West Virginia
State law entitles a franchised dealer to its nonwarranty retail labor rate and parts markup on warranty work, and makes it a violation for the factory to answer that request with surcharges, audits, chargebacks or a cut in your vehicle or parts allocation. Most West Virginia stores are still paid a rate that predates any of it.
W. Va. Code § 17A-6A-8a · Compensation to dealers for service rendered; retail labor rate and parts markup
What you are owed
Retail rate
Your nonwarranty retail labor rate and parts markup on warranty work, with diagnostic time paid either inside the labor allowance or as its own line.
Your declared markup
Presumed fair
A declared markup is presumed reasonable. To overturn it, the manufacturer carries the burden of proving it fraudulent, inaccurate, improperly established or unreasonable against comparable dealers.
How often you may file
Once a year, each
A new labor rate or parts markup cannot be demanded within 12 months of the last declaration on that side. Labor and parts are each limited on their own.
Retaliation
Prohibited
No surcharges, penalties, audits, chargebacks, shifted costs or limited allocation because you sought your retail rate. Each is a violation of the statute in its own right.
Why It Is Not A Form
West Virginia puts the burden on the manufacturer, but the presumption only protects a rate that was established the way the statute requires. The law decides which of your customer-paid work counts and which of it pulls your average down. That judgment is where filings succeed or fail, long before anyone argues about reasonableness.
West Virginia removes several categories of work from the calculation, and the line around routine maintenance is narrower and more particular than most stores assume. Draw it in the wrong place and your own repair orders argue for a lower rate.
Each OEM applies its own policy on what qualifies and how a rate change must be presented. Where it conflicts with the statute, West Virginia law controls, but finding the conflict means knowing your brand's policy as well as the code.
One of the grounds a manufacturer can use to defeat your rate is that it was not established as the statute requires. A strong number assembled the wrong way can lose its protection before its size is ever discussed.
A new demand on either side waits 12 months from the last declaration. A weak submission does not simply fail. It holds you at the old rate for the year behind it.
The Part Most Dealers Miss
The fear behind most unfiled West Virginia claims is not that the money is not owed. It is that the factory will find another way to make the store pay, and the quietest way is allocation. West Virginia names that directly: a manufacturer may not limit your vehicle or parts allocation, impose surcharges or penalties, shift costs onto you, or answer your request with audits and chargebacks.
The statute also covers powersports dealers, with a separate greater-of rule for their warranty parts. Across every line, the law already leans toward the dealer. What decides the outcome is whether what you submit 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 W. Va. Code § 17A-6A-8a as published by the State of West Virginia, reviewed July 2026. Statutes change; we re-verify before every filing.