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Warranty 101: Warranty and You - TD1, recalls, updates, Magnuson Moss, etc...

cb1111

Newbie
Location
Virginia, USA
Does a tow hitch potentially void the USA 6 year/72K mile warranty? I know the M-M act says they have to prove an aftermarket part did the damage, but have anyone had any feedback from VW that it is a problem?

I have a very lightweight trials motorcycle (145 pounds) that I want to tow on a harbor freight trailer, so maybe 300 pounds all-up and 40 pounds of tongue weight. I asked the dealer and his reply was "we don't think it'll void your warranty but VW officially says no towing for the GTI, if you want to tow buy an SUV".


Good question. The MM Act doesn't say that the manufacturer needs to prov anything. The MM Act requires a manufacturer to show that a "substantially similar" replacement part caused or contributed to the failure.


The tow hitch isn't a "substantially similar" replacement for anything and therefore isn't covered by the MM Act.


So, if the MM Act doesn't apply, what does? The warranty statements and exclusions from the manufacturer. Here, the manufacturer has categorically and unambiguously stated that the towing capacity of the car in the US is zero.


Towing anything may well cause you warranty woes.



That said, the rest of the world has a tow rating for the Golf so you shouldn't actually break anything - but if something does break then you're on your own.


Don't go to the dealership with trailer attached.


Me? I don't tow anything, but I do have a bike rack that attaches.
 

fprintf

New member
Location
Connecticut, USA
Don't go to the dealership with trailer attached.

Me? I don't tow anything, but I do have a bike rack that attaches.

Thanks for the education. I think what may tip any dealership observers over the edge, should something happen, is any attachments to the wiring harness for the trailer lighting. This likely does not happen on any vehicle that just uses a tow hitch to carry bicycles.

I'm going to research alternatives. There is no way I want to risk my 6 year warranty on trying to tow something.
 

blergrd

Ready to race!
Location
MD
In relation to the shifter issue, I brought it in more than a few times over a few months and they always said something like, "it's a phantom error", or something. Bullshit. Then as soon as this comes out, they attribute the check engine light to this recall.
 

Johaan

Ready to race!
Location
Atlanta
Oh joy, just got a 37M2 Micro Switch recall letter for a rollaway risk on my ‘18 GTI S. Says it affects 2015-19 VWs, key can be removed when not totally in park. I always use the brake, but still a PITA.

No fix available yet. Wonder how many DSGs have it... all with a real key?

NHTSA 19V615


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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DAS_STIG

Banned
Location
Chicago
Oh joy, just got a 37M2 Micro Switch recall letter for a rollaway risk on my ‘18 GTI S. Says it affects 2015-19 VWs, key can be removed when not totally in park. I always use the brake, but still a PITA.

No fix available yet. Wonder how many DSGs have it... all with a real key?

NHTSA 19V615


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got one for my 15 S as well.
 

Madmas

New member
Location
Singapore
Chapter 7 - Warranty work on a modified car.

The way warranty works is the customer brings the vehicle to the dealership for a concern. The tech diagnoses the car, repairs the car, documents everything, and returns the defective part back to the manufacturer. When the warranty claim is processed, the manufacturer look over the documentation, if everything checks out then the manufacturer reimburses the dealership for the cost of the repair. If they find something they don't like... the defective part wasn't returned, the returned part wasn't bad, time card punch times don't match up with the repairs, there was an attempted repair on an issue that has a TSB before following the TSB, there's no Guided Fault Finding log, etc, then the dealership does not get paid for any of the repair, they are forced to eat the full cost of the parts and labor. If that happens the dealership will deduct the time they paid the tech for the repair from the current pay period.

The dealership can "warranty" literally anything they want, but if the manufacturer feels it's not a legit claim then they will not cover the cost of the repair. That is why some dealers are "mod friendly" and others are not, it typically comes down to management deciding how willing they are to risk absorbing the entire cost of the a repair and losing money if the manufacturer doesn't agree with the dealership decision. It's a risk vs reward thing, they are more likely to try to push something through for a good customer or on some more minor repairs because they want to keep customers happy. If you're a pain in the ass the dealership is less likely to risk losing money to try to keep you happy. Some customers are just flat out not worth the risk. Then there is the technician’s side of things... if you were a tech would you want to perform a questionable warranty repair if you're not sure if it'll go through when you know full well that if it doesn't then you worked on that entire job for free? That's where the mod friendliness of the management comes in, they get to make the call, if they tell the tech to do and they choose wrong the tech, in theory, should still get paid because they aren't at fault.

