my tuned GTI suffered a catastrophic engine failure...

[swcrow]

too early to ask about part out?



Mud

Never too early

 

[morgan]

I am also an organ donor if you are interested...

 

[morgan]

Twist in the plot. Contacted a local dealer about a 19 GTI. Explained all the details of engine failure. They can give me $11K for the trade in. Should I take it?

 

[Diggs24]

yes

 

[Acadia18]

Twist in the plot. Contacted a local dealer about a 19 GTI. Explained all the details of engine failure. They can give me $11K for the trade in. Should I take it?

I'd have it towed to that dealer immediately before they change their mind. Taking a $5k bath of negative equity on the car (since you said you owed $16k on it) absolutely sucks ass. But right now you have a $16k paperweight, that will take at least $5k to fix anyway (unless you can swap an engine yourself). Trade it in, take the hit on negative equity, and aggressively pay more than the minimum on the loan to get it down to at least being not underwater as quick as you can.

 

[Jumpy]

I'd have it towed to that dealer immediately before they change their mind. Taking a $5k bath of negative equity on the car (since you said you owed $16k on it) absolutely sucks ass. But right now you have a $16k paperweight, that will take at least $5k to fix anyway (unless you can swap an engine yourself).

It's not even a good paperweight. Since the car doesn't run, you'd have to push the car forward onto the paper.

 

[Cuzoe]

I expect the next post to be about the new to you 19 GTI.

 

[swcrow]

Twist in the plot. Contacted a local dealer about a 19 GTI. Explained all the details of engine failure. They can give me $11K for the trade in. Should I take it?

GO


NOW

 

[IanCH]

This time make sure you do the maintenance

 

[Rennwagen]

Twist in the plot. Contacted a local dealer about a 19 GTI. Explained all the details of engine failure. They can give me $11K for the trade in. Should I take it?

 

[cb1111]

Thanks very much for clearing my head, @cb1111!

According to my USA Warranty and Maintenance booklet, in the section on "What's not covered" on page 7, it says:

Damage or malfunction due the misuse, negligence, alteration, accident, vandalism, or fire
This limited warranty does not cover:

• Damage, malfunctions, or symptoms resulting from modifications of the vehicle, including but not limited to the installation of engine management components, not approved by Volkswagen

From the language, doesn't the dealer have the burden of proof to show a software tune directly caused my engine damage/failure? By extension of the statement above, there exists "damages NOT resulted from the installed engine management components modifications."

What happens if I tell the dealer that, what proof do you have that it is the software tune that caused my engine failure, not a "defect in manufacturer's material or workmanship"? Can you say conclusively that ALL engine failures like mine that you've seen are from tuned vehicles?

The dealer needs to show (not "prove") to VW, that the failure is one that is normally associated with a mod and that the failure doesn't happen frequently on stock vehicles.

Here they can do that. If VW agrees, then your only remedy is in court (normally small claims but this may exceed the limits of your court). If it ends up going to court, then VW will send a technical expert that will show pages of statistics of why this only happens to modded cars.

The judge, used to dealing with arguing neighbors, will turn to you and you'll say "but, but but, they have to prove...."

What I have seen success with is filing a small claims suit against VW corporate and hope that they'd rather settle with you than send somebody to court - but that's a long shot.

Given your damage - and the fact that it was most likely caused by the mod - you may just need to suck it up.

Now we need to help you with developing a plan to fix it.

 

[GTIfan99]

I expect the next post to be about the new to you 19 GTI.

And if you tune the new car, ffs, log to make sure it isn't detonating its pistons into bits.

 

[Ohidub_99.5]

This time make sure you do the maintenance NOT DO ANYTHING TO VOID YOUR WARRANTY!!!

FTFY

 

[cb1111]

I'm not quite sure that's the letter of the law, but in application of the law, I agree. In this case, it's wouldn't matter, the dealer has an open and shut defense. ECU was altered and the factory ECU was no longer able to operate within factory perimeters, which are designed to prevent knock and excessive heat. As a bonus, you'll get to pay THEIR legal costs.

OP, hone, new piston, flash back to stock, move on with your life.

Actually it is. While the burden is on the manufacturer initially to show that the defect is not covered under warranty, as soon as the dealer says "the failure is normally associated with this mod, we warn the owners not to do it", then the burden shifts to the owner to show that the mod was not to blame.

This all started with the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act that prohibits manufacturers from denying warranty coverage based upon the mere presence of a substantially similar aftermarket part. The Act came about because a vacuum manufacturer (Eureka IIRC) refused warranty service because the owner used a generic bag.

While SEMA and the tuning community loves to say "see, they can't void my warranty for my mod" - but that overlooks the very important part that the aftermarket replacement needs to be substantially similar - so a Bosch lightbulb in place of the OE Osram - assuming both bulbs have the same specs.

By definition, a performance mod doesn't fall under that definition as it isn't substantially similar.

Manufacturers can create specifications that a replacement part needs to meet (think oil specs like 502/504/508) and may prescribe maintenance requirements. They can suggest a replacement (IIRC, Castrol paid BMW to but their name on the oil caps) but they cannot mandate it unless they provide that part for free - so VW can't say "you must use Castrol oil" but they can say "you must use an oil that meets VW spec 502/504/508"

Accordingly, replacing an Osram bulb with a Bosch/Sylvania/Whatever with identical specifications is fine, replacing it with a Walmart "superbright hyper blue xenon look" special may cause warranty woes.

 

[cb1111]

Twist in the plot. Contacted a local dealer about a 19 GTI. Explained all the details of engine failure. They can give me $11K for the trade in. Should I take it?

Assuming that they are giving you a decent price on the 19, I'd jump at that deal.