Published 2026-09-12 · DIYCarPlay Engineering Team

Warranty and RMA on CarPlay Modules: Terms to Agree Up Front

Warranty disputes in cross-border car electronics almost never hinge on whether the warranty exists. They hinge on who pays to send the unit back, what counts as a defect, and whether an intermittent fault that cannot be reproduced in the factory counts at all. Each of those is a term you can agree before the first order, and none of them are worth arguing about afterwards.

The five terms that decide everything

1. Dead-on-arrival window. A defined number of days after receipt during which a non-working unit is replaced without question, including freight. Without this, a unit that arrives dead sits in a grey area between "warranty" and "shipping damage".
2. Definition of a defect. Write down which functions count. A module that boots but will not pair wirelessly is defective. A module that shows a rolling camera image on a platform it was not sold for is not. The definition prevents an argument about interpretation.
3. Return freight. The usual fair arrangement is that the buyer pays return freight and the seller pays the outbound replacement freight, with the reverse applying if the unit tests as no-fault. Whatever the rule, it needs to be a rule and not a negotiation every time.
4. Replacement versus repair versus credit. For low-value modules, replacement is normally cheaper than shipping a unit back and forth for repair. For distributors holding stock, credit against the next order is often more useful than a physical replacement.
5. Spare parts availability after the model changes. Head unit generations are retired and modules change revision. Agree how long spares and firmware remain available after a module is superseded, because a customer whose car is still on the road does not care that the product line moved on.

The intermittent-fault problem

The hardest warranty case is the fault that only appears in a car: over bumps, when hot, or in 5 GHz-dense areas. It usually tests as "no fault found" on the bench, which is a genuinely unsatisfactory answer for the buyer and a genuinely unprovable claim for the seller.

The practical resolution is evidence. If the installer can supply a short video showing the failure and the circumstances, a supplier who takes it seriously can often identify the cause from the symptom and the platform — because the same symptom on the same head unit generation tends to have the same cause. This is a much better use of everyone's time than a return that will be tested once and posted back.

Our terms

Our modules carry a 12-month warranty against manufacturing defects with spare parts available beyond that, and firmware updates are included rather than charged. Alongside the warranty, your technicians get direct access to our engineers on WhatsApp when a unit is misbehaving in a car, which resolves a meaningful share of cases without a return at all.

Terms are published on the wholesale programme page, and the questions buyers raise most often are in the FAQ. If something in your market requires different terms — a longer DOA window, local inspection, credit-based replacement — raise it at the quotation stage rather than after a failure.

Related Resources

• CarPlay Collections — browse by marque family (German, British, Italian, Japanese, luxury)
• CarPlay Fitment Checker — find the module for your car
• CarPlay Decoder FAQ — 34 answers on compatibility, install and wholesale
• CarPlay Retrofit Buying Guide — platform identification & selection
• Wholesale, Private Label & OEM Program — MOQ, lead times, payment terms
• All installation & technical guides

Official Platform References

• Apple — official CarPlay overview
• Apple — CarPlay available models list
• Apple Support — setting up CarPlay in your vehicle
• Google — Android Auto official site
• Android for Cars — developer documentation