Warranty info everyone should know by heart!!!

[san ling]

Ok, I am a noob here. go ahead and get any bashing outta your system... done? ok... I am a Senior Member of www.3si.org (same screen name; do a search if u must) and I see a trend here that I saw there awhile back.... Warranty confusion.

"don't get such and such part cuz it will void your warranty". WRONG!!!

true, some parts do indeed void warranties, however, the VAST majority of them do not. further, merely using the part (i.e. an MHI 18G Turbo) CANT void the warranty, it must be PROVEN that that part led to whatever failure your having.

Now, that said, one thing I personally hate is when some know-it-all comes in spouting out information and doesn't have proof so:
http://www.sema.org/content/?id=8124

this is all outta the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act. If you do a search in yahoo (or whatever engine u like) you will get TONS of info on this (to include the entire act from the FTC website).

Hope this helps!!

[strangelove]

Thanks for the info san ling.[?]

[san ling]

VERY happy to help! Not much I hate worse than fellow enthusiasts getting ripped off by crooked/uninformed dealerships.

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[Kirby]

The law is on our side, it's just that DC has put so much responsibility and power into the dealerships that interpretation varies wildly from dealership to dealership. In this case it sometimes turns into "prove that it didn't cause the problem, as opposed to prove that it did".

[Cal Cruzer]

Yeah, what Kirby said. Dealership service dept are a profit center for which the service manager answers to the GM or owner of the dealership. Service depts are so busy it is more profitable to find a way to turn away warranty work and do a full retail job. The "your modification caused the problem" has been a familiar refrain in service departments for as long as I can remember, even if it is totally unrelated. Then it is up to the consumer to persue it. Just try to get to even a district rep though, Next to impossible. Your only recourse it then small claims and the dealership knows that a good percentage of the complaining customers will never take it that far because then they need other professional opinions contradicting what the dealership said. It is just really stacked against us.

[san ling]

I totally understand all that... I get a lot of parts thru DC (my car is basically a stealth) but when u actually QUOTE the law and reference it by name and statute, well, most dealerships crap their pants. This saved me (no lie here) ten thousand dollars from Cutter Mitsubishi in Waikiki Hawaii. I quoted MMWIA and state law and they gave me my car at 1/3 the PARTS price, NO labor charges, and my car was completely out of warranty. this is powerful legislation and knowing it can really help.

san ling