Warranty claim with demo car
 

Hello all, I just recently bought a new 2022 Subaru BRZ from my local dealership. This car was a demo car that was only used for test drives and it had 550 miles when bought. The salesman told me that the factory warranty (3 years/36000 miles) would now by 2 years/35000 miles because of the new car being bought with 550 miles.

My questions is that with all the RTV scares going around, would subaru be able to warranty a broken engine on a demo car? Or would they find a way to void the engine warranty due to chance of improper break in before 1000 miles. I'm not sure how the car was driven during the demo period of 550 miles and I'm afraid that it wasn't properly broken in and this will give subaru a reason to deny the warranty for a broken engine.

TLDR: Will a chance of an improper break in before being purchased affect my factory powertrain warranty?

Thanks all!

To answer the TLDR; likely yes unless it’s in Subaru’s system that it was a demo car for 550 miles

The best person to ask would be Subaru of America, as they would have the most direct and accurate answer

As someone who test drive a brz before buying one, I can pretty much guarantee you that most of those 550 miles were hard driving by people who either wanted to order one or had one on order

Was the car sold as new or used?

If the car was sold as new, I don't see how they could alter the terms of Subaru's new car warranty. I've seen demo cars sold before, but they typically are sold as used after hitting a certain mileage, otherwise they are sold as a new car with a full warranty.

As @Desertnate says, it depends on how the car was sold. If the car was never previously registered, the mileage doesn't matter. The warranty begins at the date and mileage of sale. My FRS had 7 miles on it. My drive train warranty was 60,000 miles beyond that point (60,007 miles).

If the dealer registered the car, then it is a used car and the warranty would revert from zero miles for the purposes of symplicity.

None of this would impact what the warranty covers. I've personally had a car repainted by the dealer that I bought used with 10,000 miles on it but before the bumper to bumper ran out (the clearcoat spiderwebbed on it at about 25K miles).

Seems like the dealership is BS'ing you. Contact SoA directly. Factory warranty is transferable.

The chances of this occurring isn't zero.

If you cross paths with the wrong person/people, they could theoretically claim the vehicle was over-revved during break-in. The SOA warranty approval department or whatever it's called would probably be said folks.

These vehicles log a significant amount of information.

You should be getting 3 years from the date of purchase, as the vehicle was never titled, has very low miles, and is still considered new by Subaru and the state you live in.