Dealerships & Mods?
 

Has anyone had any issues with taking their lightly modded(Intake, Catback, Lowering Springs) cars in for service.
*I have an Injen Intake, Eibach springs(sportline), N1 Catback.*

What dealerships are 'Mod friendly' or 'Void Happy'? IYO

- I'd just really like to hear what service department workers on here have to say.

- Anyone who is modded and their experience taking their 86 in for service.

** Subaru dealers too **

My dealership is very mod friendly. Intake and catback you should be fine. I'm boosted full exhaust full suspension and they still did warranty work last month.

I have a Phantom ESC, Open Flash Header, Manzo Cat Back, lowering springs, and OFT tune and don't even try to hide anything from the Dealer.


I've had service done 3 times including a new transmission under warranty and no one has ever given me a problem. The service manager even told me he thinks the ESC is really cool.


I think that the FR-S is rare enough, at least at my dealership, that most of the techs don't even know what it's supposed to look like under the hood.

Mine doesn't care either. They actually said up front that as long as I don't go all balls out FI or anything super radical they will not pay much attention to what I do.
What a lot of people don't seem to get is that dealerships can actually make money on warranty repairs as they are paid by manufacturer.
I think a lot of how the dealership responds to concerns is directly related to how you approach them. You see a lot of horror stories on here but many of the people posting about them have a chip on their shoulder so big you can see it from here. If I was a service manager and somebody came in spouting off or straight out whining like they do on here I would kick them to the curb in a hurry. Mind you I would probably be looking for work pretty quickly if I did.
Of course even service reps and managers are still people and that means a percentage of them are just pricks by nature so hard to predict how they will respond.

Good question OP. It ultimately depends on your dealership. I've had some issues in the past with my dealership and mods but my issues were with warranty claims. But overall, dealerships probably wont' have an issue with service.

All in all, with your light mods there should be no problem with your dealership and getting service done; especially it you are still under the free oil changes and maintenance. What issues you could run into is if the dealership needs to do warranty work and your modified parts are connected to the warranty issues. Meaning, the dealership doesn't want to be liable for damages that could occur on removing your intake if there is engine work. It's because it's not an OEM part and corporate won't pay the dealership to replace it if something happens. Plus, the dealership will probably play the card "better safe than sorry."

Hope this helps

Check this thread, some dealer service put a sticker on for changes to vehicle

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1902684

No
The sticker you're referring to is to state that the load capacity has been reduced. I have one on my car and you probably do too. I think that after the car was released they discovered that the load capacity was less than originally predicted. My sticker says the load has been reduced by 3 Kgs.

In a nutshell:

- Your warranty will always be there, it won't be void.
- You need to build a relationship with a dealer service department and not assume that dealers are mod friendly or mod unfriendly.
- Warranty work is free money for the dealer, if done properly. That is a plus for you.
- Regular service work... I hope you are rich.

-alex

I would recommend to find a dealership who has Advisors and/or Techs who also have an 86 (like mine, for example) because they are more likely to know what they're looking at, more likely to overlook some "grey area" mods and more likely to treat your car as it's their own.

If they have one I am not sure I would want them to treat it "as their own"! Some of the people on here are pretty scary with their driving stories.

My dealership DID the mods on mine. As previously mentioned, try to establish a relationship with the guys in the service department. You never know what will come of it. As is turns out there are sure enough a couple of car junkies at my local dealership and they don't see many cars like ours, and they like my ride. I have had to push them a bit to get proper pricing, but not to aggressive. FWIW, I will show them DIY articles from this site to haggle on labor charges and they are good to go with any warranty issues.

Google "moss magnuson act".