Maine
Maine guarantees a franchised dealer its posted retail labor rate on warranty work, and its own declared markup on warranty parts. The franchisor cannot limit that by agreement or by restriction, and cannot recover the cost from you. Many Maine stores are still being paid on terms the statute no longer allows.
Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 10, § 1176 · Warranty; reimbursement at the retail rate customarily charged
What you are owed
Retail rate
Warranty labor at the non-warranty rate you post for retail customers, and warranty parts at the average markup you earn on customer-paid work.
When it takes effect
30 days
Your declared parts markup goes into effect 30 days after you declare it, subject to the franchisor's audit of what you submitted.
How often you may file
Parts: twice a year
Your average parts markup may change no more than twice in a calendar year. That is more room than most states give, but each attempt still counts.
Recovering the cost
Prohibited
The franchisor may not otherwise recover its costs for reimbursing you for parts and labor under the statute, by surcharge or any other route.
Why It Is Not A Form
Maine keeps the labor side simple and puts the work on parts. Your markup has to be proven out of your own customer-paid repair orders, after taking out the few kinds of work the statute names. Because the list is short, the mistake Maine stores make is usually the opposite of the one in other states.
Maine names only a handful of categories that do not count toward your markup. Templates written for other states, and franchisor portals with their own filters, strip out far more than that, and every line removed that should have stayed lowers your markup.
Your markup takes effect in 30 days, but it is subject to the franchisor's audit and can be adjusted on what that audit finds. What it finds is whatever in your submission does not hold together.
Maine bars the franchisor from requiring an unduly burdensome or time-consuming method, including part-by-part calculations. Where its own process crosses that line, and where it does not, is a per-brand judgment the statute leaves to you.
Maine allows two changes to your parts markup in a calendar year. A submission that gets adjusted down uses one of them, and leaves you at a markup you did not choose until the next.
The Part Most Dealers Miss
Many dealers assume their franchise agreement sets the warranty rate. In Maine it does not get the last word. The statute says the franchisor may not limit reimbursement by agreement, by restriction upon reimbursement, or otherwise. Your warranty labor is owed at the retail rate you post, without a sample of repair orders standing between you and it.
And the franchisor may not otherwise recover the cost from you, or deny a claim over a clerical error you correct. The right is already yours. What decides how much of it you collect is whether your parts submission holds up.
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 Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 10, § 1176 as published by the State of Maine, reviewed July 2026. Statutes change; we re-verify before every filing.