Warranty and Tunes

OILPowered

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Has anyone with a tune been denied warranty work? I've been on the fence for a while with getting a tune and have heard the speculation with warranty denial for cars with aftermarket tunes, but hadn't heard of anyone actually getting denied because of one.

Any first hand info would be appreciated.
 

South Coast Guy

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I assume you aren't inferring that if someone tries to sing at the dealer that they are denied warranty coverage? The problem I see would be if the dealer updated software after you had a tune and wiped out your tune.
 

P0234

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Its an extremely gray area. Some facts:

-No case has ever made it to trial in regard to a modified ecu and a warranty being denied.
-A dealer can and will deny you coverage if they find out you have a tune. Not saying its legal or not, but it happens all the time.

Your best bet is to keep quiet and say nothing. There have been several cases where motors have gone bang and Audi has paid to have them fixed, giving the customer a stern warning. Not sure about VW.

If I were to have coverage denied, I would gladly bring this up to point out they approve and endorse APR:

http://www.goapr.com/news/2010/06/0...-local-police-department-vote-for-vws-design/

The reality of it is, if you aren't prepared to fight to the end, you will lose and not get coverage. So I guess it depends on if this is your primary driver and if you can afford to park it for a while. Most people give up and pay for the repairs.
 

ctnatureboy

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Depending on who you use, you can pay a little more up front for a tune loader. If something ever goes wrong, you can reload the stock tune in the comfort of your bunny slippers and let the dealer do whatever they want to it. No one will ever know except you and your tuner.
 

JSWTDI09

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Depending on who you use, you can pay a little more up front for a tune loader. If something ever goes wrong, you can reload the stock tune in the comfort of your bunny slippers and let the dealer do whatever they want to it. No one will ever know except you and your tuner.

The OP has a 2011 (CR) diesel. These cannot be tuned through the OBDII port. Therefore buying a loader is not an option with these cars. The ECU must be removed and bench tuned (at least the first time). Your idea worked fine with older TDIs but it has issues with the newer ones.

Have Fun!

Don
 

chris@revotechnik

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To expand on this slightly.. (and hopefully no one flips out like the last thread).

Flashing is possible through the port on a 2010+ ecu in every region. The issue is that the ecu (in some regions) is capable of detecting modified code and will lock the ecu down if it is installed, basically car will not start after being flashed, but it can be flashed.

The procedure most tuners are doing is not actually a bench flash but a separate process entirely that is simply reading out that code which locks the ecu, modifying it and then putting it back in. That must be done on the bench as there is no access to that area of the ecu through the port. Once the ecu is "unlocked" it can then be flashed on the bench or reinstalled in the car and flashed through the port either method works. Bench flashing actually requires corrupting the file to force the ecu to accept a new flash so even though we have the ability I generally instruct my dealers to do it in the car. Never once had a problem by why risk it right?

Depending on how the tuner went about unlocking the ecu some are compatible with another tuners files some are not. The best way to describe it is there is a short way and a long way to unlock the ecu, neither is right or wrong just two ways to get the same result. If a tuners files are built to work with the short and the previous tuner used the long method the second tuners files most likely will not work and the ecu would be locked (car won't start) until it is flashed with a true stock file. Again nothing wrong with the different methods.

As i just mentioned flashing an ecu back to stock would recover it. That is because using a stock file resets any of the unlocking that was done and you are basically back to square one. This is why a home flashing unit won't work for the later applications. Even if you sent the tuner your ecu and they unlocked it, if you were to ever reflash it to stock the ecu would lock and would need to be sent out again.

When the ecu is unlocked and not even flashed yet the checksums change, this is visible to your dealer on later ecus but I have never heard of one dealer keeping tabs on what the values are and using this to deny a claim. I have heard in some cases VW flagging cars when this is noticed in diagnostic logs, however not one single instance has been reported to me of a Revo car being flagged nor have I ever heard a flagged car having anything denied. When speaking to a friend of mine who does software through his VW dealer he just said that VW wants to you do your due diligence before they accept a claim but they are not outright denying or even voiding warranties and he had not had one single problem yet.

