What Mods Do and Do Not Void the Warranty?

[SupraMK86]

Theoretically yes, but in practice they'll use any modification that's tangentially related to the failure as cause to deny the claim. Then it's up to you to lawyer up and fight them on it if you think otherwise.

Maybe if you have a retarded dealership that hates their customers.

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[Escapist]

It still amazes me how people are so concerned about the warranty on a platform that's made to be modified.

From what I gather similar to insurance companies, dealerships will do anything in their power to deny your warranty claim regardless, especially anything to do with the powertrain. Just enjoy your car and give it the mods it deserves.

 

[LoveToCamp]

Just buy a ‘21 if you don’t want to void your warranty. It’ll kill the itch because cuz the suckers can’t be tuned to get full power from the mods anyways lmao.

Inb4 “b-but they’ll CrAcK tHe EcU SoON.”

I work with a system cracking smart phone lock codes for evidentiary purposes. A 10 digit numbers only pin code takes 5+ years to crack if it has to go through every possible combination.

Imagine all these locked ECUs with a 16-32-64-128 bit key that has numbers, letters, special characters. Shit ain’t happening. Unless Bosch willingly gives away the decryption.

It’s why the oil pipeline guys paid the 4.4M ransom. The FBI wasn’t gonna crack shit anytime soon.

 

[Mcoimpact]

Here’s the problem; the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act is not some kind of magical talisman that restores your warranty when chanted in your dealer’s service department. If they are adamant that the modification caused the failure of the part you will have to hire an attorney to file suit against Toyota- if you win you can recover reasonable attorney fees, but expect to spend at least a year(likely much longer) before you receive a resolution. Having practiced law for 38 years-32 years as a judge-I can tell you that probably less than 5% of sitting judges possess any useful automotive knowledge. So that’s working again you. If you want to fight a denied warranty claim the odds are that you will be in litigation for the long haul.

 

[Thill444]

They have to prove that the modifications done directly caused the warranty claim.

Depending on the mod, no they really don't. For example, if your engine grenades and they find an aftermarket tune it's game over. Mag/Moss was not really created for people to take perfectly good working OEM parts on the car and replace them with parts with the intention of providing more performance.

I have seen people try to use the Mag/Moss argument for years on forums and the reality is that it is really going to be on the person who modified the vehicle to prove it did not cause the failure in court.

Pay to play.

 

[Thill444]

It still amazes me how people are so concerned about the warranty on a platform that's made to be modified.

From what I gather similar to insurance companies, dealerships will do anything in their power to deny your warranty claim regardless, especially anything to do with the powertrain. Just enjoy your car and give it the mods it deserves.

I don't know the cost of a full replacement B58 motor with labor, but I am guessing it's into the double digit thousands. I suspect many people have financed 80-100% of the car and may not have cash on hand to pay for a really expensive item that is no longer covered under warranty.

 

[Lendo]

Just buy a ‘21 if you don’t want to void your warranty. It’ll kill the itch because cuz the suckers can’t be tuned to get full power from the mods anyways lmao.

Inb4 “b-but they’ll CrAcK tHe EcU SoON.”

I work with a system cracking smart phone lock codes for evidentiary purposes. A 10 digit numbers only pin code takes 5+ years to crack if it has to go through every possible combination.

Imagine all these locked ECUs with a 16-32-64-128 bit key that has numbers, letters, special characters. Shit ain’t happening. Unless Bosch willingly gives away the decryption.

It’s why the oil pipeline guys paid the 4.4M ransom. The FBI wasn’t gonna crack shit anytime soon.

The ECU is cracked. Moreover, imagine believing the FBI are ever the good guys. I'd be livid if the FBI had access to my crypto wallet.

https://g20.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1834548

 

[zrk]

I suspect many people have financed 80-100% of the car

It makes me kinda sad to think that's the case. Do you really suspect it to be that much? I can't imagine financing a car, let alone 80% of it.

