d.medic

Are you kidding me? Is this the first thread you have read started by the OP? All he ever talks about it the cons! Go to the FI forum, you will find none of use complaining about our cars breaking or GM not covering it. Most of us just say that's the price you pay to have a car faster then almost all stock cars. I've never seen someone that has so much time to complain about something that has nothing to do with them. You have made it clear that you will never mod and that's fine. Why do you spend most of your time telling others how bad it is? Get a hobby, go for a walk, get a dog.

vettedoogie

What I think is very important is that CF newbies realize there are many sides to the modding story. A lot of folks here push modding, including the vendors. A lot of people who have modded their Vettes have had problems, especially with performance-enhancing mods.

Hearing all of the stories related to modding is an invaluable part of the service that CF offers. Hearing from people who have had success as well as the people who have had problems gives Vette owners the real scoop that they couldn't find elsewhere. This helps all of us make more informed judgements when we ponder mods we may want to do.

I totally respect anyone who wants to mod their cars. I love seeing a lot of the modded cars, whether I like the mods or not. I choose not to mod my Corvette because I really appreciate it as a stock C6 convertible and other factors.

Zip Corvettes

I agree to a point. It is always buyer beware on modified parts, but that really goes with anything not just car parts. example if you get Callaway to quote you on one of their cars and you deciede it is too expensive so Joe's cool cars say's that he can build you the same car for half the price. Well he does and it blows up. For one GM should have nothing to do with it because it is not as they supplied it to you. Is it the customers fault or the shop's fault? It is both, because at the end of the day the customer is the one who decided to go with and unknown and it was his ulitimate decision, however the shop should back their work. Had Callaway done the job and something happened to the car, well they have a warranty.
We could talk all day about this, but the flipside of this coin is GM is taking it too far on some things, and I say GM but really it is the individual dealership. They get paid more money if you pay the bill then if GM does as in a warranty case. However GM will warranty their work, so even if you have mods on the car and say a wheel sensor or ABS goes bad, they will warranty it. Say you break a rocker arm and it destroys the engine but you have headers and and CAI on it, they will still warranty because those parts did not cause the issue.
So what if you tuned the car, then all bets are off. The reason is because of torque management, allot of beginner tuners max this out, well the entire driveling is effected by this change and you can break something, or even worse you can make a change in the calibration of the ECM that is not good and blow the engine. That is not GM's fault and they should not be responsible for it.
So the old saying of buyer beware holds true to the Corvette hobby as well, do your homework on what you buy and who is working on your car.

Wayne O

The guy already shot his warranty IMO. Then he de-modded his car in an attempt to defraud GM into performing warranty repairs on a previously performance modified car. He "changed his mind"...a "wise move" if that's what you want to call it...I call it theft!

Many people have problems resulting from performance modifications but don't make it sound like its a foregone conclusion...not everyone has problems. There are many reasons (or combinations of reasons) why people have problems with performance mods but suffice it to say you can have a highly modified, reliable and trouble-free car.


Besides the satisfaction derived from modding your car there's just no comparison between driving a stock Corvette vs. a highly modified Corvette. It's the enjoyment...the fun factor. I enjoyed driving my stock C6 but I can honestly say I enjoy driving my modified C6 about a thousand times more. I understand the realities of cost, reliability and warranty concerns but these considerations aside I think most of the 'anti-mod' crowd would secretly love to drive a modified Corvette. I know modding isn't for everyone and that's OK. You're right...if you're afraid of losing your factory warranty don't performance modify your car. If you do, don't expect GM to make a warranty repair on anything even remotely related to the modifications. Rightly so, a performance modified Corvette is not the car GM engineered, built and warranted...you altered it. You must be willing to accept the financial consequences for your actions.

It's worth noting certain companies (Lingenfelter for one) provide great warranty coverage on many of their performance packages...a testament to the quality and reliability of their products.

Zip Corvettes

I forgot to mention that, there are plenty of cars that are modded that have zero issues, and there are many stock cars that have lot's of issues.
In the new Auto Enthusiast magazine there is a article called Home Run.
That is a 07 ZO6 we did all the engine modifications to, it already has 30k on the engine and it makes 704hp. So yes when it is done right you can have your cake and eat it to. That car is way more fun to drive then a stock ZO6 or even a stock ZR1.
Justin

30YR W8T

Sorry, but I completely disagree with you. First as an example, when you go in and make changes to a designed application and those changes alter or push original design limits you are creating a risk that is equal to the changes or alterations you made. The problems arise in modding when people just focus on making a change / mod to gain performance, HP, etc. but don't do anything to balance the effect of the change on other components that "will" be impacted by the change. When this is done, risk and potentially high risk is created.

