Mitsubishi Electric Aircon Warranty: When Cover Starts
Mitsubishi Electric ties its aircon warranty to a receipt, not to the day the unit went up on the wall. Buy inside a renovation package and the cover can be part spent before the installer arrives. Registration decides whether it exists at all.
By Team Snowflake | Updated 16 Sept 2026
Cover runs from the receipt, not from the install
Mitsubishi Electric Asia starts the warranty on the purchase date shown on your sales receipt or invoice. Delivery and installation dates do not count. A unit that sits in its carton for a season is burning cover the whole time, and the day it goes on the wall resets nothing.
Hold two documents and the earlier one wins. The terms take the earliest date across every proof of purchase you produce. A deposit invoice from the showroom, followed by a final invoice at handover, means the deposit date is the one that runs. Where the warranty application and the receipt disagree, the receipt prevails.
No valid proof of purchase, no warranty period. The terms state that no period accrues at all without one, which puts the receipt above the unit itself. The distributor can also reject a document it judges altered, inconsistent with its records, or wrong about the purchase timeline.
Renovation packages are where this bites hardest in Singapore. Contractors order units early, and handover slips by weeks. Ask the dealer to invoice close to installation, or accept that the opening stretch of cover passes while the unit is still wrapped. Either is workable; discovering the gap during a claim is not.
Units that came with the flat
Units supplied under a new development project run on a different clock. Mitsubishi Electric issues a blanket warranty for project-supplied equipment, and the period starts on the date written into that document rather than on any receipt you hold. The purchase-date rule steps aside for these units.
The blanket warranty has to be produced when service is requested. Owners of new condominium units and BTO flats often never see it, because it sits with the developer or the main contractor. Ask for a copy at handover, while somebody still knows where it is filed.
Registration is the switch, and it has a deadline
Cover on a Mitsubishi Electric aircon is effective only once registration is completed and validated. That wording sits in the distributor's own warranty guidance. An unregistered unit does not have a slow claim ahead of it but no live warranty behind it, a sharper position than most owners assume.
The registration window closes fourteen days after the purchase date. Registration runs through the distributor's online portal, and physical warranty cards were withdrawn for the M-series residential range in 2016. Nothing arrives to prompt you, so the reminder has to come from you or your installer.
Registration needs the model and serial numbers for both the indoor and outdoor units. Those numbers come off perforated tags on the packaging. The installer is meant to tear them off and hand them over in an A5 envelope before installation begins. Renovation crews clear packaging fast, and once the boxes are gone the numbers must be recovered off the equipment.
Keep the receipt after registering. The distributor advises holding the acknowledgement email and the proof of purchase together. Its dealer instructions also require receipts to carry the dealer stamp, the point of purchase, the purchase date, and the model and serial numbers. A receipt missing any of those can be refused as proof, which is the no-proof position again.
When the packaging is already gone
The serial number is still on the unit. Mitsubishi Electric puts the model name and serial on a label at the lower right of the indoor unit. A torch and a phone camera recover what the carton would have given you, and the job takes a few minutes per room.
Treat that label as part of the warranty. A serial number that has been removed, defaced, altered, or worn illegible voids cover on that unit outright. Hard cleaning of the plastic housing, or a sticker lifting in a damp service ledge, can do it quietly, and once the number is unreadable there is no route back.
The compressor cover is narrower than the number suggests
Twelve months on parts, sixty months on the compressor. The longer term covers the cost of the compressor part alone, supplied new, and only where Mitsubishi Electric carries out the replacement itself. A compressor fitted by an outside contractor is not a warranty compressor, whatever the remaining term says.
Labour and transport ride along for the first year only. Inside twelve months the limited warranty absorbs those charges. After month twelve the part remains free and every hour of work around it is billed to you. The distributor also assesses the failed compressor before agreeing it is recoverable under the terms.
Refrigerant sits outside the cover entirely. The terms class refrigerant, driers and other circuit components as accessories, and accessories are excluded. A compressor change means recovering gas, fitting a new drier, pulling a vacuum and recharging. None of that is warranty work in year two.