 

[Thill444]

It makes me kinda sad to think that's the case. Do you really suspect it to be that much? I can't imagine financing a car, let alone 80% of it.

Oh yeah, auto loan debt has skyrocked and continues to climb every year.

Edmunds found that the average American puts 11.7% down on their vehicles. If you think about it, in most states that barely covers your taxes, dealer fees, etc.

https://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/...dom has long held,loan down payment was 11.7%.

 

[H2O_Doc]

It makes me kinda sad to think that's the case. Do you really suspect it to be that much? I can't imagine financing a car, let alone 80% of it.

As low as finance rates are, many folks can make more leaving money in investments and taking the bank money to our for a car. It might be both logical and financially smart.

 

[Thill444]

As low as finance rates are, many folks can make more leaving money in investments and taking the bank money to our for a car. It might be both logical and financially smart.

I don't disagree, as long as you are fiscally responsible and are not just buying more stuff. I saw some friends get hit really hard in the mid 2000's when they took advantage of low interest rates. They took out big auto loans but they also borrowed against their home (low interest rates) and bought vacation homes, RV's, boats, 4 wheelers, etc.

Then we all know what happened. Not to digress too much, but I think we are seeing some pockets of a housing bubble again and some people could be sitting upside down very quickly.

Me personally, I have never been comfortable with $800-1200+ car payments on a single vehicle even though I can afford them. It's a mental thing.

A 3.0 Premium Supra with no down payment is going to be roughly $1K a month (not including, GAP, car insurance, etc). Let's say you have a second vehicle that you financed $40K for, that's another $700 a month. That's a lot of monthly income tied up in auto loans that you also cannot leverage to invest, etc.

 

[kanpen]

I think this answers it well. Yes your warranty is voided.

Pasted from the MP Thread: https://g20.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1834548

Now to the second most asked question: "What happens to my Warranty?"

We have went over the warranty aspect many times before, but lets give this one more shot and lay this subject to rest.

Any Modification to the vehicle, big or small, can void a part of your warranty. Be it muffler change, speaker upgrade or putting on an air ride. But order for the dealer to void your warranty, dealer has to prove that this specific modification is a direct reason your are experiencing the failure.

Example: Installation of aftermarket subs in the trunk can not be a reason for voided warranty of failed transmission. However, improperly installed amplifier/subs that cause extreme voltage spikes (think about giant subs pulling KWs of energy), can void your transmission warranty if dealer can prove that during trans failure, your voltage dropped below certain point.


Void Warranty Vs "Detectability"
There are quite a few manufactures of aftermarket tuning products claiming that their product is not detectable to a dealer. Yes, that can be very much so as dealer won't be able to tell you what product you had installed (unless of course you left the product in when you took the car to dealer) at the time of failure, but what the dealer WILL in all certainty be able to tell is the fact that your vehicle was performing above preset parameters at time of failure.

As of later 2019, BMW no longer checks your Engine or Transmission modules for checksums/CVNs and other fingerprints of modified files. What they do now is check your acceleration, boost, airmass, and 20+ other parameters. They read those values from few modules around the car, one of them is being ABS.
One of the most important parameters ABS records now is air mass flow and acceleration values. Each time the vehicle is plugged into the dealer tool (ISTA), all of these values are read out and compared against a database values for specific chassis. If these values pass the preset parameters (of course account for % of error), ISTA throws an internal error code "Suspected Engine Tuning" and flags your vehicle on internal database. Of course BMW will not use this as a reason to void your navigation, headlights or most body parts warranty claims, but rest assured that if your turbo fails, you will be presented with a fat bill and warranty be denied based on that flag along.

But what about piggyback boxes that claim undetectable????
Ask yourself this simple question: "By installing this box, did my vehicle become noticeably faster?"
If you answered "YES", then congratulations, your box works as advertised but you just passed acceleration threshold and now you are flagged.
If you answered "NO", then congratulations, your warranty is probably still intact, but you paid $$$ for a useless gizmo box.

