Quote:
Originally Posted by gainman
There is no such thing as a "voided warranty". They can't do that. However, they obviously do not have to cover any parts that you added, or any parts that you directly modified, or anything related that broke as a result of a mod. So if you upgrade suspension, they can deny you for a ball joint failure, but they can't deny your stereo not working.
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Actually, manufacturers can, and have, voided the entire warranty on cars - Mitsu did it with cars that they saw at the track, a salvage title will void the warranty as will odometer fraud or when a car is so heavily modded that nearly each system is affected by a mod.
But what we are talking about is a dealer denying warranty coverage for a failure that
they believe was caused by a mod or that the mod contributed to the failure.
Accordingly, with any mod, you need to ask yourself "what could the dealer blame on this mod?" and then be pleasantly surprised if those failures are covered by warranty.
On the VW forum years ago, we played "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon" connecting any mod to any failure. One of my favorites was aftermarket tire valve stem caps causing an ECU failure.
That said, unless you're an ass or have ridiculous demands, most dealers are reasonable and will cover legitimate failures - but you have to be mentally and fiscally prepared to pay for anything that your mod breaks (even remotely).