jfpointer

I'm not sure that the situations posed in the original post are directly analogous. In the case of warranties on vehicles, an actual transaction has already taken place in which a manufacturer offers a warranty on that vehicle. You can probably safely assume that some part of the original cost of that vehicle is meant to cover the eventual costs of that warranty-TANSTAAFL, as it were. If the manufacturer or their representative then denies warranty coverage of a failure, especially of an item unrelated to any modifications, they have just stolen from you some portion of the original cost of the vehicle. I don't know, it's said that two wrongs don't make a right, but I'm not sure that there's anything wrong with trying to protect your investment, either.

Redleg

Alomst JFPOINTER.

I would have to say this would be more civil than criminal.
The dealer would be protecting his own intrest by trying to get out of the "contract" at any chance. The customer is just not making it obvious that he has breeched the "contract". In his own intrest, he would just be insuring the dealer is getting the "burden of the proof" that he has made the breech. If the dealer accuses him of having made the mod, and the customer then lies and deny's it, when he in fact did, then he may be raising the bar. Shoplifting, there is no implied contract transaction or agreement, that is just outright stealing. Not that I condone this subject, I just see it a little differently, JMHO.

dodgeman01

[quote author=MOSTWANTED link=board=10;threadid=18374;start=0#msg172288 date=1060831543]
I buy used and skip the warrenty :
[/quote]
;D

erics76

In the end, it's probably best if "to each his own". I'm not as saintly as some on here, and I do some things that technically aren't right. Until the dealer has a machine that can say exactly what caused a certain part to fail, i'm not going to let it get blamed on what I might have put on the truck because it's the easyiest way out for the dealer. I've heard of dealers denying warranty coverage because someone had installed gauges. If that happend to y'all, you wouldn't have a problem with that?? That's the kind of things that I'm talking about.

ramlovingvet

Gary is Right.
If ya wanna Play Ya Gotta Pay. I agree dealers try anything not to do Warrenty Repairs but its still wrong to rip them off.
Theft is theft.

Scotty

When my NV5600 blew apart rolling down the highway I had to pull into a dealer I DID NOT KNOW. And I was now in a truck that was no longer driveable. I had all sorts fo stuff on the truck plus the engine parts all painted pearl white and the gauges and the TST box etc...I was on my way to a tropical vacation and had no place to take parts off and never planned to. I talked to the owner, told him all about the truck and said; "If this is deemed as a failure related to my parts, order the new trans and I will look after it. If not...COooOoooL." The dealer told me he appreciated me being up front and worked with me. It took over a month to get the truck fixed with a new trans but the dealer said there was issues with the NV5600 at times and this was the symptom. Warranty covered it. I only had 3,000 Kilometers left on the warranty too.
So I left it with someone I did not know and was honest about the truck and it worked out fine. I totally expected the opposite and we were prepared to pay.

I did not go to the dealer when I blew my head gasket, nor did I go and try and get warranty for the pooched VP-44 with the tapped wire. As for lift pumps...I had one under warranty and then designed my own fuel system.

Everybody is looking after their own best interest in the way that they see fit. I still would rather buy a truck without a warranty and apply that to the purchase price and bank costs I might incur with the nature of my business.

I still hold fast with the Wanna Play be prepared to Play. I was and I have paid but not on all occasions have I had to pay. I know I was honest and I did not want a battle anyway. I'm tired of flipping Neons in the showrooms to get what I want.

WHIFF

OK, I'm a criminal. I have a superchips programmer in my Ferd. When I go to the dealer, I tune it back to stock. Not to fool the dealer, but in the event they reprogram my chip with new software, I don't want to lose the ability to re-tune it. I am not the type who would take mods off (other than deprogramming my computer chip back to stock) in order to "force" the dealer to honor the warranty, but if warranty work is done on my Ferd when I take it in, I will not lose the slightest amount of sleep over it. I just don't want a useless piece of $350 electronics when I get my vehicle back from the dealer!
OK, Gary, I might be walking (or crossing) a black or even grey line, but that's just my $.02.
As far as the Dodge is concerned, I have been out of the warranty window for over a year. I am prepared to pay.

LE

Seems about an even split on this topic, who thinks what and how people feel individually. How Ironic is this, a topic on the Dieselram website where a guy had his warranty voided because of a fuel additive? I know some of us are running way beyond the intended parameters of the Trucks we drive. That is not the point. The POINT is this is a scenario CREATED by all dealers (good and bad) in the interest of saving money. When it comes to the dalers, you just don't know what you are going to get.
I don't think anybody would argue that we have all seen lift pumps dead on trucks, both heavily modified and bone stock. Is it right that unless or until the dealer has an absolute concrete explanation / analysis, they deny some (modified) and not others? This is not theft, it is manipulation of a broken system. The dealers do it because they have been told to do it (by DC). Customers do it as a reaction to the dealers. Why should a consumer be able to go through numerous lift pumps and get every one warranteed when another individual in a "mildly" modified (EZ only) truck get stuck with a bill. Sounds to me like the "performance minded" user gets to pay for everybody elses mishaps and / or misfortune. Is that the way the system was intended to work? I would have to think not.
Most Cummins owners are able to define what the consequences of their own modifications are. We are not all certified Cummins technicians, but it doesn't take a PHd in Nuclear Physics to figure out a lift pump failure does not directly (or otherwise) correlate to the installation or use of an aftermarket airfilter. Until this "game" that is perpetuated by the dealers is either 1) played on a level playing field or 2) stopped altogether, than this line will continue to be crossed by owners such as myself. Can I sleep at night, ABSOLUTELY. If you think this makes me dishonest, than I think you may need some additional help. Either way I can probably live with it.
Things are not all about me (or any one individual), but if I spend my cash on a Cummins, I expect it to perform to a certain standard. If it fails because of a poor design (ie. lift pumps, transmissions etc.), I expect DC to make things correct. That is pretty much black and white. If I break something, and it is directly related to my Mods, I will take responsibility for it. I don't think anyone here expects anything more, do you?
Believe it or not, some of us are fairly proactive about failures. There are several people (myself included) who are spending money out of their own pocket to avoid inherent design flaws, and asking for nothing in return. Pusher pumps are a perfect example. If somebody who has a stock truck installs a pusher pump in hopes of prolonging the Injection pump, how can you view that as theft or fraud if the VP goes? Is it right to ask the owner to pay for it because he was proactive? There seems to be a significant amount of grey areas that are not so black and white. Think about some of these before making hard and fast statements. It may save a lot of argument / debate and bad feelings. LE