Having a failure of any type either catastrophic or minor is a mute point, however, if the failure occurred there is a reason that happened and you may be only seeing a piece of a potentially larger problem down the road. In these instances IMO, the first signs of trouble is more or less telling you something is not right and you may want to dig a little deeper to make sure nothing else is wrong. Problems also happen when nothing has been changed or altered (factory specs), but that is the nature of anything that is mass produced. On the flip side, altering or modding only increases "the risk" of encouraging a border line component to fail, but if you modded the car you get to eat that one not the manufacturer because of the changes you made. The price to play has not changed.

So, trying to make people believe (especially new or first time owners) that it is okay to mod because there is "no risk" involved or the issue will usually be very minor is not a fair or correct statement. To many who know about potential risk, nothing changes and they mod because they understand who is responsible for any failure. I have respect for those folks and understand their love of the hobby. They do what they do in the name of competition and completely understand the hobby ain't cheap. However, the last thing new to the game owners need is more information that is not completely up front, they probably received enough of that from the salesman and the dealership.....

GrandSportin

BTW tuning your Vette does not always void the warranty. It's all in who you know!

Bryan

FloydSummerOf68

I guess you chose to overlook that I said "well built" when referring to modding cars

Anyone who mods out of balance doesn't know what they're doing.

Really? My point was that typical warranty work that is done is almost always minor work and if you are void of your warranty for whatever reason then it's likely the problem is relatively inexpensive to fix. It is very rare that anything serious is needed to be covered under warranty work.

I'm fairly certain I never said that it was a "no risk" scenario.

30YR W8T

You make some great points and did a nice job of discussing the Pro's and Con's in equal giving good examples of both. However, Keep in mind that it is in the dealerships best interest to cover as much warranty work as they can because they get reimbursed from the manufacturer, GM in this case. Dealerships make their bread and butter from service work, not so much from selling cars and need this work to pay the bills when car sales are slow or dead. I agree that for some of the dealerships, getting the customer to pay for the repair and then sending in warranty paperwork to get reimbursed from GM has probably happened. To me this is no less than robbing someone at gun point and the dealers that have done this should be tried in the same manner and sent to prison. What goes around will come around in the long run and all they are doing is hurting themselves and the manufacturer. The statement "buyer beware" is absolutely the truth and I would add "buyer educate yourself" to understand what should be warranty work and what will not be. With this knowledge you will be much better prepared in the event work is needed and greatly reduce the potential situation of being bent over.

sprtplt

You can only assume your warranty will be voided with a tune.

30YR W8T

Really?
"don't try and make people believe that modding is a high-risk venture, because it isn't."

FloydSummerOf68

Yes, really.

Modding is not a high risk venture...and that's what I said. I didn't say it was no-risk.

I personally have never known anyone who has modded their car and had an issue with it, and I know dozens of people who mod and race their cars regularly including blown cars and nitrous fed cars (including my own). The great majority of the board members mod their cars and never have an issue. I'd call that low risk.

It is the minority that experiences mod-related failure or any failure at all.

I wouldn't call engine and transmission replacement normal or no one would be driving these cars

How often, exactly do people drop valves and bust springs?

Axle shafts are an easy replacement, and even that is not common until you start doing very aggressive drag racing.

digbyamb

Ibtl

FloydSummerOf68

Rule292

More troll posting from the OP.

When is enough enough?

d.medic

Never Say Never

redzone

Please expand....because if you have a catastrophic failure,it won't be up to Bubba the service writer at the dealership if it's covered by warranty. Any catastrophic failure is up to the zone rep to decide. And the first thing they ask for nowadays is a snapshot of the tune.

warren s

Can anyone post exactly how GM knows that a car that was tuned and then had the ECM reflashed back to stock, knows that it was tuned previously?

Exactly what and where is the indication of a previous write?

FloydSummerOf68

So do we know for sure that GM can detect a tune if you put it back to factory stock? It is VERY easy to do this with HPtuners or any other tuning program. Only a fool would just roll into GM with their car tuned expecting to get any degree of warranty work if the first thing they check for is a tune.

As you said, I thought they just take a snapshot of the fields and run a comparison.

I'm not saying you should try and screw GM, but just wondering how they check for a tune. It's easy enough to go back to stock in less than 2-3 minutes if you're bringing it in for something unrelated.

Edit - Ha...you beat me by just a minute Warren