OEM Approved Workshop Equipment Explained.

Vehicle manufacturers run equipment programmes for the workshops that hold their franchise. A programme sets out what a dealer or authorised repairer needs to have available — a wheel aligner able to work to the manufacturer’s tolerances, a lift suited to the vehicles being handled, calibration equipment for driver assistance systems — and which equipment the manufacturer has assessed as meeting that requirement.

Where equipment is described as OEM approved, it normally means the vehicle manufacturer has evaluated that model, listed it, and issued a reference the workshop can quote during an audit. Three things follow from that:

• The approval belongs to a defined item of equipment, usually down to a model or part number, rather than to a brand or a supplier.
• It is granted under one manufacturer’s programme, and does not automatically carry across to another manufacturer’s.
• It can be revised. Programmes are updated as vehicles, repair methods and tolerances change, so an approval that was current a few years ago may since have been superseded.

Approval is therefore best treated as a question about a particular piece of equipment, for a particular programme, at a particular point in time — not as a status a supplier either has or does not have.

There is no single OEM approved status, and no supplier’s range is approved in its entirety. A vehicle manufacturer may list one model of aligner and not another from the same maker. Two manufacturers may both require equipment for the same job and list different models for it. A programme may cover one market and not another.

Some of the equipment Liftmaster supplies is specified and approved by vehicle manufacturers — Beissbarth wheel service equipment is one example — but the exact approval a franchised dealer or manufacturer programme requires should be confirmed against that programme before equipment is ordered. Liftmaster does not present its range as approved across the board, and the authority for any individual approval is the vehicle manufacturer’s own programme documentation.

Manufacturer approval and MOT equipment acceptance are separate systems, and the two are often confused.

For MOT testing, DVSA guidance states that the Garage Equipment Association publishes the lists of equipment approved for MOT testing, and that any new or replacement equipment bought for a test station must come from those lists. The lists are organised by equipment type and distinguish equipment that currently meets the DVSA specification from equipment whose status is restricted.

A vehicle manufacturer’s approval has no bearing on that. Equipment can appear on the DVSA lists without being named in any manufacturer programme, and equipment can be listed under a manufacturer programme without being eligible for use in MOT testing. A site that both tests and holds a franchise may need to satisfy both, and should check each separately. The equipment side of MOT testing is covered under MOT bay equipment, and the authorisation process in the DVSA approval guide.

Neither manufacturer approval nor DVSA acceptance displaces the duties that attach to equipment in use. Vehicle lifts remain subject to LOLER 1998, which requires thorough examination at the intervals set out in the regulations or in a written scheme of examination drawn up by a competent person, and to PUWER for inspection and maintenance. Approval is about which equipment suits a programme; LOLER and PUWER are about keeping that equipment safe in service.

Thorough examination, MOT equipment calibration and routine servicing are three separate regimes with separate records, and meeting one does not satisfy another. Servicing and LOLER thorough examination sets out how Liftmaster supports each of them.

Where a workshop has been told it needs approved equipment, the requirement itself comes from the vehicle manufacturer, its importer or the scheme the workshop is signed up to. A practical order of work is:

• Ask the manufacturer, importer or scheme for the current requirement, and for any approval reference it quotes.
• Confirm the exact model or part number that reference applies to, rather than the equipment maker’s name alone.
• Check what the requirement says about installation, commissioning and ongoing calibration, since these are often specified alongside the equipment.
• Keep the approval reference with the installation and calibration records for the unit.

With that information, a supplier can tell you whether the listed equipment is something it is able to supply. Without it, any answer is guesswork.