.

Some coverage outlives the base warranty. On diesel equipment, federal emission rules add a warranty of their own. Under 40 CFR 1039.120, a nonroad diesel engine of 37 kW or more must be warranted for 3,000 hours or five years from being placed in service, whichever comes first, covering every component whose failure would raise its emissions, and the warranty runs to each later buyer as well as the first. Engines under 19 kW carry 1,500 hours or two years. A failed emission part on a machine whose base warranty has run out can still belong in a claim file, so a few of those are worth putting in a dealer's sample if your desk files them.

Who gets paid, and who decides. A dealer's claim pays the dealership back for its own technician's hours and the parts it installed, so labor time is a large part of what the manufacturer checks. A distributor's claim credits a part the counter already handed to a contractor, and a residential parts warranty like the one the HVAC page quotes leaves labor out. On both sides the person who files today keeps filing: the warranty administrator at the dealer, the warranty clerk at the distributor. Each industry page lists what to send, how its test is scored and its one hard limit.