There was an article in the printed version (I didn't see it on the website) reporting on people having their warranties voided when they go in for service and the dealer finds out that the owner has been autocrossing. The case-in-point was an Evo owner that ran the car in the local SCCA region. When he took the car in for repairs (admittedly significant), they told him that they knew he was autocrossing it (they wouldn't tell him how they knew) and that he was going to have to pay out-of-pocket for the repairs - $7k.

They also discussed the situation with Subaru where you get a year's SCCA membership with the purchase of a WRX so that you can "experience the full potential of your car".

In the grand scheme of things, I suppose this is fair, but it is something to keep in mind.

I guy that autoX's a WRX here chewed up a couple gears in his tranny and got it fixed under warenty. Now it's starting to happen again, and he's saying this time he will be fixing the tranny out of his own pocket, so he doesn't think he can afford to continue with autox. Apparently the WRX's don't have a very stout transmission.

Personally, I don't see a problem with not covering drivetrain or suspension parts on a car that sees competitioing use. Racing breaks things; that's just a fact of life. If you play, you have to pay.

Of course, some cars will hold up to competition better than others, and that may factor into purchase decisions. Even for performance cars, MOST are not purchased for competition, and building them for competition just isn't cost-effective. I do think a real heavy-duty competition option should be available on performance cars. Of course, that option should include things like oil and ps coolers, heavy duty synchros, etc, instead of tape stripes.

I do think Subaru screwed up. If they want to promote grassroots competition as a sales tactic, they should either cover it or clearly disclose that they won't.

By the way, this is another reason I think there should be a street tire class for ALL stock cars and not just small displacement ricers. Race tires put a LOT more stress and wear on the car.

Yeah, I read it to a EVO3 driver as he changed his tires. LOL He is a friend of mine.

The article tlked about a guy that had a 6K rod and turbo job that was not under warranty.

I think it is funny that you can FLOG an FBody and it runs great. Then you see a EVO3 drive aggresive and you see parts break.

Got to love that.

In the article it said Mitsubishi was going to online forums and matching names and cars together and placing flags on records -- Voiding the warranty for life.

This will bring up some very interesting situations when people sell cars with voided warranties and are never told about it...

... at this weekends event at Summit Pt, with NASA-VA, several of the WRX drivers had the front and rear license plates taped over. Guess they've seen the same articles or message boards.

I'm thinking that the tape over the license plates is there to keep the plate number off of the internet when pics are posted. Not everyone edits out the plates when posting them online and there are some issues of stolen Subarus around here, and I think some of them were making the trip down there.

The person running an EVO in OVR's ESP class is no longer running it as it looks like Mitsubishi is voiding his whole warranty after a clutch replacement. Needless to say, he is not very impressed.

For those who don’t subscribe to Autoweek, you can read the article here: http://autoweek.com/cat_content.mv?port_co...t_code=02612566

They mention other manufacturers also who are taking the same position as Mitsubishi, like Porsche.

Ya Hu

soon they'll void warranty on pick-ups saying: "Sorry dude, it's not under warranty since you abused the truck... you put a load on it while driving"

Yeah, I have to believe as the "warranty wars" continue, the automaker's lawyers are going to be looking for ways to wriggle out of expensive warranty repairs. IIRC, the C5 Vette computers log highest g-force in all four axis, number of visits to the rev limiter and top speed in the car. The techs can download this as they see fit. FWIW, I talked to a guy that knew a guy who took his C5 to a lapping day and when he had the car in for some warranty work, the Service Manager came and told him that the car had been crashed according to the values stored in the computer (even through the airbags hadn't deployed). HE ended up getting the work done under warranty, but had a chat with the Service Manager...

I guess I can sit back and watch this issue as a spectator. I have never bought a new car and have never had a car with a manufacturer's warranty. ...and I don't plan to either.

I've only bought two new cars in my life, but my current (used) Camaro still had a few years left when I bought it. I just normally plan on voiding the warranty soon after purchase anyway, so if anything IS fixed under warranty that's just a bonus.

Chevrolet is also in this game .........my warranty was voided after I had a 10 spoke wheel crack in 3 places at the hub ( did NOT help that it had a Nitto RII mounted ) My car is branded "No Warranty for any claims"

And before any ask, no I did NOT hit anything, just a bad casting!

