Does Putting Aftermarket Parts Void Warranty?

[mav1178]

Short answer: no.

Long answer: depends on the part but you will never lose warranty. You may lose ability to make a warranty claim.

It's important to not look at this in terms of loss of warranty, but rather to view it as "if I make this modification, will it affect my warranty coverage on the rest of the car?"

If you swap out an exhaust, and your ECU starts smoking, that is not related.
If you swap out the battery and the fuse box starts smoking, that is related.

Understand your rights and understand what a warranty is, as its most basic level.

-alex

[campy]

You should find a local facebook group and ask which dealerships are mod-friendly. Like others have said, some dealerships won't care, others will void your car.

You could also call dealerships and ask them if they are willing to work on your modified car.

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

To add to this read the attached. They are very clear on the subject.


http://subaru-com-au-3.s3.amazonaws....e_jan_2014.pdf

That pamphlet is for Australia. Australian laws can be considerably different from the US, so I wouldn't use that as a reference for a guy in Florida.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

That pamphlet is for Australia. Australian laws can be considerably different from the US, so I wouldn't use that as a reference for a guy in Florida.

Ooooops. Clicked on wrong one.


So, for you Aussie members....

[guybo]

Read the piece of paper called the Magnussen-Moss Warranty Act. It's common sense- if your mods broke it, you pay for it. If it's covered by warranty and you or your mods didn't break it, it's covered by warranty even if you have modified your car.

There is no one warranty. Your car is a rolling bucket of different warranties.

But the thing to bear in mind is that this is enforced by humans and some of them are scum. A piece of paper congress calls a Law that was passed 40 years ago says that your header-back exhaust won't affect your warranty on the broken A/C you're dealing with but the guy at the dealership says that the excess vibration from a loud exhaust caused the compressor-widget to break so there's no warranty on the $2000 A/C system. Related? Of course not. Bullshit? Of course. But there's no warranty on performance and once you start modding get ready to deal with this sort of crap.

To enforce the law written on that $0.02 piece of paper, YOU have to hire a lawyer and PROVE the scum at the dealership is wrong.

[MrFisty]

Totalled, inb4 partout.

[Packofcrows]

Not necessarily but if something goes wrong you'll have the burden of proof to prove the aftermarket item did not cause the issue.

[Silver Cervy]

Going off what everyone else has already said, never, EVER, tune your vehicle under warranty. The ECU is responsible for so many things on the car that it's easy for the dealership to say that a tune is responsible for any engine, exhaust, intake, and electrical issue.

Some dealerships will view tampering with the ECU at all as a warranty void. I've heard of multiple ways that they can check to see if a tune has been flashed, even if the owner flashed the stock setup back on the car. The most plausible method I've heard of is that they can see a log of all the times the ignition has been activated, so if you've had the car for over a year or so and it only has 2 ignition starts logged then they pretty much know the ECU was flashed.