Colorado
Colorado entitles franchised dealers to warranty reimbursement at their retail labor rate and retail parts markup, and the 2023 amendments made it one of the stronger dealer statutes in the West. A store still being paid against a number agreed before those changes is leaving the new protections unused.
C.R.S. § 44-20-141.5 · Fulfillment and compensation for warranty and recall obligations
What you are owed
Retail rate
Warranty labor at your retail labor rate and warranty parts at your retail parts markup, including parts the manufacturer supplies at no cost.
How often you may file
Once a year, each
One written request a year to increase your labor rate, and separately one a year to increase your parts markup. The two do not have to move together.
Recovering the cost
Prohibited
The manufacturer may not recover its cost directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, and may not penalize, surcharge or take adverse action against you for exercising the right.
While you disagree
Still paid
Since 2023, the manufacturer must keep paying your charges on time even while a dispute over those charges is pending.
Why It Is Not A Form
Colorado lets you prove a rate from closed, customer-paid nonwarranty repair orders, and then removes a long list of work from the calculation. Some of what it excludes, and some of what it pointedly keeps in, surprises dealers who know the statute in other states. That difference is where Colorado filings go wrong.
Colorado's list of excluded work is long and specific, and it does not line up with the lists in other states. A store that files Colorado the way it would file elsewhere will strip out work that counts and keep work that does not.
Colorado limits labor and parts increases independently. Treating them as one filing can mean spending this year's labor request on a weak submission, or leaving a parts increase unclaimed.
The statute bars unreasonable flat-rate times inconsistent with existing rates. Your rate is only half of the payment. A submission that ignores what the factory allows in hours leaves the other half unexamined.
If the manufacturer challenges your rate, Colorado gives the dealer a limited window to take it to a court or to the Department of Revenue's executive director. A submission prepared only to be accepted is not ready for that.
What Changed In 2023
Senate Bill 23-078 removed a condition that had let manufacturers resist a retail rate on the ground that it was not reasonably consistent, and it added a requirement that matters every month: the manufacturer must timely pay the dealer's charges even while a dispute over those charges is pending. A disagreement is no longer a reason to stop paying.
It sits alongside one of the broadest cost-recovery bans in the country. The manufacturer may not recover its cost directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, and may not assess penalties or surcharges or take any adverse action against a dealer for exercising these rights. What the statute cannot do is prove your rate for you.
We Do This For You
John Fairchild has run more than 400 warranty reimbursement filings himself. You do not pull the repair orders, decide what qualifies, or argue the categories. We build the submission, you review it before it goes anywhere, and it goes out under a rate we are prepared to defend.
Most filings come back in 45 to 60 days. That depends heavily on the manufacturer, and on whether they ask for additional repair orders before they answer, which every statute allows them to do.
And because your rate is proven out of your own customer-pay pricing, we do not stop when the letter is sent. The platform runs the daily discipline that protects that pricing all year, which is what decides how high you can go the next time you are allowed to ask.
No cost, no obligation. We will tell you the rate you could defend today and whether filing is worth running at all.
Summary of C.R.S. § 44-20-141.5 as published by the State of Colorado, reviewed July 2026. Statutes change; we re-verify before every filing.