Will this void my warranty? (collection of merged threads on this topic)

[JohnInSoCal]

Ask your dealer if you are concerned about it, any tune or mod can potentially effect your drive train warranty, also plain old "abuse" can effect it as well. What is "abuse" ? Well whatever the dealer and or GM says is abuse. Talk to the service manager and let them know what you are planning and ask how they would deal with a warranty claim. Every claim will be handled on a case by case basis, but remember they are the "experts" and will be the deciding factor if your mod was the cause of the failure and whether or not it will be covered. You can quote the moss act to them until you are blue in the face but unless you are prepeared to sue them and take it all the way where will it get you ?

[Milk 1027]

Originally Posted by WongBob

If the dealer goes by the book... I was mostly correct. If you know someone... you are good, unless GM sends a rep to take a look. I was a tech for a long while so I do know some of the ins and outs with GM...

how long ago?

You realize things have changed alot, and GM is cracking down on onwers tunning their vehicles.

[WongBob]

Within the last two years. My wife was a service adviser for 7 years at Minden Country Chevrolet... the owner closed the doors last June. Two of my best friends are currently GM World Class technicians also.... in case you didn't know... that's as good as it gets. GM CAN, without a shadow of a doubt, track the amount of times an ECM has been flashed. As far as being able to tell if it has been swapped... well, that's news to me. I can believe it. I have seen first hand GM void warranties for small modifications such as a CAI, headers, handheld programmers, or a stall. Now, when given the choice we would let an intake and a tune slide unless the car had obviously been abused, but from time to time then GM would send the local rep to take a look... usually that didnt turn out good for the customer. Without a doubt GM is far more strict than they were when I was doing it, but knowing someone and being smart about your mods can go a long way. Im going to have to contact a few people on the ECM swap detection for a more solid answer. If they can detect it then I will be playing with my tune tonight.

[shad2009]

Originally Posted by RedJewel2SS

1. they cannot void the warranty unless the modification is the DIRECT cause of the problem.

2. the ECM does not track if you tune the car or not... just get a handheld to revert back to stock, or get it dyno tuned locally and see if they will reflash to stock for free for warranty work.

3. the only mods that have a chance of voiding the warranty if something fails is turbos and superchargers and definitely nitrous!

Originally Posted by JohnInSoCal

Ask your dealer if you are concerned about it, any tune or mod can potentially effect your drive train warranty, also plain old "abuse" can effect it as well. What is "abuse" ? Well whatever the dealer and or GM says is abuse. Talk to the service manager and let them know what you are planning and ask how they would deal with a warranty claim. Every claim will be handled on a case by case basis, but remember they are the "experts" and will be the deciding factor if your mod was the cause of the failure and whether or not it will be covered. You can quote the moss act to them until you are blue in the face but unless you are prepeared to sue them and take it all the way where will it get you ?

thanx guys

[Screaminz2002]

Originally Posted by WongBob

Within the last two years. My wife was a service adviser for 7 years at Minden Country Chevrolet... the owner closed the doors last June. Two of my best friends are currently GM World Class technicians also.... in case you didn't know... that's as good as it gets. GM CAN, without a shadow of a doubt, track the amount of times an ECM has been flashed. As far as being able to tell if it has been swapped... well, that's news to me. I can believe it. I have seen first hand GM void warranties for small modifications such as a CAI, headers, handheld programmers, or a stall. Now, when given the choice we would let an intake and a tune slide unless the car had obviously been abused, but from time to time then GM would send the local rep to take a look... usually that didnt turn out good for the customer. Without a doubt GM is far more strict than they were when I was doing it, but knowing someone and being smart about your mods can go a long way. Im going to have to contact a few people on the ECM swap detection for a more solid answer. If they can detect it then I will be playing with my tune tonight.

This was exactly what my dealership told me almost word for word. While the dealership doesn't care much, GM does, and anything you do outside GM performance parts can result in a denied warranty. Everything on the car is related in some sort of fashion making any mod done to the car traceable back to the bolt-on.

[Sean@Phastek]

Bolt-on's will not void your warranty. Superchargers (besides the magnacharger w/ warranty), turbos, nitrous, camshafts, and tunes will void your warranty.

Multiple, multiple sources have confirmed that GM can see how many times the 2010 Camaro's computer has been flashed, and void the entire powertrain warranty if they like. It is the fear of the unknown for the dealership.

All in all, it all comes down to the day you bring your car in for service. Sometimes they will try to deny anything they can for just a custom exhaust, and sometimes they won't say anything about the headers and 'possible' camshaft.