The only way to make the tune 100% invisible at this point is to flash a modified ecu back to 100% stock. To reinstall the performance software you would need to have the ecu removed, opened, and "unlocked" again. Regardless of your tuner.

For tuners who have switchable software such as ourselves in stock mode the car will appear stock, drive stock, and other then the checksums to a dealer be stock. They can flash over it (which will erase the tune and unlocking), they have full diagnostic access to the ecu, and well bottom line nothing really changes.


Now my personal opinion based on 10+ years in the business both as a dealer tech and working in the performance industry including owning a shop. VW is not voiding warranties. What you may hear on the forums is simply people who were denied service at dealer A because the dealer did not want to risk having a claim denied and paying for it out of pocket. Your warranty is a contract between you and VW, not the dealer and they have no right to void your warranty on their own if they don't like your wheels or your intake. If you are denied service at dealer A go to dealer B, chances are you will have no problem. While working at both VW and audi dealers I know of only two instances where a warranty was void and it was just on very specific parts. One was a personal friend of mine who raced his GTI VR6 running nitrous. He was blowing through transmissions. The VW rep knew he raced, knew he used nitrous and let a few claims through. At some point he was told that they need to pull the plug. This friend had an actual contract from VW stating what parts were still warrantiable and which were not. The other was an Rs4 (possibly just S4) that kept breaking clutches and axles. This kid tried to deny he was racing it but kept dropping the car off with remnants of shoe polish on his windows from numbers and often times time slips still in his door pockets... not very smart. I think one clutch and an axle or two where covered no problems. Eventually again Audi said wait no way. His warranty was voided only on the parts he specifically kept damaging and had documentation regarding this.

Also this is 2011, VW doesn't give a crap if you modify your car. The ignorant dealer tech who wants to get paid cash rates instead of warranty rates is just looking to blame your mods so he can make a few more bucks. I've worked with these people at every dealer, when they tried this I always jumped in and stood up for the customer with the manager and usually won. Request another tech or find another dealer if this happens. Dealer techs now often come into that job because they love cars and love modifying them, it is no longer should be be a fry cook or maybe work on cars. Chances are half the employee lot at any dealer is filled with cars ranging from a basic flash to upgraded turbos.

There are times when people are just stupid.. screwing wood screws into your floor to install an amp is NOT something covered under warranty when you poke a hole in the fuel tank. You snap studs on your turbo putting in a downpipe.. this is not something covered under warranty. Tunes have never proven to actually cause a problem of any sort especially in these applications where boost pressures are barely changed and even fuel pressure remains within stock limits.
 

ctnatureboy

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The OP has a 2011 (CR) diesel. These cannot be tuned through the OBDII port. Therefore buying a loader is not an option with these cars. The ECU must be removed and bench tuned (at least the first time). Your idea worked fine with older TDIs but it has issues with the newer ones.

Have Fun!

Don
There will come a day when I am cool enough to know that first hand. My apologies for the distraction.
 

chris@revotechnik

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Oh and also, while this isn't VW of America or Canada in these instances, we have actually produced production vehicles with our software in other countries.

In the UK we have a special edition car built by Seat that has our software, the interior was designed by us and the seats are embroidered with a special logo as well as a badge that reference it being our special edition car.

The regional reps for Seat in the UK often have Revo equipped cars for their demos, the cars are then sold right on the seat UK website with the software still installed as CPO'd.

Seat UK is wholly owned by VWag in Germany, just like VWoA.

Several Seat and skoda importers, privately owned, are actually Revo dealers and distribute Revo software through their dealer network as well as in special edition cars. Greece is a big market where vehicles are taxed based on HP not engine size. The importer for Seat there actually installs Revo software on some of the smaller lower power applications so keep taxes down but bump sales because everyone knows a 63hp seat is better then a 62hp ford! Yes we literally will tune them to make 1hp more then the competing vehicle.


APR has done this as well in Singapore where the VW importer is partially private and partially owned by VWag.

