INEOS has defended its $3000 12-month fee for owners to access its workshop manual and related technical publications, while the company says the fee is standard practice by many OEMs.

The 4WD manufacturer has come under fire from some customers for applying the charge for its online workshop manual. It gives owners free access for the first 12 months and then applies the annual subscription fee.

Ineos Australia head Justin Hocevar told GoAutoNews Premium that an initial company plan to provide a workshop manual to owners became “too complex and costly” to build, leading to a delay in its release.

He said that Ineos apologised for the delay but once it became available, the feedback from customers to the 3D manual was “very good”.

“Owners can zoom in, twist the diagrams around and it will show animations of repair sequencing, so it’s a really good platform,” he said.

“It’s a very similar version to what our dealers have access to.

Ineos Australia head Justin Hocevar

“There are some differences such as it keeps out anything that customers shouldn’t be getting into such as safety equipment.”

Ineos now charges $3000 for a year of subscription – with three and six-month periods available – for Australian and NZ owners, after the 12-month free period at the start of ownership.

“We recently announced globally, including Australia, that there was a subscription fee for the service manual,” added Mr Hocevar.

“It’s come across as a hefty fee and a small part of our community has opposed that fee.

“Probably the most passionate owners that really want to have access to it, particularly if they’re remote from a dealer or are touring, are okay with it.

“I have taken it up with our head office and spoken to clubs, because a lot of the clubs have a technical liaison which we could – perhaps – have a special license to allow access information and share it amongst customers as they need. 

“We are also looking at a partnership with an automotive service and repair business that will have an OBD reader so owners can do fault diagnosis and have access to a 24/7 line for people needing remote support.”

Mr Hocevar said that because Ineos was an NB1 category vehicle “we don’t fall under the normal requirements of right-to-repair information”.

“When we get some non-authorised repairers saying, ‘Hey, I want access to this information’ we point them back to our dealers to get access to that information,” he said.

Mr Hocevar said that although access to the service and repair information can allow owners to repair their vehicles “we want them to follow all the service regime as we lay out; use the right parts; and recommend that a qualified technician do the service work, or at least sign off on your service work”.

The latter point is pertinent because after a DIY service, the vehicle needs to have its service light reset.

“That’s even if they’ve done it themselves or they’ve gone to an aftermarket dealer or aftermarket service centre to have it serviced,” he said.

“If they want to get the service light reset, they have to go back to a dealer.

“That dealer is likely to charge – it’s at their discretion – and it could be 30 minutes which is about $150. The dealer will check that the service protocol has been followed and that the vehicle is okay by logging it into the Ineos system.

“The charge is because I can’t ask our dealers to give up the technician’s time and the use of the equipment for nothing.”Mr Hocevar said Ineos’ subscription service for the repair manual was in line with other systems from right-to-repair OEMs.

“The benchmarking on price that we did is quite similar to these other OEMs,” he said.

“In fact, we sort of sit mid-pack on price. The cheapest we found was around $2500, and some OEMs can go up to about $5500.”

Mr Hocevar said that Ineos, which does not submit sales data to Vfacts, was averaging about 900 unit sales a year in Australia.

“We’re now in a rebuilding phase. When we launched in Australia as an agency retail model almost four years ago, we had about 28 agents across the country,” he added.

“About a year and a half ago, nearly two years after launch, we said we wanted to move from that agency model to a franchise dealer model.”So the network got pared back to probably half of what we originally appointed, and now we’re expanding by appointing more dealers.

“At the moment, we have about 20 dealerships and we still have some growth to do. I’d look at about 24 dealers by mid next year, Mr Hocevar told GoAutoPremium.

“But I really want to have more service outlets. With the volume of our brand, it doesn’t really warrant having more sales outlets than what the mid-20s will give us.

“I know that WA in particular is one state where we’ve got about two to three other locations lined up as pure service outlets.”