In the past, before monitoring for chipped cars, it was really just the dealerships word of mouth. No manufacturer wants to incur costs that they don't need to, monitoring for modified vehicles is a good way to potentially cut down on the amount of money they are paying out on repairs that they shouldn't be covering. VW just recently sent the email (screenshot from above) out to every single Volkswagen technician in the country saying this is how you know it's flashed. It's too early to see what the end result of that will be, it’s not exactly a stretch to think it will result in the manufacture denying more repairs on modified vehicles. Once dealers start absorbing repair costs a few times warantying chipped cars will get nipped in the butt pretty damn quick.

Let's look at Volkswagen Auto Group’s chain driven 2.0T engine and the potential effects of flashing it. For a long time port flashing wasn’t available, so first of all there's a good chance someone removed the ECM, pried the case open, cut the glue, split it in half, broke the connection to heat transfer paste, intentionally shorted a specific spot on the circuit board to ground and then put it back together, maybe with some sealant. The purpose of all that, to get more power.

Think about it on the most basic level, how does an internal combustion engine make power? It burns fuel. It's that simple, if you want more power you need to burn more fuel. Now you've increase the strain on the fuel system to supply more fuel. If you want to burn that extra fuel you supplied you need to bring in more air to keep the air to fuel ratio inline. That means more boost and in turn more airflow into the engine, higher cylinder pressures, and then more exhaust flow out flow out. Internal combustion engines are inherently inefficient, only a small percentage of the energy released from burning the fuel is turned into usable kinetic energy (torque), a huge portion is converted to heat and noise and wasted. If you're burning more fuel you're making more power and more heat. Engine internals, motor mounts, the entire driveline were designed to reliably handle the stock levels of power long term and you're making them withstand a much higher load. The cooling system and the heat shedding ability on items such as the cylinder head, valves, turbo, etc were designed to reliably handle stock heat loads long term, but you’ve surpassed that intended range. The plastic intake parts: boost piping, intercooler end tanks, intake manifold, and variable intake runner flaps are being forced to operate at roughly twice the amount of pounds of pressure per square inch than what they were designed to reliably handle for extended amounts of time.

The chain reaction goes on and on and on but you get the point. It's all intertwined, a chip makes everything powertrain related operate under loads it was not designed to handle reliability or for long periods of time. Let's be honest, these things are no longer considered a "defective" parts when it fails.... which is what your warranty covers. This does not mean you will be unable to get anything fixed under warranty just because you're car is modified. The dealership and the manufacturer want to keep customers happy and coming back. If it's a common failure part, like coil packs that after almost a decade VW still struggles with, there's a good chance it's truly a defective part and in theory you shouldn’t have much issue getting it covered, but that goes back to the dealer's attitude about modifications as discussed above.

Chapter 8 - Extended warranty work on a modified car.

The way extended warranty is supposed to work is that you bring your car in with a concern, you approve a diagnosis charge, the dealer will prepare an estimate for the repairs and submit the claim to your extended warranty. If the bad part is not covered you will be charged that diagnostic fee you approved, if it is a covered item the warranty company will pay it and you don't have to. If it's a relatively cheap repair chances are they will approve it over the phone. If it's more costly, or if your claim is chosen at random, they will send an inspector out to check out the car with the tech. Claims Adjusters are far from experts but basically the tech shows them what’s wrong, what the faults are, what diagnosis was done to lead the tech to call part X faulty, drive with the tech to show the concern can be duplicated and is legitimate, etc. The adjuster will approve or deny the claim. They will not know if the car is chipped, they don't have access to that information unless the dealer specifically tells them it's chipped but the inspectors ALWAYS take pictures and documents the car. A flash is invisible but they definitely take note of mods they can see. I've personally seen an inspector measure fender to ground height to make sure the suspension wasn't modified. Mods you can see will get claims denied quicker with extended warranty than they typically would with the manufacturer warranty.

Another thing to consider is not all extended warranties will cover the full cost of the repairs. Whether you like it or not customer pay repair times are generally warranty time multiplied by 1.5 (or Alldata times etc, which will be similar), but some extended warranties will only pay factory warranty labor times. If you bought the the warranty from the dealership doing the work they will usually honor what the extended warranty that they sold you is willing to pay. If you bought an extended warranty elsewhere and they won't pay out customer pay prices for repairs, you can expect to have to cover the cost difference. Customers tend to get upset about having to pay out of pocket when they have an extended warranty but the business is not going to lose profit because you bought a cheap warranty from somewhere else. A lot of people feel it's unjust but if you think about it logically, it makes perfect sense. Let's say you have a 3 year old GTI and you total it. For simplicity let's say your insurance company cuts you check for $20K. If you walk into a VW dealer and you want to replace it with new GTI they aren't going to give it to you a brand new for $20K just because that's all your insurance company covered on your old one... you would take that coverage payout and you would pay the difference, this is no different.
Hello,
Which travel insurance are you talking about ? This one https://www.axa.com.sg/travel-insurance ?
 
