Performance Chips void Warranty

[RyanZ71]

Was listening to a radio consumer advocate show the other day (Tom Martino aka "The Troubleshooter" for those of you familure with him) and he had a caller who called in about problems with his brand new Ford F-350 Power Stroke Diesel, apprently he chipped the truck and with less then 10,000 miles the truck developed a knocking problem and the dealership refused to replace the engine or do any work stating that he had voided the warranty by installing a performance chip, it does make sense to me that the dealers will refuse to honor it if you alter the truck like that, just want to give you all a heads up who are thinking about changing your truck which may still be covered by it. And apparently the performance chip company had a warranty of their own and refused to honor it as well.

[gave20]

Many on this board will say, which is true, the manufacturer must show the product caused a problem to void a warranty, but technically if you alter your vehicle with products not approved by the manufacturer during the warranty period you are taking your chances. Is it really fair for the manufacturer to pay for a part or replacement work for damage you as the owner caused willingly? My thing is if you as the owner are so confident that your aftermarket product did not void your warranty tell the dealer upfront and see what they say.

[Chris97K1500]

The idiot should have taken the chip out before taking it in for work. Same thing if you have larger tires than stock and your tranny starts to act up, change back to the stockers before taking it in. Chris

[piratebaseball]

installing the aftermarket chip or programmer can leave a trace in the computer system. For example, one guy with a duramax had a hypertech programmer on it and took it off before taking it into the dealership for some engine work. The trace showed up in the computer and the dealership voided the warranty. Hope this helps!

Landon

[DSZ71]

That CAN NOT and WILL NOT happen with a custom tuned PCM like WestersGarage PCM tune.

[bigdogs]

What if GM starts putting a halogram label on the EPROM and if a vehicle comes in w/o one or with it damaged (i.e. peeled off and reapplied) they void warranty

[woyster_00z71]

For those of us LONG out of warranty this isn't a problem.

 

I just turned 80,000 miles at lunch on my 2001 Tahoe.

[black&grayHD]

'03 Powerstroke, he should have seen it coming

 

A friend of mine had his Mustang's 4.6L sling a rod at 32,000 miles, and the dealership refused to honor the warranty saying it had ingested water and hydrolocked, which was

[piratebaseball]

That CAN NOT and WILL NOT happen with a custom tuned PCM like WestersGarage PCM tune.

If you send them your core computer after they send you another one, I do not see how that the dealership would not notice that you had an aftermarket pcm.

For those saying just keep the core, I have an '03 silverado...which means the cost of my pcm would be 805 dollars and that is with the group purchase going on right now.

[Machine]

It seems that the GM trucks leave little evidence regarding chips and modules once you remove them. I know this because I have had my modified Dmax in for some service recently, and the tech had no clue of me running any aftermarket product(s). In addition, you will be hard pressed to come across any posts on the various GM diesel sites that claim voided warranties on the Dmax because of the Edge, Quad, Diablow, etc. – once they are removed. A lot of idiots are forgetting to remove their mods and then resetting the truck back to stock before going in for service.

 

Ford, however, does leave a history behind. I’m about to own a new F-350 Power Stroke so I’ve done a whole bunch of research regarding this– it looks like I may have to proceed with caution before actually installing any high performance mod. Several stories out there regarding voided warranties for the new 6.0 PS…d**n it

[gnutruk]

GM's warranty terms have got the warranty bent entirely in their favor. They can seize on any number of reasons to deny coverage. This doesn't mean they will deny warranty work on flimsy excuses, but they can choose to look hard at after-market modifications that could logically affect truck performance if they want.

 

GM's strictness waxes and wanes. Every so often they send the word out to the dealers service departments to get tough on certain things. It appears that GM (and all the other manufacturers) has a system in place to keep an eye on the sorts of after-market products and modification fads that might effect their bottom line. This is not to say that they test each and every product: there is no evidence that they do that. However, they seem to have a general sense of what consumers are doing to the vehicles after they leave the sales lot. This is shown by the fact the GM engineers occasionally use, or experiment, with some of the after-market products -- such as tuning chips and programming devices -- in their testing labs.

 

Having said that, the warranty coverage system does allow for a certain amount of latitude at the point of the dealers service bay. This is obviously necessary, in that the nationwide dealer network is just too big for GM to monitor very closely. However, with the modern inter-connect between the computer terminals in the dealers service department and GM's central servers, considerably more information concerning any particular vehicle is being evaluated remotely. Even if this is not yet happening at the time of service, in "real time," still the information analysis is being done after the fact to a greater and greater extent. This is one of the ways in which GM is continually refining its warranty service program.

