Hopes of lower servicing costs for cars under warranty have yet to be fulfilled. According to the SIMI, "only a handful" of independent garages have been approved by car makers here in the last few months.
Since last year a car maker must allow any garage outside its franchise become an approved service dealer or "authorised repairer" of its brands if meets its standards. This is part of the European Commission's attempt to allow all garages compete more equally with each other for routine service or repair when a car is under warranty.
But the Consumers' Association of Ireland (CAI) has expressed surprise at the "slow progress" in opening up the market and appointing more independent garages, when many service the same cars outside the warranty period.
"With all the years of discussion by the EU, there should be much more activity at this stage or we may need to ask if there are potential barriers," says the CAI's Dermot Jewel.
It appears that garages already in franchises have been more successful at becoming authorised repairers of different brands. Long-time Nissan-franchise holders, Windsor Motor Group, has recently become an authorised seller and repairer of Opel, Fiat and Daewoo, while DG Opel has taken on Honda.
And this is similar to Britain, claims Alan Pulham of the British Retail Motor Industry Federation. One hundred garages have been appointed as authorised repairers there since last October, mostly franchise garages receiving approval for sales and repair of additional brands, or franchise garages expanding their authorised repairer status only.
The Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) says the slow growth in independent garages becoming authorised may be due to the investment needed. Applicants must meet a car maker's standards for premises, customer facilities, access to equipment, technician skill and training.
"A huge number of garages are seeking information from the car makers on the procedures, and some are working though the system. It's in progress, it will take time and we should see more developments into the future," says SIMI's Alan Nolan.
Industry sources say many existing main dealers had to spend money to meet the manufacturers' new standards. Independents who tend to have lower prices might find these costs prohibitive, especially with longer service intervals or free-servicing offers under warranty on some cars. And high premises prices in the major urban areas here may dissuade British car service firms from applying to set-up here exclusively as authorised repairers, they believe.
But they also speculate that the number of authorised repairers will need to increase significantly to have any real effect on prices. So far the new EU rules have had no impact on servicing prices in the UK, according to Pulham. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the British competition watchdog, is to decide next month if it will take formal action against manufacturers dragging their heels or imposing restrictions on where new cars may be serviced under warranty.
It wants customers to be able to choose freely from approved networks such as main-dealers and their authorised repairers, or go outside approved networks to any garage able to service the car in accordance with the manufacturer's schedule.
A recent OFT survey there suggests franchised dealers undertake 90 per cent of the routine servicing of cars up to three years. After this, it falls rapidly in favour of stand-alone garages. Customers used a franchise dealer as they believed servicing would be in line with manufacturers' requirements, and would better maintain trade-in value. Many also assumed that going outside approved networks would invalidate the warranty, though only half of the warranties then had restrictions on where cars could be serviced.