New Brunswick doesn't license vehicle service contracts — it gives you a non-waivable statutory warranty instead

Our Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia pages each cover a province regulating vehicle warranty products through an insurance-style licensing or consumer-protection-disclosure regime. New Brunswick takes a genuinely different legal approach: instead of licensing who can sell a service contract, its Consumer Product Warranty and Liability Act (CPWALA) writes a statutory warranty directly into the sale itself — one a seller can't contract around, and a purchased service contract can't replace.

A non-waivable implied warranty, not a licensing regime

CPWALA, S.N.B. 1978, c. C-18.1, gives every buyer of a new or used consumer product — including a vehicle — from a New Brunswick seller or distributor an implied warranty that the product is reasonably fit for any particular purpose the buyer made known before the sale, and that it will remain durable for a reasonable period given its nature and how it was used. Section 24 then does the real work: the parties to the sale cannot agree to exclude or restrict a warranty or remedy the Act provides, except in the narrow, specifically listed ways sections 25 and 26 allow. An express warranty offered alongside the sale doesn't cancel this out either — the Act is explicit that an express warranty does not exclude or restrict the implied one.

The Act reaches past the dealer, to the manufacturer directly

CPWALA also breaks with the ordinary contract-law rule that you can only sue whoever you actually bought from. Section 23 extends warranty protection up the distribution chain to a manufacturer or wholesaler the buyer never dealt with directly — abolishing the privity-of-contract barrier that would otherwise block that claim. Section 27 goes further still, imposing strict liability on a supplier for a product that's unreasonably dangerous to a person or property because of a design, materials, or workmanship defect, reaching even a supplier who didn't sell the product under a contract at all — a free sample, for instance, or a sale governed by another province's law.

Where a purchased service contract actually fits

New Brunswick dealerships commonly offer an extended service contract alongside a vehicle sale, the same product covered generally in our extended warranty vs. manufacturer warranty page. New Brunswick's Financial and Consumer Services Commission (FCNB) advises reviewing any such contract's terms carefully and getting them in writing — standard advice anywhere. What CPWALA adds specifically is that this purchased contract sits on top of the statutory implied warranty, not in place of it: because section 24 bars contracting out of the Act's own warranty, a service contract's terms can't be used to narrow or replace the fitness and durability protection CPWALA already gives the buyer by law.

The gap: a private used-vehicle sale isn't covered

CPWALA's protection runs against a seller or distributor — a dealer or business in the distribution chain. A private sale between two individuals, common for a used vehicle bought outside a dealership, falls outside the Act's coverage entirely. A New Brunswick buyer going that route has none of the statutory protection described above, and should treat a private used-vehicle purchase as carrying meaningfully less legal backstop than a dealer purchase, not the same protection under a different name.

What this means for a New Brunswick buyer

Point 1 of our standard calls for plain, pre-purchase disclosure of contract terms — worth asking for regardless of what CPWALA already guarantees you by law. But knowing the statutory floor matters specifically here: if a dealer or service-contract seller in New Brunswick claims a signed waiver or a service contract's fine print overrides your implied fitness or durability protection, section 24 says otherwise for a purchase from a seller or distributor covered by the Act.

See also: our Canada right-to-repair page covers a separate, federal question — who can legally do repair or diagnostic work — distinct from CPWALA's own question of what warranty protection follows the sale itself.