The SC instructed to think the “repair nationalism” over
When Irina Nikolaeva’s Mercedes broke for the second time, the dealer refused to haul it for 1300 kilometers away fr om Murmansk to Saint Petersburg, where the nearest service center was, on their own account. She pondered, where to have her car repaired, and the solution was found in Norway – that service center was considerably closer. However, it turned lately that neither the Russian seller nor the courts see that center as an authorized repair facility. But the Supreme Court decided that the story was worth thinking about once more.
Irina Nikolaeva purchased from the Russian subsidiary of the German Daimler AG, Merceds-Benz RUS CJSC, a Mercedes (the model and the exact dates of the subsequent events, as well as any amounts, were deleted from the documents – Pravo.ru), in April of 2011. In October, the car had to be towed from Murmansk to the service center of the official dealer Olimp LLC in Saint Petersburg, at the expense of the repair facility. The ignition lock was out of order. The delivery took three days, the repairs were completed on November 11, and I.Nikolaeva went to pick the car up herself. Her trip took another three days, and the service center, as ordered by the client, did additional services to the car until November 14.
According to I.Nikolaeva, when the defect reappeared in June of 2012, the dealer refused to pay for the transportation of the car, which, according to the materials of the subsequent investigation, “prompted the claimant to contact the maker of the means of transportation”. The service book contained the address of the Daimler website, wh ere the address of the closest service center was found – in Norway, 300 kilometers from Murmansk. The car underwent repairs there from then. The first defect required 18 days of repairs, and suspension of I.Nikolaeva’s car underwent 49 days of repairs at the same center in March of 2013.
But when a front absorber turned out to be defective, I.Nikolaeva decided to terminate her agreement with Mercedes-Benz RUS CJSC. When her two written claims were left unanswered, she went to the Oktyabrsky Court of Murmansk on October 3rd of 2013 <...>
According to Advocate Alexander Bolomatov, Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", the situation should be resolved to the benefit of the consumer. He says: “The courts accept treatment or education certificates issued outside of the Russian Federation. It’s impossible to understand, why automobile repairs are treated differently. I obviously may have my car repaired anywhere, and this fact is to be taken into consideration for the purposes of proving in the course of civil proceedings. This was not done in this case, even though the situation is clear – Russian specialists could not perform the repairs, while the others could, but the court refuses to accept this”. In the advocate’s opinion, a motivated explanation by the SC may state that “not only Russian documents may be proof”.
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