Filling your car’s seats could void your insurance

[Captain Snooze]

Note well: this is from an Australian website but it would not surprise me if it applied to UK, USA and Canadian markets.
I thought it interesting because it's not something I've ever considered.
Source


"If your car has seven seats, then it should be able to carry seven adults, right? Wrong. In fact, if you do this you might be voiding your warranty and invalidating your insurance without realising it......
......
If you are found to have driven a vehicle while exceeding its maximum permissible weight – gross vehicle mass, or GVM – the factory warranty will be voided. And, if something goes wrong, your insurance won’t cover you.
But surely a car with five seats has been engineered to carry five adults, right? Not always. For example, the Toyota Corolla – Australia's best-selling small car – would actually exceed its GVM legal limit if five adult males were to jump in."

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

But surely a car with five seats has been engineered to carry five adults, right? Not always. For example, the Toyota Corolla – Australia's best-selling small car – would actually exceed its GVM legal limit if five adult males were to jump in."

No different than aircraft. You can't fly a C-172 (a four seater) with 4 full size adults and full fuel in most cases.

Or a pickup. Just because the bed will hold 8 tons of lead, it doesn't mean your 1/2 ton pickup truck can haul it.

[NoHaveMSG]

Meh, I mean how many pickups towing travel trailers are exceeding GVWR? I have never heard of a warranty voided over it, I am sure if a manufacturer saw obvious evidence of abuse and wanted to deny warranty they could. My truck has a GVWR of 7k lbs and it weight's about 5400. With the tongue weight of the trailer, 30 gallons of E85, second set of tires, tools, spares, cooler, chairs, ect. I am probably over.

[Ohio Enthusiast]

Originally Posted by NoHaveMSG

I have never heard of a warranty voided over it, I am sure if a manufacturer saw obvious evidence of abuse and wanted to deny warranty they could.

I believe the discussion is on insurance coverage, not manufacturer warranty.

[NoHaveMSG]

Originally Posted by Ohio Enthusiast

I believe the discussion is on insurance coverage, not manufacturer warranty.

Ok, even talking strictly insurance not something I have heard of here. As large as the market is for truck parts that allow you to carry more weight then the truck was designed for you would think it is something that would come up

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by Ohio Enthusiast

I believe the discussion is on insurance coverage, not manufacturer warranty.

From the article:
"In addition, manufacturer warranties will not cover a car that is overloaded. For example, the Toyota warranty says you are not covered for “failures that Toyota reasonably considers result from your failure to operate, maintain and care for your Toyota properly, in accordance with the instructions in your vehicle’s Owner’s Manual”. "

[soundman98]

not your fault, but the beginning of the thread title leads me somewhere else entirely



don't fill your car seats people. it's messy to clean up.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by NoHaveMSG

Meh, I mean how many pickups towing travel trailers are exceeding GVWR? I have never heard of a warranty voided over it, I am sure if a manufacturer saw obvious evidence of abuse and wanted to deny warranty they could. My truck has a GVWR of 7k lbs and it weight's about 5400. With the tongue weight of the trailer, 30 gallons of E85, second set of tires, tools, spares, cooler, chairs, ect. I am probably over.

An easy 98% of the warranty claims we get for returned rotors are denied because the trucks were obviously over loaded and the customer claim statement starts with "well I was pulling my trailer and...". Or product engineer can tell if the vehicle was overloaded in about 10 seconds of looking at a return.
It happens 3 or 4 times a year. If we deny the warranty then you can bet that the servicing dealer does. Although some may still cover it as goodwill I suppose.

[NoHaveMSG]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

An easy 98% of the warranty claims we get for returned rotors are denied because the trucks were obviously over loaded and the customer claim statement starts with "well I was pulling my trailer and...". Or product engineer can tell if the vehicle was overloaded in about 10 seconds of looking at a return.
It happens 3 or 4 times a year. If we deny the warranty then you can bet that the servicing dealer does. Although some may still cover it as goodwill I suppose.

That would make sense. I could see not running a trailer with working brakes showing the same kind of failure. I was on a work trip with our service manager and we had a brake controller failure coming down a pass on the way home. Smoked the brakes on the new company work truck pretty bad and had to have pads/rotors replaced. Thought we were going to have to use the runaway ramp.

[WolfpackS2k]

Its always amusing to check the GVWR of a smallish car.

For the S2000 it was pretty stupid. 400 lb was the max weight for passengers + luggage. It's like the Japanese don't think athletic 6 foot tall people exist.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k

Its always amusing to check the GVWR of a smallish car.

For the S2000 it was pretty stupid. 400 lb was the max weight for passengers + luggage. It's like the Japanese don't think athletic 6 foot tall people exist.

My Geo Metro convertible was 380 pounds max. Meant U got to drive by myself a
lot

[WolfpackS2k]

I mean, it must have been difficult to find people that didn't mind being seen in that car anyway.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k

I mean, it must have been difficult to find people that didn't mind being seen in that car anyway.

It was highly modified and actually looked very little like a Geo metro.
Now that I think of it the mods probably reduced the capacity to about 300 pounds!

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

It was highly modified and actually looked very little like a Geo metro.
Now that I think of it the mods probably reduced the capacity to about 300 pounds!

I got the picture -