Aftermarket equipment intended for the installation in motor vehicles - Directive 2004/104/EC

EU member state authorities to drop the attestation certificate requirement as of October 2009

While aftermarket products intended for the use in vehicles may not require type-approval, according to 3.2.9, annex I, of directive 2004/104/EC, for the past 4 years, requirements existed that a notified body would be consulted to determine if aftermarket equipment is immunity-related, and if not, an attestation certificate would be issued. Here is the directive excerpt for this requirement;

3.2.9. Components sold as aftermarket equipment and intended for the installation in motor vehicles need no type-approval if they are not related to immunity-related functions (Annex I, 2.1.12). In this case a Declaration of Conformity according to the procedures of Directive 89/336/EEC or 1999/5/EC must be issued. Part of this declaration must be that the ESA fulfils the limits defined in paragraphs 6.5, 6.6, 6.8 and 6.9 of Annex I to this Directive.
During a transition period of four years after coming into force of this Directive the responsible for placing on the market of such a product has to submit all relevant information and/or a sample to a technical service which will determine if the equipment is immunity-related or not. The result of the inspection shall be available within three weeks and not require additional testing. A document according to the example given in Annex III C shall be issued by the technical service within the same period. Member States shall report, by a date three years from the entry into force of this Directive, any cases of refusals on safety grounds. Based on the practical experience with this requirement and based on the reports submitted by Member States, it will be decided, according to the procedure referred to in Article 13 of Directive 70/156/EEC, and before the end of the transition period, if this document is still required in addition to the Declaration of Conformity.

This requirement will effectively come to an end in October 2009 with the adoption and publication of Directive 2009/19/EC. Click the directive number, or see this URL for a copy;
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:070:0017:0018:EN:PDF