Other tuners have these arrangements as well and my point is that manufactures actually like it, the problems with denial of service are on a dealer level not the actual manufacture voiding the warranty.


Edit: While not a street car Skoda UK came to us months ago for assistance with breaking a land speed record. We worked with them as well as various hardware manufactures like BSH in arizona (supplied the turbo kit) to build a car that now holds the land speed record for production forced induction 2.0L vehicles @ I think it was 226mph.
 

CRJSW

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I had my 2010 tuned at 1000miles no issues with the dealer in the past 38,000 miles. They even installed my front coilovers while it was in for the recall and had me rubbing leaving the place, not to mention all came out to check the car out afterwards.

Chris, that definitely explains why I have to send my ecu back to tuner a to get his tune off before I can send it to tuner b. I was wondering why it was so important to do that.
 

OILPowered

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Chris, thanks for the excellent info. This puts me a bit at ease. I will be looking into a tune here shortly and will PM you.
 

P0234

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Also this is 2011, VW doesn't give a crap if you modify your car. The ignorant dealer tech who wants to get paid cash rates instead of warranty rates is just looking to blame your mods so he can make a few more bucks. I've worked with these people at every dealer, when they tried this I always jumped in and stood up for the customer with the manager and usually won.
Very true, greed usually is a factor, Warranty vs cash rates are a big temptation.

I HPFP failure on a tuned TDI is going to be an interesting test case though!
 

CRJSW

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Tuned TDI's don't have HPFP failures lol

Although I will say If they did not give a crap if you tuned your car they would not lock out the ECU would they?
 

KraftwerkB6

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Chris, as a vw tech, I am glad you posted that.
It covers a lot and is pretty to the point.
I have not seen any newer vehicles still under warranty come though with any claims or parts being denyed. We are a some what mod friendly dealer, just depends on which mods and what is the causal part.
I have a friend who comes in with a very very low r32 and I only touch it because A) he knows me, and B) my racks the lowest rack in the shop, as well as some of the "older" techs dont want to deal with it.
With my CR being tuned, there are only a few people at the dealer who I think knows about the tune and exhaust so its not too big of a deal, my boss however does know and thinks its cool so I am glad thats good.
However I dont think if I had a HPFP or anyone go bad(and I hate to bring this up, or touch on it) and had a tuned ecu, I highly doubt we would be denyed the claim or tell the customer sorry we can fix this, you havea tuned ecu. Besides scanning it for faults and sending it in, I think VW would be more intrested in the parts that broke.

Now I will say this, if you post up online a bunch of race slips, or exhaust vids, or you beating the piss out of it, like I have, and the dealer sees it, then there might be a case, but you never know.
 

Nizle

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So I went to Mossy, City, Bob Baker, Herman Cook, Classic and Capo VW and asked the service advisers at each dealer where and how can i get my ECU programmed and ALL of them said they do not endorse any modifications of the computer and NONE of them have heard of any vw dealers that do and in fact told me that my warranty would be void the moment i chiped the computer. Im not calling anyone a lair here but i am a little confused
 

JSWTDI09

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...and ALL of them said they do not endorse any modifications of the computer and NONE of them have heard of any vw dealers that do and in fact told me that my warranty would be void the moment i chiped the computer.
There are actually a few VW dealers who are also Revo dealers. There are also a few VW dealers who are also APR dealers. However, these circumstances are pretty rare. Most dealers are like the ones you mentioned. Those VW dealers who also sell tunes will generally still honor VW's warranty, but (as you noticed) most dealers will not - if they can tell that your car is tuned. The good news is that most dealers are pretty clueless about checking for tunes. With the Revo tune, you can use the SPS and set it back to the stock maps and the tech will not be able to notice the tune during a test drive. Of course an expert could look at the actual code and detect the changes, but most (all?) dealers do not have this kind of expert. In my opinion, this is the biggest advantage that Revo has over their competition.

BTW: The dealer can only void the warranty on the engine and maybe the transmission and/or clutch because of a tune. The dealer cannot use a tune to void the warranty on your radio, or other electronics, or any other non-drivetrain component.

Have Fun!

