Quote:
Originally Posted by Poochie
Let me ask you a question; when the dealer finds your illegal downpipe and rightfully tells you go kick rocks and you scream "Magnuson Moss!" Which then they ask you leave the premises..
What's the next move?
The dealer can do whatever they want, sure you can litigate but prepare to spend triple the cost towards useless lawyers.. I'm sure when the judge hears you tampered with a federally mandated emission control device, that will win you a lot of points.
I'm not a tree-hugger and I couldn't care less about the rules but facts is facts, take your vehicle in with an aftermarket downpipe installed and they will outright refuse to cover anything remotely related, under the manufacture warranty.
The chart below applies only in some US states but it shows the turbocharger falls under the extended emission coverage:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Poochie
Let me ask you a question; when the dealer finds your illegal downpipe and rightfully tells you go kick rocks and you scream "Magnuson Moss!" Which then they ask you leave the premises..
What's the next move?
The dealer can do whatever they want, sure you can litigate but prepare to spend triple the cost towards useless lawyers.. I'm sure when the judge hears you tampered with a federally mandated emission control device, that will win you a lot of points.
I'm not a tree-hugger and I couldn't care less about the rules but facts is facts, take your vehicle in with an aftermarket downpipe installed and they will outright refuse to cover anything remotely related, under the manufacture warranty.
The chart below applies only in some US states but it shows the turbocharger falls under the extended emission coverage:
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Ok first off let's get this straight, I 100% agree with you that if someone were to modify their car they should be ready to pay out of pocket for any damages that were to occur due to said modifications. I myself make sure once I modify my cars I take full responsibility for any issues. But I do not agree with the notion that as soon as you modify the car the dealership has every right to deny warranty on everything, for example a catback exhaust which has nothing to do with power increase just noise increase and a dealership declining any drivetrain warranty if not caused by the exaust. Ex 1 an invalid decline of warranty: you have a catback exhaust without any defects (valves aren't broken restricting exhaust flow) and you have a transmission issue and the dealer says "you have an exhaust, no warranty for you". Ex 2 a valid decline of warranty: your catback exhaust has internal baffles or valves that were stuck shut blocking exhaust flow and your engine blows up, no warranty there. But even in this case they can't deny your transmission warranty since there is no relation to the exhaust being blocked. Overall for a downpipe by iteself no tune drive train warranty can not be denied unless it was caused by the downpipe (legalities aside), most of the time downpipes are acompanied by a power adding tune and this is where drive train warranties are denied and rightfully so, but they can't deny warranty for electrical faults not related to said tune and downpipe.
So back to your points, if you asked me what my next move would be, it clearly be legal matters, or depending on how your law works filing a complaint with consumer reports,
if the issue wasn't caused by the downpipe, or move to a different dealership. If it was caused by the downpipe then suck it up and pay for it yourself. Legal fees depend on if you're going to use a specialty lawyer or not, or if you file a direct complaint for investigation. Like I said if you're willing to modify the vehicle you have to be willing to accept any risk going forward, but I'm not willing to be pushed around by imbeciles without any car knowledge who are too lazy to honor a warranty claim and blame everything on aftermarket parts.
In regards to legality of said modification that varies from location to location, and use of said modifications (off road, private roads etc). For me I do believe in protecting the environment which is why all my road cars (including my m2) have factory catalytic downpipes in them and are not modified in anyway shape or form. But for my track cars they are all heavily modified, and that is slated to happen for my m2 soon (after the warranty is done since all my mods will void the warranty, and I want to test the car stock for any factory defects before I end up paying out of pocket. I did not wait with my e46 m3 and that's when I payed for all of it's defects rod bearings, subframe, throttle body, vanos all withing the warranty period because as I said I will take responsibility (as should all enthusiasts who mod imo) for any issues that may arise due to my own modifications).
I don't know which dealerships you go to but my area is subaru heavy (engines blow all the time due to weak ring lands and poor factory tunes), the dealers see modded subarus come in all the time and still will replace the engines free of charge under warranty as long as the modifications don't influence the engine failure. Samething happened with E92 m3's and rod bearing failures, individuals with catback exhausts were still able to seek warranties, or stage 1 tuned cars with differential issues. Literally dealerships here sell supercharged frs's and even explain if an issue were to arise and it was related to the supercharger no warranty will be given, but if it wasn't due to the supercharger then it would be fine, in this case most of the power train would be voided since it is a power upgrade but they can't deny all of the vehicle's warranty.
I didn't know the turbo was warrantied in the US, but that may not be true for every country. Overall the emissions warranty would be irrelevant if you were going to get an after market downpipe anyways like I said before.