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gulpozen

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Calgary, AB
Car(s)
2018 Golf TSI
Oh joy, just got a 37M2 Micro Switch recall letter for a rollaway risk on my ‘18 GTI S. Says it affects 2015-19 VWs, key can be removed when not totally in park. I always use the brake, but still a PITA.

No fix available yet. Wonder how many DSGs have it... all with a real key?

NHTSA 19V615


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I got the same letter for my '18 TSI non-DSG.
 

TewFoxy

Ready to race!
Location
Virginia Beach, VA
Car(s)
2018 GTI
Oh joy, just got a 37M2 Micro Switch recall letter for a rollaway risk on my ‘18 GTI S. Says it affects 2015-19 VWs, key can be removed when not totally in park. I always use the brake, but still a PITA.

No fix available yet. Wonder how many DSGs have it... all with a real key?

NHTSA 19V615


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

got one in the mail then received another a few days ago with how to fix it. Dropped it off to dealer this morning. Car was ready for pick up 2 hours later. And no TD1 flag for my CAI I left on the car for the work.
 

tigeo

Autocross Champion
got one in the mail then received another a few days ago with how to fix it. Dropped it off to dealer this morning. Car was ready for pick up 2 hours later. And no TD1 flag for my CAI I left on the car for the work.
TD1 is only for ECU modifications....
 

cb1111

Newbie
Location
Virginia, USA
got one in the mail then received another a few days ago with how to fix it. Dropped it off to dealer this morning. Car was ready for pick up 2 hours later. And no TD1 flag for my CAI I left on the car for the work.
TD1 is only for ECU modifications....
Correct - but - TewFoxy won't know if his car is flagged until he has an issue and the dealer submits a warranty claim that VW denies due to mods.
 

TewFoxy

Ready to race!
Location
Virginia Beach, VA
Car(s)
2018 GTI
Correct - but - TewFoxy won't know if his car is flagged until he has an issue and the dealer submits a warranty claim that VW denies due to mods.
That is good to know. This dealer didn’t have issues with my MK6 that was modded. when I had a Toyota 4Runner that was modded that dealership gave me issues when I’d bring it in for wheel/tire rotations bc they weren’t what the suv came with.
 

GTIfan99

Autocross Champion
Location
FL
It seems the Federal Trade Commission disagrees with aftermarket not being covered by MMA.

http://www.semasan.com/semaga/images/warranty_ftc.pdf
I'll be testing whether the dealer can detect an unmarried AP, and won't have to wait to find out if it's flagged, my buddy is the service writer and is going to let me know. Plan is to flash stg 1, drive for a couple weeks, unmarry it, and they're going to check if it flags for me. I'll take one for the team.
 
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tigeo

Autocross Champion
It seems the Federal Trade Commission disagrees with aftermarket not being covered by MMA.

http://www.semasan.com/semaga/images/warranty_ftc.pdf
I'll be testing whether the dealer can detect an unmarried AP, and won't have to wait to find out if it's flagged, my buddy is the service writer and is going to let me know. Plan is to flash stg 1, drive for a couple weeks, unmarry it, and they're going to check if it flags for me. I'll take one for the team.
"Aftermarket" in terms of the MMA is just referring to things like replacement parts (oil filter for example) - not aftermarket parts that enhance the performance beyond the OE's.
 

JC_451

Autocross Champion
Location
NJ, one of the nice parts.
Car(s)
2017 GTI Sport
It seems the Federal Trade Commission disagrees with aftermarket not being covered by MMA.

http://www.semasan.com/semaga/images/warranty_ftc.pdf
I'll be testing whether the dealer can detect an unmarried AP, and won't have to wait to find out if it's flagged, my buddy is the service writer and is going to let me know. Plan is to flash stg 1, drive for a couple weeks, unmarry it, and they're going to check if it flags for me. I'll take one for the team.

It's not a mystery how a car becomes flagged, you don't need to try the experiment.
 

GTIfan99

Autocross Champion
Location
FL
There's still debate if unmarrying will keep from being flagged. Non of my AP tuned Subarus were flagged by Subaru, from what I've seen, no one with a new VW has tried unmarrying and seeing if flagged TD1. Every example I've seen was used, which means it could have been flagged from previous owner. If you have concrete evidence to the contrary, you're welcome to share.

And the FTC ruling says nothing about oem equivalent. It specifically protects against failures not caused by your aftermarket parts from being denied, i.e. your tune didn't cause the known defective thermostat housing. FTC's ruling carries the force of law, but anytime you mod your car, you create an uphill battle against manufacturers that employ hundreds of lawyers.
 
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