Can a dealership void your warranty?

[cimabeu]

I recently posted a response that stated that if you modify your car, a dealer can void your warranty--- well, I was very wrong.

Under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975, mods alone cannot void your warranty and the dealer must show PROOF THAT MODS DIRECTLY AFFECTED your car problems. For details, enclosed are some sights for fun reading (they say much the same thing):

http://www.impalaclub.com/naisso/magmoss.htm
http://www.mlmlaw.com/library/guides...s/undermag.htm
http://www.mustangmemory.com/Magnuson_Moss.htm

[John Henry]

Great find. A lot of people should find this VERY helpful.

[barrister89]

Don't ever listen to anybody at a dealership who starts talking about "voiding" your warranty. You're correct that the it must be proven that mods caused the failure. Even then, you're entire warranty is never invalidated. If you blow your motor because of your mods and the repairs aren't covered, the rest of the warranty is still in effect. For example if your power seats stop working, they're still covered because the problem is totally unrelated to the mods.

It was a established a long time ago that a manufacturer can't force you to always use their parts as a condition of a written warranty.

If a dealership every refuses to fix something under warranty because of aftermarket parts, make them write it on the ticket.

[Beebo]

the mods should sticky this... could help the noobs

[TurK]

It depends,by just modifying, no.

[05350GT6MT]

very informative.. ahha

[IrockAG35]

nice find,this could be helpfull down the road

[mjg]

they can't void your warranty, everyone knows that... What they can do is refuse to replace apart that they can say broke because you added such and such mod. You can always go to another dealer, or remove some parts before you get warranty work. Voiding the warranty as a service guy would say is probably just easier to say to a guy to get him to pay out the pocket since the warranty won't cover it.

Just because you have a warranty, doesn't mean the dealer has to unconditionally fix whatever you break on the car... If you mod the car, you need to pretty much throw all the special warranty treatment out the window, or just learn to play their game and take the parts off when you need to.

[Beebo]

^^^ nope... lets say if the dealer says thats its the aftermarket intake causing the problem... they just cant say no they have to prove it was the mod that caused the problem... by law

[Morovasa]

thanks for the posting... I am surely keeping this on file!

[Jay21blaze]

wow! and i was scared to mod my car out because of that.thanks great post

[pfarmer]

Originally Posted by Jay21blaze

wow! and i was scared to mod my car out because of that.thanks great post

Not really as simple as that. A provision in a warranty can be made to not allow certain parts to be used if the manufacturer shows that the product covered under the warranty will only function properly with a particular branded part or service.

In other cases it could be the use of a different type of oil. If it stated to use 10-30 and you used 10-40 then there is a good chance that you would fail to win a case for various engine failures. On the other hand if you used brand x oil instead of the 'recommended oil' you should be covered as long as the oil met all the stated requirements.

I would think it would be fairly easy for a manufacturer to state their engine was designed for service at a specific state of tune, which yielded a specific level of performance and if you changed a part that caused an exceedance of that level or the characteristics of that performance that you may easily lose a case against them.

The law has a couple of stated purposes. One is that the consumer is provided any warranty info up front so they can shop warranties. Second that an OEM type of part doesn't have to be from a specific manufacturer unless it can be shown that there is an acceptable benefit in doing so. One example of such a part of the warranty that could easily fall into this area is that of Nissan's rust through warranty for body panels. This can help you require an OEM part instead of a cheaper lesser replacement part.

Keep in mind the racing restrictions as well. Race (according to definition) and watch yourself have problems with warrantied repairs if this fact is known.

[SxSkyLinexS]

Originally Posted by barrister89

Don't ever listen to anybody at a dealership who starts talking about "voiding" your warranty. You're correct that the it must be proven that mods caused the failure. Even then, you're entire warranty is never invalidated. If you blow your motor because of your mods and the repairs aren't covered, the rest of the warranty is still in effect. For example if your power seats stop working, they're still covered because the problem is totally unrelated to the mods.

It was a established a long time ago that a manufacturer can't force you to always use their parts as a condition of a written warranty.

If a dealership every refuses to fix something under warranty because of aftermarket parts, make them write it on the ticket.

taht should always be the case ;]
+1 defintely sticky it ;]

[gary c]

They may not be able to void your warranty under law, that doesn't mean they won't refuse to replace or fix what ever's wrong with your car. Am I the only one that recalls the member that had a blown engine and replacement was refused because of his HKS exhaust? We all know that wasn't the cause but Nissan denied replacement so you're SOL! It helps if you have a mod friendly dealership, obviously some aren't....
Gary

[HenryLee]

Thats good to hear.