The distributor also decides what counts as a part. The terms state that the definition rests solely with the company and that its determination is final. Ask for the quote split before approving anything, so the free line and the billed lines sit separately on the page. On any claim the company chooses whether to repair or replace.
| Cost item | Inside the first year | Year two to year five |
|---|---|---|
| New compressor part | Supplied free | Supplied free |
| Labour to remove and fit | Covered | Billed to you |
| Transport and handling | Covered | Billed to you |
| Refrigerant, drier, circuit parts | Billed to you | Billed to you |
| Scaffold or false ceiling access | Billed to you | Billed to you |
- Cost item
- New compressor part
- Inside the first year
- Supplied free
- Year two to year five
- Supplied free
- Cost item
- Labour to remove and fit
- Inside the first year
- Covered
- Year two to year five
- Billed to you
- Cost item
- Transport and handling
- Inside the first year
- Covered
- Year two to year five
- Billed to you
- Cost item
- Refrigerant, drier, circuit parts
- Inside the first year
- Billed to you
- Year two to year five
- Billed to you
- Cost item
- Scaffold or false ceiling access
- Inside the first year
- Billed to you
- Year two to year five
- Billed to you
Accessories, and why the word matters
The accessory list is longer than most owners expect. Remote controls, plastic panels, cabinets, dust covers, filters, strainers, driers, refrigerant, knobs, and detachable fittings are all named as accessories rather than parts. The test the company applies is whether the item is essential to core function.
That places several common failures outside cover in year one. A remote that stops transmitting, a cracked front panel, a filter frame snapped during cleaning. Each is chargeable on a unit that is otherwise fully warranted, and none is a sign that anything is wrong with the claim process.
Ask which side of the line a component falls on before work starts. The classification is the distributor's call, and the answer is easier on a phone call than on an invoice. Access costs work the same way: scaffolding, cranes, false ceiling openings, permits, and restricted-entry sites are all charged to the owner.
The clauses that void the cover, not just exclude it
Two lists sit in the terms, and they carry different weight. One names what the warranty does not pay for, such as rust, ordinary wear, stains and cleaning. The other names conditions that void the warranty on the unit, ending the cover rather than trimming it.
Missing routine servicing sits on the void list. The terms void cover where routine maintenance servicing is not carried out, so a unit carrying no servicing record is exposed on the harsher of the two lists. Servicing stays chargeable throughout, in year one and after, and the distributor recommends a quarterly cycle.
Renting the unit out appears there too. The void grounds include use that is non-residential or commercial, and rental or loan to other users. Landlords letting a whole flat should raise this with the distributor directly rather than assume the clause points elsewhere. A written answer before a fault is worth more than an argument during one.
The rest of the void list is about how the unit was treated. Wrong or abnormal supply voltage, installation outside the stated specification, alteration or modification, and unauthorised repair. Any one removes the cover before the fault itself is discussed. Where cover is voided, transport and handling charges for the inspection still fall to you.
The installer sets part of your warranty position
Installation work is excluded from the limited warranty, and installation outside specification voids that warranty. Both statements point the same way. Faults created during fitting belong to the installer, and the manufacturer's cover does not stand behind them, which is why the installer's own workmanship terms deserve as much attention as the brand warranty.
The benchmark is the manufacturer's own documentation, not local habit. The void clause names wrong alternating current supply voltage, abnormal voltage supply, and installation otherwise not in accordance with the required specifications. Nothing in that wording defers to what an installer usually does. Ask for written confirmation that the unit went in to the published specification, and file it with the invoice.
Copper piping only. The distributor states system performance is not guaranteed with aluminium piping, which matters on price-led installations. Settle what the quote includes before any pipe disappears above a false ceiling, and note the recommended outdoor drainage kit that keeps condensate off a neighbour's unit.
What cover looks like after a repair
A part replaced inside the warranty keeps the balance of the original period, or one month from the replacement, whichever runs longer. A control board fitted in the last week of the parts year runs on the one month option, which outlasts the days left on the original term. That cover attaches to the replaced part, not the whole unit.
Repairs outside the warranty carry their own short cover. The terms give one month from completion, limited to the parts actually replaced and to the same fault that prompted the visit. A different failure the following week is a new job at full cost, and a later repair does not restart the month.
Declining part of a recommended repair forfeits even that. Where a customer declines some of the recommended scope and the same fault returns as a result, the one month service warranty does not apply. Partial repairs are cheaper on the day and unbacked afterwards, whether or not anybody names the trade.
Cover cannot be bought forward either. Mitsubishi Electric offers no extended warranty on air conditioners and reserves the right to change the terms without notice. Cover holds in Singapore only, excluding locations road access from the mainland does not reach. Check the current terms rather than a copy saved years ago.
The evaluation charge on an uncovered visit
Inspection outside warranty can attract an evaluation charge whether or not a repair follows, so that figure is worth knowing before the visit is booked. Have the model, serial number, and any error code or blink count ready, since the distributor asks for those to open a job.
Common questions
When does the Mitsubishi Electric aircon warranty start?
What happens if my Mitsubishi Electric unit was never registered?
Is labour covered during a compressor replacement?
What voids a Mitsubishi Electric aircon warranty?
What should I keep for a Starmex claim?
Sources
- Registered Goods Product Search (Air-Conditioner)
National Environment Agency · Checked
Mitsubishi Electric models on the register, used to identify Starmex.
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