Gary

You know, I feel bad for the car companies. Yep, I do. I feel bad for them, but that doesn't mean I think they're right. Hey, it sucks to have to pay out money for shit you didn't think you'd have to. Warranties and insurance are nothing other than legalized gambling. Now, the gambler (the car owner) has changed the odds and the house doesn't like it so they're escorting the gambler out of the casino. Its complete bullshit.

I have bought five new cars and two motorcycles over the years, and not once has someone sat down and explained the warranty, what's covered, and what voids it PRIOR to the sale. Car companies use the warranty as a selling point, and performance as a selling point. They, IMHO, should not be allowed to walk away clean just because someone is making claims they don't like. Either pay up, or stop showing your cars in four wheel drifts in all your ads, and explain the warranty situation prior to the sale and get it in writing that you did so.

I see both sides of this (I used to sell cars).

Side 1.

Performance cars should be bulletproof. Then it would not be an issue. Of course they'd weigh 7200 lbs....

Side 2.

I buy a car and decide I don't like it. I decide to "break something" (6k clutch drops will break stuff many times). The third time I take it in, I try to "lemon law" it. Now, in this case, there was nothing wrong with the car, "I" (figuratively) destroyed 3 sets of driveline components and now want the dealer to buy it back. However, if they void my warranty on the second "clutch explosion" (driveshaft failure, etc), they are protected from my stupidity.

Practical example.

If I decide to come buy a car from you (anyone, not picking on Al). Show up, hand you cash, get the title. Pull out, stand it on the rev limiter, dump the clutch, and something breaks. Will you fix it or give me my money back on the spot?

Should the dealer?

Now back to our regularly scheduled discussion......

This is my biggest beef with the car companies, they have to be responsible about advertising. If they are running an ad that shows the car doing X and then void the warranty for doing the same thing, to me that is down right dirty. When I see an ad like that it says to me "hay look what our car can do", so I go and buy the car do what they show the car doing and I get hung out to dry; again sounds dirty and one sided to me. I can understand companies not covering things like clutch's that have been put through big clutch dumps and melted, but if I came in with a bad cam sensor and never messed with the rev limiter I would be very mad if they didn't cover it. I don't think a cam sensor would go bad from autox, but if the car companies find you autoxing they void all drivetrain stuff including things like cam sensors. Some won't even cover power window switch's if you found autocrossing.

I just don't see how they can prove the breakage was from autoxing, even if you do autox; they just assume that it was and call it a day.

I still think the car companies know what we do with these cars and are just looking to cut cost's. Why would I buy a Camaro if I'm going to drive it like a Camry? I would just save my money and buy the Camry.

Considering that tire is DOT legal, I would have agrued that one.

Al makes a good point here. I also grit my teeth watching 4x4 ads and ads for trucks. Not only are they damaging the vehicles much of the time, they are not "Treading Lightly" like any good 4 wheeler is taught. As hubby worked at local GM dealer for many years the customer sob story about "the salesman said it could go anywhere" was more common than I ever expected.

Several things:

First off, Gary, the Nitto 555R II is a DOT street legal tire with a 100AA treadwear rating that comes with street legal tread depth. There is no way on earth that Chevy can get away with voiding your warranty because you run that tire. Heck, the Goodyear Supercar tires that come on the Z06 are of similar specs. There are plenty of people out there that run the 555R II as a DEDICATED street tire (me included). The fact that we may also run that same model of tire at the track is completely irrelevant. I know lots of people that run other (more traditional) street tires at the track (or autox) as well.

Second, my biggest concern with all of this are quotes like this from a Chrysler person:

If you advertise a car as a performance car, then I expect to be able to drive it like one and still be under warranty. If I bought a Viper, you can be dang sure I would be lighting up the tires every chance I got. Quotes like this make me think that all the auto manufacturer's will be looking very closely at what they can do to get out of there warranties by classyfing anything they can as "abuse". GM already has a bad reputation from this mindset with fiascos like the weak clutches and oil consumption in the LS1/6 f-bodies and Vettes and trying to wiggle out of replacing/fixing them under warranty by claiming they were "abused". It all comes down to the fact that if a company is going to advertise a car as a "performance" car by quoting 0-60 times, showing burnouts in adds, or four wheel drifts through corners, etc, then they need to stand behind that car. Although I'm sure there are disclaimers (in very fine print) on ads like that, there is an implied message from those ads that these cars should be capable to do those things. (Hmm, I wonder if there's any lawyers out there interested in starting a class action suit against all these companies?)