But in reality, what exactly is the powertrain warranty for anyways? This is a performance car that came from the factory with a "safe" tune. If you want to push the envelope, that's a chance you take

[St33lsinger]

So heres a question then,

if I buy a Camaro SS and Hennessey, SLP, ect. do mods to it. Who does the warrenty work? Mod shop or Dealership?

Does GM step all the way out or just on the power train?

[Russell James]

Originally Posted by Steelsinger

So heres a question then,

if I buy a Camaro SS and Hennessey, SLP, ect. do mods to it. Who does the warrenty work? Mod shop or Dealership?

Does GM step all the way out or just on the power train?

If the powertrain is modified, the OE powertrain warranty is toast. If your going to spend big bucks with a tuner like Hennessey, SLP... make sure to ask all your warranty questions to them and get it all in writing.

[St33lsinger]

Originally Posted by Russell James

If the powertrain is modified, the OE powertrain warranty is toast. If your going to spend big bucks with a tuner like Hennessey, SLP... make sure to ask all your warranty questions to them and get it all in writing.

So it will be through them then? Thanks!

[Russell James]

Originally Posted by RedJewel2SS

1. they cannot void the warranty unless the modification is the DIRECT cause of the problem.

2. the ECM does not track if you tune the car or not... just get a handheld to revert back to stock, or get it dyno tuned locally and see if they will reflash to stock for free for warranty work.

3. the only mods that have a chance of voiding the warranty if something fails is turbos and superchargers and definitely nitrous!

0 for 3.

[Russell James]

Originally Posted by Steelsinger

So it will be through them then? Thanks!

Whatever system they modify will no longer have a factory warranty. If they boost the power output, the powertrain warranty is done. But those tuner's provide their own warranty, so you should be OK. May just have to jump through a few more hoops to get things handled.

Stock, you've got thousands of dealers across the country that can handle any warranty problem. With a highly modified tuner car, wind up with a problem and some dealers won't touch it. But the good tuners will work with you to find one of their dealers that will handle any problems.

[SS Matt]

A few years back I had the 2003 Mustang Mach 1 and I replaced the shifter with a short shifter and at one point my tranny started having issues. Ford was initially trying to say my tranny wasn't under warranty because of the aftermarket shifter, which does absolutely nothing internally to the tranny. After the Ford rep came out to the dealership they ended up fixing it under warranty. Just goes to show you that they'll try to get the customer to pay for just about anything if you let them.

I pretty much blew up at the service manager at one point asking him why Ford would make a car that had 315 hp and expect people to drive / shift it like a grandma. He agreed that it was built to be a performance car and it's somewhat expected that people will drive it like one. Within reason of course. Good thing they didn't see me at the 1/8th on Friday nights with it!

[Milk 1027]

Originally Posted by WongBob

Within the last two years. My wife was a service adviser for 7 years at Minden Country Chevrolet... the owner closed the doors last June. Two of my best friends are currently GM World Class technicians also.... in case you didn't know... that's as good as it gets. GM CAN, without a shadow of a doubt, track the amount of times an ECM has been flashed. As far as being able to tell if it has been swapped... well, that's news to me. I can believe it. I have seen first hand GM void warranties for small modifications such as a CAI, headers, handheld programmers, or a stall. Now, when given the choice we would let an intake and a tune slide unless the car had obviously been abused, but from time to time then GM would send the local rep to take a look... usually that didnt turn out good for the customer. Without a doubt GM is far more strict than they were when I was doing it, but knowing someone and being smart about your mods can go a long way. Im going to have to contact a few people on the ECM swap detection for a more solid answer. If they can detect it then I will be playing with my tune tonight.

Lately they have been tracking the serial numbers in the ECM and keeping track of which one goes into which VIN in a car. That's how they are able to know if a ECM is swapped.

[thalilbear02]

I'm just going to copy this straight from one of my firsts posts:

Because of the Magnuson and Moss Warranty act of 1975, you can keep your warranty with aftermarket parts. The warranty act states that even if you put aftermarket parts on the car, as long as they do not do damage to any other existing warrantied part from the manufacturer, you will keep your warranty.

Lets say you do install a short shift kit though, and there seems to be a transmission problem down the road. The dealership CAN in fact say they can void a warranty, but it will not be on the whole car... They can specific which warranty they will void (aka just the transmission), because they have PROVED without a shadow of a doubt, that the short shift kit, or whatever it may be, caused the damage.

I hope that clears things up... Install headers, get a tune and a cat-back, and if the dealership even mentions voiding a warranty because you did this, you can tell them that even mentioning that what I did can void a warranty, because of the Magnuson and Moss warranty act, is illegal. Yes, that's true... I'll say it again, if the dealership says they are going to void your warranty (if nothing is wrong), it is ILLEGAL to say so.

I hope that helps