sleeperZ96BT

This may be very common knowledge to some/most, but I just spoke with my local MB, who is a Renntech dealer, and they definitively told me that if I bought the tune and had them install it that ANY issue that COULD be tied to the tune, even if the tune did not actually cause it, would not be covered (engine, trans, axles explicitly mentioned). This is based on a call from them to MB directly.


I only state the obvious because I have only seen these cloudy, veiled answers by members when newbies like myself asked if an MB dealer selling a tune would not void your warranty.


Basically, if your dealer is telling you their vendor sponsored tune is covered by warranty it's either one of two things:


1) they are covering it out of their pockets (or defrauding MB if there's an issue and getting it covered)


2) if there's an issue you will be up sh*ts creak and they are full of said sh*t


Anyways, real life experience straight from the horses mouth.....I have it all in email from a service tech.


Hope this helps any other newbies like me debating a tune while under warranty........like I stated in the title, it may be obvious to some, but I see enough of these posts that it isn't to everyone. Not trying to start a sh*tstorm argument or anything, just sharing my experience.


Brian

belarus27

So all these ppl with tunes are not covered by the warranty if anything happened? Because dealer can relate that isssue as a tune issue?
no way...

thefisch

Swim at your own risk

sleeperZ96BT

According to one Renntech dealer in MA (there's only one), yes, as the fisch said, swim at your own risk. The big if being IF they can find the tune.

PaulE550

There is no such thing as invisible or undetectable software. Take it from someone in the software business. The dealer may not have the tools to detect it locally, but MB corporate certainly does. If MB is looking at a potentially big ticket warranty issue where they suspect vehicle modification, the ECU will likely get pulled by the dealer and then shipped to corporate for analysis.

PaulE550

Well said.

belarus27

Sh*t is crazy

Royce118

Although I am not from the States. I can confirm this applies to the Southeast Asia region as well.

Calvin0433

Yep my warranty just expired on my 2014 but I have an aftermarket one. If something did happen how would the warranty company find the tune? Would the shop I take the car to send it over or what? I'm thinking of getting Renntechs or AMS's tune. Might be a stupid question but it seems like the warranty question would just be with the factory. Thanks

cocobeex

i still don't get why people think their car is covered under warranty if its tuned.

Why would manufacturer cover something that you physically mod the hardware/software of a product to go beyond its capability ??

Lets say,
you are selling a product that can only resist 100c temp, but your client modded the product and causing a melt down.
Would you warranty for him ???
Cars are way more complicated than that...Dealers will relate issue to any possibility of the mod, in order for them not to cost $$$ I think...


for example, My car is heavily modded. Exhaust and engine rev is totally different than stock. Dealer would notice right the way for sure.

cocobeex

Its possible they might take your ECU to any shop that can read your ECU.

If you are warranty company, Would you do a full record check up ?
Just to save cost from any possible mod from your client ?

But of course, there are some lazy companies might not go that route.

sleeperZ96BT

This is the other myth - that a dealer can't see your tune. While factually correct (i.e. there is no flag or warning that it has been modified) you are also correct that if there's a massive claim coming they may physically look at the code to see what parameters are different then stock. Whether they take this step or not may be a crapshoot, but they can certainly see the tune in the programming.


Now, there are certainly ways around it (keep a stock ECM/reflash to stock) but I would bet they could detect that reflash anyways.

PaulE550

Read the exclusionary terms and items of your after-market warranty. I seriously doubt they are willing to cover any truly expensive failures to your vehicle due to anything that can be remotely related / traced to third-party performance modifications. For small ticket items that might fail, I doubt anyone would care. However, that is usually not the expense most people are concerned about when talking about needing or wanting a warranty.

As Cocobeex laid out in his analogy, your vehicle was designed to function using a certain set of operating parameters. By tuning your vehicle, you are changing the operational parameters and inducing increased stress / load on various vehicle components beyond what the manufacturer intended. So if you want to tune your vehicle, you should be prepared to pay for any substantial vehicle repairs yourself should anything major fail. It's called pay to play.

PaulE550

I would expect that MB can certainly read the number of times a ECU has been flashed and compare it against the count it should be relative to service bulletins and any other factory authorized updates applied to the vehicle. The only way to go around that would be swapping out the factory ECU with a second tuned ECU. Then again, I would have to think there is a run-time counter that tracks how long the vehicle has be operating in either miles or time. The equivalent of a master clock for operational life of the vehicle. Comparing that value to the vehicle's odometer and looking for a significant calculated difference from the expected value could be telling as well. Again, the larger the potential warranty repair bill, the more digging MB would likely be willing to do.

Obviously if your original ECU ever failed and MB replaced it, they would note that in their service system, so they would know the calculated offset between the counters in the ECU and the vehicle's odometer for future warranty / service work.

Airmousam

I would agree they can tell. I have a tuned 550 and flash back to stock any time the car heads to the dealer...I'm sure they tell if they needed to. I think MB not covering a warr applies to items beyond a tune to...lowering, exhaust mods etc...if those in fact are related to whatever the problem might be

Calvin0433

Thanks for the input everyone!