jon6.0

Ordered the Rotofab 4L reservoir for the blower coolant. Also ordered some Engine Ice coolant to run in that system. Also going to route the lines a little different than stock. Supercharger, heat exchanger, pump, reservoir, supercharger. Rotofab cold air intake goes on Saturday and my JBA catless mids go on Wednesday. Not sure when the reservoir will be here.

XCELER8

And the keeping it stock for warranty lasted a whole week lol

jon6.0

Why would that void my warranty? I'm also probably going to put the pump off the bottom of the reservoir to keep it primed at all times.

Streetk14

Doesn't take much these days to void a powertrain warranty. If you blew the engine with that intake and exhaust stuff, they'd probably tell you to go pound sand.

old motorhead

Agree. The bad news is that they can deny warranty for just about anything. Hell, they don't need a legitimate reason.

So, they deny warranting your blown motor because they don't like your eye shadow and your kids are ugly.

What are your options? Take GM and/or the dealership to court? You're totally in the right but they have your money (warranted repairs) and you have to force them to act. Good luck with that one.

I wouldn't count of any kind of warranty if you do much more than swap to a free flowing CAI. If you know the service writer, you can get away with a lot sometimes. That can happen as long as he doesn't have big brother/regional GM guy looking over his shoulder. Bottom line is....I wouldn't jack with it until I could afford to fix it.

jon6.0

Well shoot. I'll talk to my dealer when I go for my first oil change on Wednesday morning. They are letting me do my first oil change at 1000 miles under the 24 month maintenance coverage. If they are okay with me adding the reservoir I'll order it. If not, CAI and mid pipes will be it along with a ported throttlebody. I looked at my stock tune and holy crap a ton of timing gets pulled for hot IAT's.

Corvettinator

I won't beat a dead horse about the misuse of the term "voiding" a contract (only a court can do that), but going to small claims court isn't rocket science.

Streetk14

I've seen it done quite a few times with modified BMWs. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure a "limited warranty" has stipulations. I've seen cars get their powertrain coverage "blocked", which means no dealer can provide warranty coverage. Maybe "blocked" is a better term than "voided".

Just a couple weeks ago I saw a high end car ('11 or '12 750i) gets it's ENTIRE warranty blocked due to mileage discrepancy. Someone (prior owner or seller) had been screwing with the odometer info.

Small claims is good to up to $10k, but the question is whether or not you have a case. A blown engine on a ZL1 is also going to be more than that I'd guess. Anything that adds power/stress to the powertrain components (i.e. beyond original design limits) would likely give you no leg to stand on in court.

Streetk14

For what it's worth, here's BMW's take on it. With all their current cars being turbocharged, it makes this a big issue for them at the moment:

WARRANTY INFORMATION
Modification of the vehicle or installation of any non-approved performance accessories or components attached to the vehicle which alters the original engineering and/or operating specifications or which results in damage to the other original components voids the warranty coverage on the affected original Drivetrain and Emission Control components.


In general terms, the BMW warranty on Drivetrain and Emission Control components is void due to a modification where the modification, alteration or installation of a non-approved aftermarket part was responsible for the failure.

Corvettinator

Well BWW had better get some new lawyers, because a contractor cannot unilateral "void" a contract. They can, of course, refuse to honor their obligations; but, by their own words they'd have to prove in court the warranty caused the failure if you sued them. GM's warranty says a similar thing about causation, without this ridiculous "void" language. "Void" means no remedies at law, the contract is dead, and no remedies (e.g., you can't even sue). I'm sorry to quibble, but words matter in the law. And in the US, ambiguous contract terms are construed against the drafter, so it's dumb for BMW to use that word.

Obviously, it is not a trivial matter to go into court and take on a Fortune 500 company and try to win on the merits. But this idea that a warranty just unilaterally "voids" and you have no remedy is exactly what automakers want consumers to think. They love that people believe warranties can just be killed by the manufacturer with no recourse.

To be fair, with FI, I wouldn't make a drivetrain claim if something broke. Adding 285 HP and expecting GM to pay for a failure is not reasonable.

But, OTOH, I had a dealer try to claim my S/C caused a radiator fan/ECU failure (covered under bumper-to-bumper, not drivetrain), when it is a known issue on stock cars. I ultimately prevailed, but that would have been small claims time. Don't trust dealers and car manufacturers. They are not your friend.

For what it's worth, I have been teaching contract law for 15 years. Not to appeal to authority, but I am not just some random forum schlub repeating what he heard on some forum.

Streetk14

Like I said, I'm no lawyer. Though I've worked in the Auto industry a long time. That bold section I pasted was something intended for Technicians to see, not the customer. I'm not sure the term "void" is used there -- though the bottom line is that they can reject a warranty claim if they choose to do so.

I think if GM wanted to fight you on that fan thing, you would have lost. At least if your tune had altered the fan duty cycle tables (making it work harder) , that is. I don't think it would be too hard for them to prove that it was being made to work harder than originally designed.

Most of the time, dealers or manufacturers are willing to bend in the name of customer satisfaction or to avoid any bad press if it comes down to lawyers and legal BS. Sometimes they do stand their ground, though. I've heard of LS7s dropping valves but the claim being denied due to headers. I don't remember the outcome, but there was one such case here on the forum that got ugly.

For smaller claims it's really up to the dealer, but for larger claims it's usually the manufacturer that makes the call. And while you might be able to win, not everyone is interested in getting tied up in a legal battle.