Finally, things like this are one of the reasons that I will probably never buy a car that is under factory warranty again. Not only are most dealer service centers incompetant and can't fix the issue on the first attempt (and sometimes second or third), now they are trying to wiggle out of covering problems at all.

I would have been mad if I was in Gary's situation, but truthfully I wouldn't go through the legal hassle of getting a lawyer for a broken wheel; if the wheel broke and totaled the car then I might. And that's where most of us fall, the time and money to fight is not worth the monatary gain, and moral wins don't put food on the table.

Edit: can't spell

I wouldn't have gone through the trouble for a wheel (I would have bought a whole new set ), but I would have gone through the trouble to stop them from voiding my warranty (if I had one). I'm just glad that my Hawk doesn't ever have to see the dealer again. I feel much better taking her to a mechanic I know and trust.

I agree on the advertising, but other than that let's be realistic.

Anticipated average warranty costs are included in the price of the car - they HAVE to be if the manufacturer intends to stay in business. If abuse was covered by warranty (and competition IS abuse) they would have to add a LOT of money to the price of the car - both to cover the increased average warranty repair cost and to beef up everything to reduce warranty claims.

The reason we were able to buy cars even as close to competition-ready as these are is that the average customer is not competing and competition damage is not covered.

The business case for selling cars warrantied for competition would require a MUCH higher selling price, driving lower volumes, and therefore driving the price even higher.

BTW, if you browse sites like LS1.com it won't take long to find someone who blew a shift and then tried to get his bent pushrods replaced under warranty.

imho, if a company decides to void a warranty, they should at least refund the value of the warranty left to the owner.
For sure there are figures on how much does warranty cost on average per vehicule, and the companies take that into account on the purchase price.
Having said that, if the company has the "choice" to void the warranty, the owners should have the same "choice" to void the payment on the warranty.
I would buy a Vette with a 8,000$ discount if it had no warranty.

I'll probably open up a hole can of worms here but oh well. I really see the stresses endured by a car in an autocross and a "racing" ie: open track session as being very different. The same stresses put on a car in autocrossing could also be encountered with agressive street driving. If a manufacturer is going to market a performance car it should be able to endure the stresses of aggressive driving. The manufacturers should stand behind their products, not try and weesle out from under their warranties.

The problem is there is very little recourse a consumer has against a dealer or a manufacturer in a warranty dispute. I had a very long batlle with Chrysler concerning warranty work on my Dodge pickup. I had the main seal on the trasfer case fail and puke fluid all over. The dealer refused to cover it under warranty leaving me with a $850.00 repair bill. Since there was a scratch on the skidplate the dealership claimed that the seal failed because I had driven the truck off-road. The line I got from the district manager was, "The Dodge Ram is not intended for off-road usage, any damage incurred from driving off-road is not covered under warranty." He didn't have an answer for why the truck had the "Off-Road" option package if it wasn't intended for that use or how the truck on the cover of their brochure parked in the middle of a boulder field had gotten there.

Bottom line, I ate the repair bill. I had exhausted all means of resolving the dispute short of hiring an attorney and filing suit. After that experience I will never buy another Chrysler product again, even if they do come out with a Charger coupe with the hemi and a t-56. Chrysler may have saved themselves a repair bill, but they've lost more in a future sale with me.

Damn, that sucks that manufacturer's were denying warranties. I know all the Subaru dealers around here were giving away free SCCA memberships whenever you purchased a WRX. I guess they stand behind their product.

Look, I realize that there's got to be a line somewhere. However, that line is not your warranty in its entirety being voided if you attend one HPDE day. First of all, there are plenty of legitimate claims that could happen even if you race the stupid car: a/c, electrical, stereo, etc etc etc. Second of all, if they void your warranty for any reason, they should be forced to return to you the expected value of that warranty.

When you bought the vehicle, part of that sales price covers expected warranty claims. Whatever that number is, if they're going to cancel it, they should give it back. Its like calling up your insurance company and canceling your policy, they give you your money back.

The bottom line is they're screwing the consumer. They advertise cars based on performance and warranties. Then they charge you money for warranty coverage. Then they give you an SCCA membership (in Subarus case). Then they tell you the warranty is void, but they keep your money. Somebody needs to sue those bastards.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people taking responsibility for their actions, and NO I don't think Subaru should replace your transmission if you go racing. BUT I do think they should've told you ahead of time that IF you go racing they wont replace it.

I agree 100%.

The bottom lines is.... NEVER buy another new car again. Maybe they'll start to get the point.