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Warranties are controversial at best. You have the right to improve your vehicle under the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act of 1975. Some dealers want to play god and wave their magic wand and say you have no warranty now. But that's not how it works; they have to prove in writing that what you added caused some stock part to fail. If they threaten you, usually just asking them to put it in writing will reverse their threats, and if you have a good relationship with your auto dealer, they may go to bat for you and not have a problem. But if it gets complicated, you have to decide if want to defend your rights or don't want the hassle should a question come up. I get asked this question a lot with chips, micro turners and washable high flow air filter kits. The only time I’ve seen a problem with air intake systems is when someone puts too much oil on a filter after they have washed it. Then the oil can get into the intake manifold and collect dirt. But what if the oil wasn’t in the intake tube, would the dirt just to straight to the engine? And with micro tuners, it's possible to turn up the power enough to start damaging transmissions, u-joints, axles etc. So common sense leads the way to how far you can go. Rights are like women, forget about them and you loose them. The Federal
Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act Does Not Apply to Leased Vehicles.
I'm often asked about with modifications to your truck and how it effects your trucks warranty. In a nutshell, there is a law that aftermarket dealers quote often, Magnuson-Moss Warranty Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act of 1975, which spells out your rights with warranties. The basic things you had to worry about when modifying your truck was not to change the emissions settings and for a dealer to deny you warranty work, they had to prove your modifications caused the failure not just claim it did. But now a new victory for dealers that might affect the rest of us. For you folks modifying your trucks that are being leased, you want to be careful. The New York Supreme Court recently ruled in three cases all with Daimler Chrysler as defendant, that leased vehicles are not protected by the Federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. The high court ruled the law only pertains to purchased vehicles. But if you purchased your truck, you do have the lawful rights to modify your truck if it doesn't change the emissions of the vehicle or if the accessory you added doesn't damage the factory components. Here are links to help you make decisions on adding aftermarket accessories to your Truck. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/warranty.htm http://www.mlmlaw.com/library/guides/ftc/warranties/undermag.htm http://www.1st-in-synthetics.com/warranty.htm http://www.goldenram.com/Press/magmossact.asp http://www.freeadvice.com/gov_material/ftc-business-guide-to-fed-warranty-law-into-5-87.htm |