Automotive repair dealer

Other states say repair facility or repair shop; California's statute and regulations say automotive repair dealer, abbreviated ARD, and the whole of the Bureau's rulebook hangs on the term. A dealer registers, renews, and prints its registration number on what it gives customers.

The Bureau's 2025 order of adoption, effective October 1, 2025, added a section on advertising that applies to every dealer: internet advertising shows the firm name "as it appears on the State registration certificate", the registration number "issued by the Bureau", and a telephone number "the same as that listed for the dealer's firm name in the Bureau's records" (16 CCR § 3371.2(a)). The same order rewrote the presumption section that decides who is a dealer at all. Since October 1, 2025 California presumes a referral, broker or concierge service that collects payment for repairs another business performs, and an online parts retailer that arranges installation as part of the sale, to be an automotive repair dealer too. That is § 3371.1(e).

A mobile business is a dealer with extra duties: a registration number per van and the service address on the invoice, covered under mobile automotive repair.

In Wrenchy the shop's registration number is a field on the shop that prints where the state's rule puts it, and the rules pages hold California's estimate, work order and invoice rows with the day they were read.