Either way you turn it, remember that BMW is smart and has teams of engineers working on detecting any tuning or modifications. And no, a piggyback can not trick or block acceleration reading since ABS picks up that data directly from speed sensors in each wheel as well as uses GPS to eliminate false positives readings, such as dyno runs. If anything, unlike proper flash tuning, piggy back leaves minor evidence of being plugged into the wastegate/boost sensors. Those small traces/marks on physical sensor (and fact that now BMW is starting to mark these sensors with dab of paint) is usually enough for a dealer to know that the car was modified, way before they pull acceleration data.

Moral of the warranty story: Got to pay to play. The moment you made your vehicle accelerate faster, by any means, then it is supposed to, you get flagged. So in the end of the day, forget about warranty question and assume your warranty VOID. For a vehicle that is used like it is supposed to and does not get transported from dyno to dyno, your real question should not be who makes the most power, but instead "who did Toyota TRD choose to tune the first pre-production Supra and most importantly, Why."

 

[gcmak]

Pretty much what the title says. Does anyone KNOW what voids the manufacture’s warranty. I haven’t done much; wind deflectors, rock guards, planned ceramic coating etc. As I think of other things I may do, I want to steer clear of anything that would jeopardize the warranty coverage until they run out. Things such as air intake, exhaust, down pipe, do any or all of those cross the line? I’m really interested in the facts as opposed to conjecture. Any Toyota folks in the know that can chime in? Thanks for any response.

Dang, so you've jeopardized bits of your warranty already and are planning to do more! For example...wind deflectors stuck onto your mirrors right? Well if the plastics started to fail on the mirror or your entire mirror assembly had to be replaced, you might have to deal with a dealer not happy that a modification was made. I put a screen protector on a VW I had and they were happy to warranty the head unit for dead row of pixels but I had to remove the protector cause when they send the part back to HQ for reimbursement, the part has to be original.

Rock guards - the ZL1? If somehow those ended up chipping paint or storing dirt behind them and causing some issue like rust etc. you better make sure you remove all traces of those guards before trying to claim anything!

(I use guards and wind deflectors btw lol)

Then Ceramic Coating...if you ended up with some paint defect etc.and wanted to claim that...Toyota could look at it and say...hey what was done here? Looks like the paint was polished and there's this coating on top - whats up with that? We at toyota didn't do this for you...

As others have posted, Pay to Play and expect the worst. OEMs are in the business of selling cars and warranty work is focused on bone stock bits. It's not personal, it's business...and you can thank all the excessive warranty claims of the early 2000s for leaving very few dealers playing ball these days.

 

[suicidaleggroll]

I don't disagree, as long as you are fiscally responsible and are not just buying more stuff. I saw some friends get hit really hard in the mid 2000's when they took advantage of low interest rates. They took out big auto loans but they also borrowed against their home (low interest rates) and bought vacation homes, RV's, boats, 4 wheelers, etc.

Ok, but that's not investing it, that's just using it to buy more toys.

Bottom line is between spending $50k to buy a car outright, vs putting that $50k in investments making 5%+ while taking a $50k loan at 2% for the car, the latter is the better choice pretty much every time. 1) You spend less on the car in the end, and 2) you have more cash reserves available in the event of an emergency.

The monthly expense is really irrelevant, since you can just set the money that you would have used to buy the car in its own account and use that to make the payments for you, while generating more interest than you're paying on the loan. Nothing additional comes out of your monthly budget, and at the end of the loan you have thousands of dollars left over in the account that you can use for whatever.

 

[Escapist]

I don't know the cost of a full replacement B58 motor with labor, but I am guessing it's into the double digit thousands. I suspect many people have financed 80-100% of the car and may not have cash on hand to pay for a really expensive item that is no longer covered under warranty.

To be blunt, then buy a Corolla if you're that financially irresponsible.

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