Don
 

P0234

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BTW: The dealer can only void the warranty on the engine and maybe the transmission and/or clutch because of a tune. The dealer cannot use a tune to void the warranty on your radio, or other electronics, or any other non-drivetrain component.
Not true. The dealer can't void any warranty, only a VW rep can do that. A VW dealership employee is unable to void contracts between you and VW. What they can (and will do) is refuse to service your car.

There are plenty of cases of grenaded Audi and VW motors that were chipped and repaired under warranty. There are zero published court cases between a car manufacturer and an owner of an ECU tuned car.

The rest is the gray area, its up to you if you want to venture there.
 

tcp_ip_dude

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So I went to Mossy, City, Bob Baker, Herman Cook, Classic and Capo VW and asked the service advisers at each dealer where and how can i get my ECU programmed and ALL of them said they do not endorse any modifications of the computer and NONE of them have heard of any vw dealers that do and in fact told me that my warranty would be void the moment i chiped the computer. Im not calling anyone a lair here but i am a little confused

Keffer VW in Charlotte NC does Revo tunes and they are a fairly large dealer.
 

tcp_ip_dude

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Are there any So cal VW dealers you know of that do APR/Revo?
Look on the Revo site.. That's where I found Keffer VW, while there are quite a few in the Carolina's that do Revo tunes, Keffer was the only one in NC that had equipment necessary to unlock the newer CR ECU's (09+), you have to read the the dealer locator info carefully where it explains this..
 

chris@revotechnik

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So I went to Mossy, City, Bob Baker, Herman Cook, Classic and Capo VW and asked the service advisers at each dealer where and how can i get my ECU programmed and ALL of them said they do not endorse any modifications of the computer and NONE of them have heard of any vw dealers that do and in fact told me that my warranty would be void the moment i chiped the computer. Im not calling anyone a lair here but i am a little confused

There is no right or wrong answer to this unfortunately except for a few things:

A dealer can only deny you service or coverage of a warranty claim not void your warranty.

In a 2010+ application since it requires opening of the ecu the second the second it is opened up the warranty on JUST THE ECU is instantly void, not even a dealer or the engineers VW sends to work on problem cars are allowed to open electronic devices. We and just about every other tune warranty the ecu from damaged resulting from us opening it, or our local dealer who opens it covers it. This does not necessarily cover a failure in 10 years down the road because its an electronic device and they just fail sometimes. If opened properly and resealed correctly there is nothing to worry about.

VW can deny you warranty coverage on parts they feel failed due to a result of a tune. This does not mean you have a tune and instantly you have no warranty on your powertrain. Manufactures are not actively voiding and denying warranties (some dealers are but that is different). They are well aware that parts fail. The key is to remember that a warranty does not cover things that are broken it covers things that are defective. If your fender is constructed wrong and doesn't fit right they warranty it. If you run into a pole with it that wasn't a defect it is not covered. Same with a tune, if a part fails that is defective they cover it, if it fails due to the tune it is not. Someone please show me a failure that is actually from a tune and we can continue that discussion... hint it won't be continued.

While we are fully aware people are concerned with their warranties, and we are fully aware there are still techs out there who had to decide between being a plumber or working on cars and cars won the coin toss most dealer techs are very tech savy, they are into modifying cars, and they understand that a flash doesn't cause damage. There is little to worry about in regards to your warranty claims being denied.
 

BrShootr

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Um the OP of that post CLEARLY states the VW told him the tune was NOT a problem and NOT responsible for the fire.

Please do not continue to spread this incorrect information.
To quote the other post: "They said the tune was no problem, but they think I did something when using the VCDS! Long story short, I asked them if they couldn't prove what caused the fire why blame the VCDS and myself? They had no response!"

They blamed the VCDS this time, but could've blamed the tune or the process of replacing the ECU. The point is, if an OEM can find a way out of a warranty claim, they will.

You are right in one respect: VW did not blame the tune itself, and unless something happens with the actual engine, most likely it won't be an issue. They did blame the ross-tech cable, which is even more ridiculous IMO. So who knows?
 
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