If you remove the Juice and leave the Attitude, the wire from the Attitude will be dangling under the hood with no power to it...thus being obvious that at some point it was plugged into something (module). The Attitude works off of the Juice...without the Juice its a fancy paper weight.

I'm all for honesty. The dealer knows of my mods...and the techs argue over who gets to drive it around to the shop door

 

This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to people bombing their trucks. If you're gonna play you need to be willing to pay. I'm not a fan of "hiding" bombs from dealers. To me, that's dishonest.

If your modification did not harm the truck then you and your warranty are protected by law. If your modification DID harm the truck then it is YOUR responsibility to pay for the repairs, not the dealer's.

 

Could not have said it better myself

I find threads like this painfully humorous, all it accomplishes is to prove to anyone reading it, that you are a dishonest individual. Plus when the service writer reads it during his break this morning, he will know you are getting ready to feed him full of lies.

 

I put a K&N filter on my new 06. After reading this forum and hearing that some dealers will void my warranty for doing so, I removed the K&N sticker off the filter box. I would hope you wouldn't consider that hiding something. Granted that is a long ways from really bombing a truck, and removing modules.
I am undecided about putting gauges on the 06. If I install a Commander and no fueling box, will they void warranty because they suspect I am using a module on the truck, even though I'm not?
Will they void the warranty because I drill and tap the manifold for the thermocouple? This is the same dealer that charges $99.95 for an oil change on a car - much less a diesel truck. They are in the business to make money - not necessarily in an honest manner.
I once took a 1996 truck into a Dodge dealership to have the front end and brakes checked under warranty. They called me an hour after I left it and told me it needed new brakes - "its metal to metal and is not covered by warranty. It will cost $325 to replace the shoes." I told them I had just rotated the tires and checked the brakes myself and there was no problem.. Same story - not covered by warranty. I told them to go ahead and replace the brakes. Then went to the dealership. They had not even put the truck on the lift or removed the wheels yet! They were trying to rip me off!!!!!!
If the service manager had not been a woman, I would have beat someone to a pulp. The service writer and mechanic assigned to the truck were nowhere to be found.
Stop and think how many customers that dealership had ripped off! Someone who can barely afford a new car and make monthly payments having to pay some huge bogus repair bill is very wrong!
There are thieves on both sides of the issue. Two wrongs don't make a right, obviously.
Dealing with a dishonest dealership is a situation I hope not to find myself in ever again.

 

1.) Did you only use the K&N drop in filter in the factory intake housing, or did you do the whole kit? Because if you did the whole kit, taking the sticker off isn't going to help you...maybe I read this portion wrong.

2.) A cold air intake doesn't void your warranty...if it filters better, breathes better and help the engine and it's components run MORE efficiently, how can they prove that it broke anything?

3.) I don't see how the Commander can void anything...it's a monitor...a peace of mind, if you will, to the driver so that he can keep his truck and it's performance in check.

Personally, I and ANYBODY out there would like to know if for some WEIRD reason (say you were driving on the interstate with no load and the cruise set on 70) my truck's EGTs were running near 1500...that would tell me something is wrong and the truck needed to be checked out. If the factory can offer you gauges to monitor these things, aftermarket shouldn't void anything either....they aren't performance enhancing. In fact, the only thing that they ARE hurting, as far as the dealership is concerned, is THEIR profit. They want to charge you 346567687698 bucks for some gauges, and know that you can get them for MUCH cheaper...so they are just butthurt if they give you crap over gauges.

Derek

P.S. I have seen my fair of shiesty dealers as well...my buddy took his truck to his dealer to be serviced and they left his drain plug hand tight, it blew out half way home and he had to call me to come and pick him up...hence the reason I do things myself now...I know they will get done right and for a fraction of the cost they would charge me to do it.

 

You said it yourself. Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

I completely agree that one should take responsibility for one's actions. What I am talking about is path of least resistance, not dishonesty. I used the bullet mount once. MY CP3 started leaking on my 04.5. Pretty much everyone here knows that is a common problem. If I had left my Juice on, there would have been no chance that would have been warrantied even though the Juice has no pressure mods. There are circumstances where it is justified and there are some that are not. For instance, had I destroyed a TC because I was running it on level 5 WOT from every stoplight, I would have just driven to Goerend Bros and gotten the tranny rebuilt.

With that said, I blew through the 3/36 warranty on my 06 in 9 months. So there is no big deal on my end. The 5/100 will be done in January 2008.

 

Bingo! I am responsible for my actions. I am not responsible for the dealer's actions.

Rusty

 

I hear ya on this one...buddy of mine stationed with me out here just bought an 06 Civic Si a few months ago....the ONLY thing that he has done to his car is have an aftermarket CD player installed...a while back, his check engine light came on and he went to Autozone to see if they could pull any codes...don't remember exactly what it was, but he took his car to his dealership, and they voided the eletrical portion of his warranty and everything entailed and blamed his aftermarket CD player. Give me a break! I just don't understand how ANY kind of "reputable" distributor can keep any customers when they pull things like that? It ended up being a code that a re-flash fixed and was happening on a LOT of the 06 Si cars, but he had to pay for his...

