Delaware
Delaware entitles a franchised dealer to warranty compensation no lower than what it charges nonwarranty customers for like parts, service and repairs. It goes further than most states on what happens after the rate is set, limiting how and when a manufacturer can deny or charge back a claim.
6 Del. C. § 4903 · Warranty and predelivery obligations to new motor vehicle dealers
What you are owed
Retail rate
Reasonable compensation may not be less than the rate you charge nonwarranty customers for like parts, service and repairs, and diagnostic work must be compensated too.
The manufacturer's clock
30 days
A schedule not specifically disapproved in writing within 30 days is deemed approved. The new schedule takes effect within 30 days and is presumed fair and reasonable.
How often you may file
Every 9 months
A dealer may request a change to its warranty parts or labor rate no more than once every nine months. Not annual, but not unlimited either.
Retaliation
Prohibited
The manufacturer may not take or threaten adverse action against a dealer who seeks compensation under the statute.
Why It Is Not A Form
Delaware lets you set a schedule of compensation from your own customer-paid repair orders, and it presumes that schedule fair. It also removes a specific list of work from the calculation, with exceptions inside the exceptions that are easy to read past. The presumption is strong. The submission underneath it still has to be right.
Delaware excludes several categories of work, then carves certain items back in. Those carve-backs are exactly the kind of detail that a quick read misses, and they move the average in the dealer's favor when they are counted correctly.
If the rate is denied, the dealer protests to the Public Service Commission, and the manufacturer bears the burden of proof. A prevailing dealer is reimbursed retroactively, but only a submission built to be defended gets that far.
Delaware limits chargebacks for procedural or documentation slips, but that protection depends on your history with the manufacturer. A store that does not track warnings and claim handling can lose a protection it did not know it had.
A rate that comes in low is the rate you are paid for every warranty repair order until the nine months run out. Getting it right the first time is worth more than getting it in early.
The Part Most Dealers Miss
Most retail-rate statutes are about the number. Delaware also limits what happens to the claims paid at that number. Audits and chargebacks for fraud, unnecessary work or work not properly performed are confined to a limited window after payment. And a manufacturer may not deny or charge back a claim over a procedural or documentation failure unless the dealer committed the same violation before and received a written warning by certified mail within the preceding twelve months.
Around that sits the rate itself: presumed fair and reasonable, deemed approved if not disapproved in writing within 30 days, and protected by a ban on adverse action against a dealer who seeks it. The statute does a great deal for a Delaware store. The filing still has to earn it.
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 6 Del. C. § 4903 as published by the State of Delaware, reviewed July 2026. Statutes change; we re-verify before every filing.