 

GM and the other manufacturers are worried about certain political trends that are developing in Washington DC. These trends derive fundamentally from the rapidly growing, worldwide energy crisis. Because modern vehicles are still highly modifiable, some politicians and groups are upset that both air pollution and fuel economy specifications can still be easily circumvented. There is political pressure developing to make the vehicles more difficult to modify -- MUCH more difficult. A primary means to bring that about is by building in more and more computer-monitored functions, and then to design things so that the specific function cannot be altered without severely affecting performance, or even blocking performance altogether (i.e.; killing the car). One of the primary means GM and the other manufacturers have to enforce a tightened up program is to correspondingly tighten up the strictness of their interpretations of what might constitute grounds for denying warranty work. Seen from GM’s standpoint, using warranty coverage as a means of enforcement is vastly preferable to having Washington dictate even more design criteria. GM, F-rd, Chrysler, et al, view Washington as already having too much say in the specific design parameters of the vehicles they produce, so they are starting to go to Congress and tout their after-market “command and control” programs -- put into effect through their warranty system -- as evidence that they are tightening up on “deleterious” modifications (e.g.; anything that boosts power). Thus they hope to convince the politicians and bureaucrats that further legislation isn’t necessary.

 

gnutruk

[BIGASSTRUCK]

The real solution, is to get GM to offer these programming options at the time of purchase.

 

GM makes more money, consumers are protected, and we get better mileage, HP, torque.

 

Besides, who do these aftermarket tweekers think they are, that they know more than some guy in a suit & tie who drives a company Caddy to work?

 

They've never pulled a trailer, climbed over some rocks, or jumped an island to escape from the police!

[pwall]

I had my truck in the dealership a couple of weeks ago to get all the fluids changed. I didn't have time to put the 'factory' pcm back in. I mentioned to the service provider that under no circumstances are they to reflash the PCM (they shouldn't have to since they're just changing the fluids...but you never know).

Anyways, the service guy asked me why? I told him I liked the way the transmission is shifting now and I don't want to have to put up with it being reset. The service guy looked at me and said 'performance tune ??', chuckled and then went on to tell me all the mods on his truck.

 

Even then, I agree...if GM could point the blame to an aftermarket add-on, you know they will. Any manufature would.

[DanMan_S]

Was listening to a radio consumer advocate show the other day (Tom Martino aka "The Troubleshooter" for those of you familure with him) and he had a caller who called in about problems with his brand new Ford F-350 Power Stroke Diesel, apprently he chipped the truck and with less then 10,000 miles the truck developed a knocking problem and the dealership refused to replace the engine or do any work stating that he had voided the warranty by installing a performance chip, it does make sense to me that the dealers will refuse to honor it if you alter the truck like that, just want to give you all a heads up who are thinking about changing your truck which may still be covered by it. And apparently the performance chip company had a warranty of their own and refused to honor it as well.

 

 

Knowing Ford, they were going to void his warranty anyhow and just blame it on the chip. My uncle has a F-350 6.0 powerstroke, completely stock and the turbocharger seized up. Ford refused fixing it under warranty and blamed it on a incorrect air filter.

[ebc]

Was listening to a radio consumer advocate show the other day (Tom Martino aka "The Troubleshooter" for those of you familure with him) and he had a caller who called in about problems with his brand new Ford F-350 Power Stroke Diesel, apprently he chipped the truck and with less then 10,000 miles the truck developed a knocking problem and the dealership refused to replace the engine or do any work stating that he had voided the warranty by installing a performance chip, it does make sense to me that the dealers will refuse to honor it if you alter the truck like that, just want to give you all a heads up who are thinking about changing your truck which may still be covered by it. And apparently the performance chip company had a warranty of their own and refused to honor it as well.

 

 

Knowing Ford, they were going to void his warranty anyhow and just blame it on the chip. My uncle has a F-350 6.0 powerstroke, completely stock and the turbocharger seized up. Ford refused fixing it under warranty and blamed it on a incorrect air filter.

 

Yes, Ford is really stern about modding the 6 liter. They have had so many warranty claims, they will balk at almost any hint of a modification.

ec