My car had intake & exhaust when I bought it. I have an appointment at SOG coming up, are they going to tell me that my warranty is void? Thanks, Dennis
Not likely, they are damn mod friendly...If you have a non power related issue like my Windshield washer sprayer not spraying (which I still have yet to get fixed cause I am lazy) no problem. If for instance you rip every gear off of second, like some one I know personally, and have abvious tell tale signs burn marks on the flywheel and such it would not be covered.
I was at SoG this morning, talked with the service manager (whose name slips my mind) and Neal. Great people to do business with. Got my oil changed and had the paint defect on my roof looked at, even though the SoA rep wasn't there to look at it like he was supposed to be (cancelled at the last minute, SOG wasn't happy about it) they went ahead and called a guy at a body shop that wrote up an estimate for the work. They're gonna clear it through SoA and give me a call to set up a time to get the work done and give me a loaner car. The way I see it unless they are sure that your mods caused the issues or that you abused the crap out of your car, they'll fight with SoA to get any work covered under warrenty. I talked with Neal a bit about Classic Subaru and how I had changed my mind about taking my car there after visiting SoG a few times. At the end of the day, Classic Subaru is first a cadilac dealership and second a Subaru Dealership, while they did give me an amazing deal on my car there, it troubles me that a Cadilac mechanic could be working on my Subaru. With SoG I have no worries about that. Plus they have an AMAZING knowledge base there. If you've got a problem, odds are they've seen it before.
Basically the warranty works as follows... If you have an exhaust and one of your struts goes out, those two components of your car are not interrelated and thus they cannot void your warranty on the strut for having an exhaust. Now, if you have, let's say a turbo timer and you blow your turbo up. The dealership will put you at fault for the turbo damage / destruction and will void the warranty claim for a new turbo.
How would having a TT void a warranty on a turbo???? I would think that would help contribute to having a more healthier turbo???
It doesn't matter, it's an aftermarket mod that directly affects the turbo. It's going to void the warranty on the turbo.
How's that? Unless they can prove that the hypothetical problem was a direct result of the Turbo Timer, they have to honor the warrenty.
i just called neal (service advisor at SOG and a member of WRXatlanta)... he verified that installing a turbo timer will NOT void warranty on your turbo... in fact it will NOT void any warranty at all if installed correctly... now if u install it badly and you short something, then u might end up with an electrical failure... in that case, your problem was a direct result of your modification and you can't expect anyone to fix that under warranty hope that resolves these issues
Damn SOG and their warranty friendly service proving me wrong. Basically I wouldn't count on the same mod friendliness everywhere else. And no dealership has to honor the warranty if there are modifications that effect the malfunctioning part. Some are good about it and will. But a dealership can just as easily claim the modifications caused the malfunction and refuse to let the warranty cover it. It can be totally unfair in some cases, but that's just the way it works (often). Now you can always fight it...
That's the point, warrenty law is such that they have to prove it was caused by your mod or basically not a defect. So unless they can prove it, you can usually fight it.
From me own experience, I wouldn't worry about SoG being super anal with the warranties. In fact, they've been incredibly helpful with warranty issues in the past and more than willing to try and work around any problems that come up. They even tried to get my oil-temp guage warrantied even though it was a rock that damaged the wire, not a defect. SOA didn't go for it, but they tried, which is a lot more than most dealers would do. SoG gets lots of props for great customer service.