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Why do people tune cars then try to hide it for warranty purposes?

2K views 11 replies 8 participants last post by  LINDW4LL 
#1 ·
I can't believe the number of people modding cars then trying to hide it when things blow up.

What ever happened to pay to play and owning up to it when things go wrong. We all love to tinker with things but I don't know how so many people damage things then play innocent. :whistle:

Sorry for the rant I just see it quite a bit and hear stories from techs on things that get warrantied that shouldn't or people throwing a fit when they get caught.
 
#2 ·
The bottom line is because they can get away with it in many cases

there will always be scam artists

There is also the flip side to the equation whereas owners feel that they are getting robbed by the stealers our there... so this in essence this is their way of "sticking it to the man".
 
#5 ·
I'm sorry i'm sorry, i was going to comment earlier, but i kept my mouth shut.. Chidoks said it best. But when was the last time the dealership was honest with you christopherG? Add one Chip and your whole warranty is voided? Sounds legit to me! Oil leaks coming from the turbo housing? Ohhhh the oil leak must have happened because you don't have record of an oil change! Seems legit right?! thats what they told my sister until i went down there. DPF delete on a truck? Ohhh thats why the turbo nut on the compressor shaft came off and then the engine ate the compressor wheel, plugged off an oil cooling sprayer and spun a bearing on the crank.. Cheap 12,000$ Repair to my buddies truck... Taking off mods before going to the dealership is one thing, complaining about it when you get caught is another.
 
#6 ·
That's what American muscle cars are for. Specifically CLASSIC muscle cars. You can get the same amount of pleasure, if not more, by modding a muscle car, destroying the engine and doing a swap for almost a fraction of what it would cost to build a good strong foreign engine. I've always kept my foreign cars completely stock and left the modding and bodywork up to my dad and his muscle cars.
 
#7 · (Edited)
I can't believe the number of people modding cars then trying to hide it when things blow up. What ever happened to pay to play and owning up to it when things go wrong.
I am all for the "Pay-to-Play" motto, but here's my view. I am going to speak to my experience with Audi because that's what I know.

If you tune your Audi and take it to the dealer, your car is automatically flagged in Audi Germany's system as "TD1". This does not technically void your powertrain warranty, but as standard practice they will generally deny any powertrain related claims that may arise in the future and make you fight it in court (of course almost no one will do this- Audi wins).

Now, of course the problem here is that the tune is not what caused the failure in 99.9% of cases. So Audi just uses it as an excuse to deny warranty claims. Of course, this is technically illegal due to the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act.

One example of this "TD1" code, is with the early B8 S4 models. There was a known issue (there was even a TSB released by Audi AG) where a seal in the DSG transmission would leak, causing the mechatronics unit to get soaked with gear oil. Of course, this led to failure of the electronics and the whole transmission needed to be opened/replaced. I believe it's a $6,000+ repair. Now, in many cases Audi denied the repair due to the TD1 code, all because of a simple ECU tune. Everyone knows it had nothing to do with the failure, but Audi can get away with denying it as most people won't take them to court.

Thus, isn't it worth it to flash back to stock before visiting the dealer? Of course it is.
 
#8 ·
Now, basically all of the Audi tunes available are reputable as it's not an open-source platform, so there is really no "blowing up" your engine from a bad/crazy tune.

Maybe with a newer WRX/STi or something that's possible. If you did something reckless and caused your engine to blow up and try to hide it, then that's a different story.
 
#10 ·
An conservative off the shelf tune from a reputable company is more than likely very safe. 25% or so safety margin on stock components is probably a reasonable assumption. An aggressive off the shelf tune or a custom flash from one of the major vendors is slightly more skecthy If you look there are software vendors that have programs that will allow full access to the scaling and other parameters.

Very few people are going to play with these parts of the programming but they are accessible and can do serous damage in the N54 engine family. Easy accessibility kills cars too people that run tunes not supported by their hardware tends to kill things quickly also.
 
#9 ·
My dealer has always been decent but I can understand people with just an intercooler and intake being upset with a claim not being honored on a blown turbo. On the other hand from a dealer perspective how many people with those mods don't also throw a tune on or something of the sort.

Guilt by association sucks but it is just how it works sometimes.

Magnuson Moss is tricky. Much of the aftermarket industry likes to use it for their argument, it gets very much into wording and technically states a warranty cannot be void when an equivalent part of equal quality is used and does not give the green light to modding.
 
#12 ·
Magnuson Moss is tricky. Much of the aftermarket industry likes to use it for their argument, it gets very much into wording and technically states a warranty cannot be void when an equivalent part of equal quality is used and does not give the green light to modding.
I was referring to the part of the Act where it states that manufacturers have to repair a vehicle problem UNLESS they can prove the problem was caused by an after-market part.

Obviously Audi (and I believe Porsche and BMW also) are frequently not diving in and investigating, but simply denying claims with no proof. In the large majority of cases, there can be no proof because the cause of the failure is not the aftermarket modification.
 
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