Derek

 

If you did want to take that pyrometer out. Just go to the local hardware store and get a 1/8" NPT pipe plug and put it in the port that you drilled and tapped. No big deal.

However, if it were me, I would leave the gauges hooked up and pull the Juice.

 

I do not plan on removing any of my 'mods' when I go into my dealership. If you look at my sig you will see the Quad box. It is in the truck and will stay in the truck. I do not hammer my vehicle, I do not 'race' at intersections with other cars, I do not sled pull, etc. There are tons of trucks out there with add-ons that go down the road with so much as a tiny problem from anything they have added. It does make sense to me that you should become your own warranty station when you have hammered your truck or taken stuff beyond a reasonable point of it's engineering and design. But I feel that if you have stayed within a reasonable point, then you should be properly taken car of when that time arises.

I have see 'first hand' how some dealers try to cheat a customer, and I have also seen the same by owners. I am an up-front person and expect the same relationship in return. If I cause a problem I will reach into my wallet and pay but I expect that if poor design causes my problem I expect them to take care of me. My dealership understands where I am coming from and so far they have treated me within the boundary of my expectations. When I was in the last time for a recall, my tech commented on the great install I did on my gauges AND he really like it that the aftermarket harness for my rail pressure was a plug-and-play installation. He went on to discuss how so many problems from aftermarket stuff happened because of the installers tapping into wires, and many times the wrong wires. At least what I installed was more well thought out and he could see it was done with a quality job in mind. The service manager had the same opinion. I really do think it is all about how you approach something. Now it could be possible somewhere down the road I have an encounter with a DC rep over something, but, I am in hopes that my truck continues to go down the road flawlessly and that day does not arise.

CD

 

I'll side with CD in NM on this one.
Find a good dealership, and go in and talk to them.

my Service Writer & Mechanic knew what I had on my 04, and they told me, we will warranty this/we won't warranty that.

no problems. if you can afford a $40k truck, and $1k in Go-Fast parts, guess what, you are "Pay to Play" ....the only part is the final outcome (reliability) is a gamble.

don't get mad (at a good) dealership for calling you on modd'ing the truck past the design parameters.

there's a reason i have a STOCK 06 now...

 

I've heard a dealership exhort their service department as the greatest thing in the world to customers. They also charge $99.95 for an oil change. But they include checking the doors and hood for any closure problems, check to see if they are any fluid leaks, check the tire pressure....etc, etc., a really impressive list to anyone that doesn't know better.
No, a customer is not responsible for a dealer's actions. But they may be the one to suffer from the dealer's dishonesty. And frankly, many can't afford to be victimized financially by a dealership after making the car payment and other expenses of daily living.
I'm not advocating dishonesty with a dealership. What I am advocating is to NEVER let a dealership get by with a dishonest act. If they rip me off, the chances are they've done it others too and will do so again.
Like I said earlier, if I had been dealing with a man instead of a woman I would have gotten physical. The service writer and the mechanic both disappeared. The dealership owner said he would look into it. After my third trip to his office, he fired the service writer and the mechanic.
For a dealer to invalidate my warranty for using an aftermarket filter in the stock filter box is an act of dishonesty as far as I am concerned. If I drill and tap the exhaust manifold to install gauges and they use it as an excuse to invalidate my warranty because a turbo goes out 18 months later, it's a dishonest act.
And when times get rough for car manufacturers, the bean counters tell them to save money wherever they can. Like invalidating warranties for little or no reason.
And if the dealers aren't going to make a really good profit over a warranty repair, they'll look for any reason to dismiss a warranty.
Why do you think there are so many digital devices on our vehicles now? To put them out of the technical ability of the typical home mechanic.
Too many times now we are at a dealer's mercy. There is no need for them to rip us off as it is. If they can make a few dollars more by invalidating my warranty and cost me hundreds or thousands of dollars more, it is THEFT!

 

danc46...all you have is a drop in filter right now (not warranty voiding) and plan on putting a set of gauges on her (not warranty voiding). I am just wondering why you are so upset? You haven't even been denied anything yet with your new truck, yet you are acting like you don't have a warranty on ANYTHING anymore. With the gauges and filter, you will be fine...they shouldn't even say anything, but IF they do, politely ask them to prove to you how a GAUGE or FILTER of all things have anything to do with your warranty...case closed.

Derek

 

When you have a check engine light on and take it in to get the MAP sensor replaced, DC could charge the dealer back if they find oil from your filter on it.There is a reason that K&N filters can void your warranty.
There are some dealers that may be dishonest, but there are way more dishonest customers that try to get either DC or the dealer to pay for things they shouldn't.
I don't know how other dealers and techs operate, but I know that if I work on vehicle that has been modified, I don't say anything about the mods and I assume they were not the cause of the failure unless I can prove otherwise.