After-Sales and Spare Parts for Chinese Machinery in ASEAN: The Clauses to Write Before You Pay

Four things decide whether a Chinese machine is supportable in Bangkok, Hanoi or Jakarta, and all four are settled before the deposit is paid: whether the wear parts carry third-party OEM numbers you can buy locally, what date the warranty clock starts on, how many legal working days a Chinese engineer may spend in your country, and how a courier-shipped part now clears customs. Thailand allows urgent machinery repair or installation work for 15 days, extendable once; Vietnam exempts a worker for under 90 days a year but wants three days' notice. Everything below is a clause you can add before signing.

The parts you will actually replace are not built by your machine builder

Ten years of maintenance on a machining centre is bearings, linear guideways, ballscrews, seals, contactors, pumps and pneumatic fittings. Almost none of that is manufactured by the company whose name is cast into the column. That matters because catalogue components have distributors across the region and builder-specific components do not.

Two machines in our own catalogue make the point. The [LIDEMA T5](/en/products/lidema-cnc-wenzhou-lidema-t5-vertical-drilling-tapping-center) and the [LIDEMA T5B](/en/products/lidema-cnc-wenzhou-lidema-t5b-vertical-drilling-tapping-center) share a 500 x 300 mm table, a BT30 spindle, 5.5 kW of AC servo, +/-0.005 mm positioning and repeatability, 2,000 kg of iron and an identical 1,450 x 1,500 x 1,900 mm footprint. On a capacity table they are the same machine. On the component-origin table they are not:

| Component | T5 | T5B | |---|---|---| | Linear guideways | Japan THK | Taiwan SHAC | | Ballscrews | Japan THK | Taiwan SHAC | | Ballscrew bearings | Japan FAG / SKF | Japan NSK / SKF | | Spindle unit | Taiwan SYNTEC | Beijing Super Synchronous | | Coolant pump | Taiwan NOK | China local brand | | Couplings | Taiwan Hongwang | China local brand | | Spindle speed | 40-12,000 rpm | 40-8,000 rpm |

Both machines carry Germany FAG P4 spindle bearings, France Schneider electrical components, a Taiwan ETech tool magazine and a Taiwan AIRTAC air preparation unit. A supplier who publishes this table has already answered the only maintenance question that matters.

The action is simple: ask for a wear-parts bill of materials at PO stage, listing the OEM manufacturer, OEM part number and the builder's internal code for each item. Rows reading "China local brand" are not a defect; they are notice that those items are single-sourced through the builder, and they are precisely the rows to convert into stocked spares before the machine ships.

Where the warranty clock starts

Chinese export contracts commonly warrant twelve months from the bill of lading date rather than from commissioning. Between sea freight to Laem Chabang or Cai Mep, clearance, foundation and power work, and waiting on a commissioning engineer, a machine can burn much of its warranty before it cuts its first production part. Fix the wording instead of arguing about it later: twelve months from signed acceptance, or fifteen months from B/L, whichever comes first.

Then read the exclusions, because in this region the environmental clause is the one that bites. The [FPC Series laser cutting machine](/en/products/laserhy-hy-cuv01-15) in our catalogue states an operating envelope of 22-25 degrees C and 50 percent relative humidity. Publishing that envelope is good practice - most quotations state none at all - but read what it implies. Install a machine with that specification in an un-air-conditioned shop in Rayong or Binh Duong and you are permanently outside the conditions the warranty is written against. Ask for the environmental envelope in writing for every machine on the shortlist, then budget the room it needs.

Your engineer's visa is the spare part with the longest lead time

In **Thailand**, work of an urgent and necessary nature may be performed without a standard work permit under the Emergency Decree on Managing the Work of Aliens B.E. 2560 (2017). The Department of Employment's notification of June 2017 lists sixteen qualifying categories, which expressly include machinery repair or installation work and the follow-up and solving of technical problems. The work must be completable within 15 days; the Royal Decree (No. 2) B.E. 2561 (2018) allows one extension of up to a further 15 days. Notification to the registrar is mandatory, and failing to file carries a fine of up to THB 50,000.

In **Vietnam**, Decree 219/2025/ND-CP, issued 7 August 2025, replaced Decree 152/2020 and Decree 70/2023. It exempts a foreign worker whose total working time is under 90 days in a year, counted 1 January to 31 December, with no limit on the number of entries - but the employer must notify the competent local labour authority at least three days before the person starts work.

Three consequences worth writing into the contract. Fifteen days is a budget, not a courtesy: make the supplier own the permit and any delay it causes. Three days of notice means "he flies out tomorrow" is not a recovery plan. And if one engineer is your regional troubleshooter, his Vietnamese days are a finite annual resource. Confirm current requirements with local counsel before relying on any of this; these rules have changed twice in five years.

The emergency part is now a customs entry

Two changes have quietly ended the era of "just courier me the sensor". Vietnam abolished the VND 1,000,000 duty and VAT exemption for goods arriving by express delivery under Decision 01/2025/QD-TTg, effective 18 February 2025. Thailand cancelled its THB 1,500 de minimis threshold from 1 January 2026, so imported goods are assessed for duty regardless of value, on top of the VAT collected on low-value consignments since July 2024.

For spare parts that means every courier package is now a declaration with an HS code attached. Parts and accessories for machine tools generally sit under heading 8466, separate from the machine's own heading, and preferential ACFTA rates require a Form E, which is issued per consignment. Few suppliers will raise a Form E for a small courier package, so the emergency part often pays the standard rate while the machine it belongs to entered at the preferential one. If the machine came in under an investment promotion, that exemption does not automatically travel to its parts either. Have your broker classify the top ten wear items before you need them, and settle in the PO whether parts ship DDP or DAP - the discipline covered in our [Incoterms guide](/en/news/incoterms-machinery-import-asean).

What "online support, spare parts" actually buys you

The [automatic carton cross sealing machine](/en/products/ali-store-warehouse-logistics-express-package-carton-packing-machine-automatic-cross-seali) listed on this site states, in the supplier's own words, "Warranty 1 Year" and "After-sales Service: Video technical support, online support, spare parts". That is an honest description of a remote-support model and the standard answer shape across Chinese B2B listings. It is not a service contract. It does not say who travels, within how many hours, at whose cost, or where any parts are held.

Convert it into six lines before you pay the deposit:

• A named response time for remote diagnosis, in hours, during your shift pattern
• Who pays airfare, hotel and work permit for a site visit inside the warranty, and outside it
• A commissioning spares kit shipped in the same container, itemised
• The wear-parts BOM with OEM manufacturer and OEM part numbers
• Electrical drawings, PLC program and controller parameter backups handed to you at acceptance
• A price list for the top ten wear items, held valid for three years

None of this costs money at quotation stage. All of it costs money once the machine is down.

Conclusion

Support is not a promise you extract after a breakdown; it is a set of clauses you write before a deposit. For the supplier side of the same test, our [factory audit checklist](/en/news/verify-chinese-equipment-supplier-audit) and the [CNC control selection guide](/en/news/cnc-control-siemens-fanuc-mitsubishi-asean) cover what to verify before the PO. Browse [vertical machining centres](/en/products?category=mt-vertical-machining-center) and [fiber laser cutting machines](/en/products?category=le-fiber-laser-cutting), review a supplier such as [HALLERBS](/en/brands/hallerbs), or [talk to us](/en/contact) - we also run [China sourcing programmes](/en/china-sourcing) for ASEAN buyers.