Will there be any warrantee problems with the installation of headers, full exhaust w/cats + new air induction. I'm scared now after Ford screwed me out of 6gs (blown motor) on the cobra I owned last year.
Love my new car
Hate the exhaust
sounds like cheese
thanks,
huckleberry

 

There has been a lot of discussion on this forum regarding mods and warranties, and a lot of different folks have a lot of different opinions. As an attorney who has looked at some of the laws that govern car warranties, my own opinion is this: Mods do not and cannot "void" the entire warranty. If you have a problem with an original component of your car that is covered under the warranty, the dealer will bear the burden of proving that the modification caused the problem. In your situation, for example, if you have a problem with your headlights, the dealer cannot decline coverage under the warranty because you have done some modifications to your engine. Will some try? You bet, but they won't have a leg to stand on in court. On the other hand, however, if you have a problem with a component in the engine, a dealer may be able to say that perhaps the mods you have done put an unexpected stress on the component. I'm not a mechanic, so I can't give you a more specific example or say whether the dealer's position would be justified or not given the mods you have done. But, in my opinion, this is the general framework that you would be approaching a dealer if you ever had a problem. Hope this helps.

 

Zero problems w/ intake, LT headers, and exhaust here....

 

I wonder if you went and saw the service manager and told him what you were doing would he answer this.....in writing?

 

Doesn't the dealer get paid by the manufacturer for covered warranty work? Don't most dealerships like doing service work for money? Wouldn't the dealer be motivated to do the necessary work as long as you haven't done something stupid that obviously caused a problem? I guess I don't understand why any dealer would be quick to claim your warranty didn't cover the service. They don't do service work for free. Somebody's paying them. What am I missing here????

 

No real basis for this ... but my guess would be the dealer will make more money by charging you the going rate than what they make from the manufacturer under warranty. Warranty work costs the car manufacturer money and hurts the manuf's bottom line, so I suspect the dealers have some incentive from the manuf to determine when outside factors may have caused an issue for a warranteed item repair, etc. I also believe they have a strict manhour estimate for each repair and if it were caused by outside factors, that would probably throw complexity to the repair they cant account for under manuf reimbursement for a standard repair and could actually lose money.

 

Some dealerships mod cars prior to sale, i.e. Optic Z06 and Modern Day Muscles Cars. He takes a stock vette and does a list of approved mods and it is all covered under warranty. I have whats called his Z450 package. And it does not affect my warranty.

 

My dealership also has various packages that they claim does not void warranty as they would have to honor since they made the mods. I suspect if you tried to get warrantee repairs done at a different dealership, there could still be some aggravation involved because of another dealerships mods. And of course the cost for each mod is done through a dealership is close to double what you could pay by doing same work yourself or by other qualified specialy vendors. Its something everyone has to choose for themself as to what gambles they may be willing to take vs what they can afford to pay or the aggravation level they are willing to go through to get repairs done (going to court knowing you are in the right, etc).

 

Bilco:

Those are excellent questions. Yes, the dealer does get paid to do warranty work. But, the dealer will try to charge you much more for doing the work outside of the warranty than it will get reimbursed for doing the work under the warranty.

To give you a good example, I actually represented someone in a dispute with a dealer over repairing a faulty transmission. The folks at the dealer were your typical scum that lied and told this poor woman that her transmission work was not covered under her warranty (which, by the way, they had charged her an extra $2K for when she bought the car). They were going to charge her $1,600 to do the work. After I got involved and sent them some nasty grams, they changed their tune and did the work under the warranty. But somebody at the dealer messed up and they accidently showed me the paper work they were going to submit to the manufacturer to get reimbursed. It was only about $900.

This is just one example. I have lost count of how many times I have helped friends, family members, and clients with warranty issues with dealers. The bottom line is that there are some very good dealers and if you find one, you should try to stick with them. But, based on my somewhat tainted experience, most will try to use any excuse that you can imagine (and some that you cannot) to try to screw you so they can get more money out of you. Plain and simple.

 

A dealer gets paid X amount for do the work under the extended service contract. Weather it is under the 3/36 or other extended contract. It is a set amount and usually less then the Jober rate they would charge if you walked off the street and paying for the repair out of pocket.

Eric