SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Automotive Wholesalers’ Association (CAWA) has announced a big win for California consumers with the defeat of SB 1059 (Migden), a bill aimed at restricting consumers’ ability to have aftermarket parts installed on their vehicles.
A large coalition including CAWA, Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA), the Coalition for Automotive Repair Equality, LKQ/Keystone, California Retailers Association, AAA, insurance industry and others, worked together to lobby against SB 1059, which would have made it unlawful for any insurer to require the installation of an aftermarket part for the first three years of the vehicle’s life as well as restrict the ability of insurers to replace a part with a lower priced replacement part during this same three year period.
"The California State Senate clearly understands that SB 1059 is bad for California consumers," said Rodney Pierini, president and CEO, CAWA. "Given the soaring costs of fuel and increasing costs of everyday goods and services, consumers deserve options from both the high costs of original equipment parts as well as increased insurance premiums. Insurers being forced to approve only one sourced, high-priced part when the same or better quality aftermarket part is available and backed by long-term or lifetime warranties, is a lose-lose for consumers."
Aftermarket replacement parts are in most cases manufactured by the same companies that manufacture the car company parts, and the only difference can be the box it is marketed in and the price of the part. In addition, aftermarket parts are identical or even more improved parts that come with long-term or life-time warranties and cost up to 50 percent less than the identical car company part.
"Aftermarket businesses and their employees should be extremely proud of this accomplishment," said Aaron Lowe, vice president government affairs, AAIA. "Working together, there is no stopping the automotive aftermarket when faced with constant ploys by the car companies and others to restrict our ability to serve our customers, offer affordable and quality automotive replacement parts and remain competitive in the marketplace."
Many members of CAWA and coalition partners contacted their state Senators and encouraged them to vote no on SB 1059.
"We appreciate our members’ support of CAWA’s government affairs program and want to tell them that without their calls, emails and faxes to legislators we may not have been so successful in defeating this measure," Pierini added. "We need our members to be effective in the government affairs process."
