BMW dealerships did (do?) install Dinan aftermarket equipment, and from the end user perspective, you still had the full vehicle warranty. What happened is that your BMW warranty was in fact voided, but Dinan picked up the warranty not just for the Dinan parts but also for your engine. The good part about the arrangement was that the end user was covered no matter what, which made the proposition of having the dealer install Dinan aftermarket equipment a lot more appealing.

Under this arrangement, AFAIK Dinan was the ONLY aftermarket company that would pick up the tab for your engine if it failed and you had dealer-installed Dinan software. No other tuner that I know of has ever done this before or since. I am not talking about the likes of Alpina or Brabus who would essentially modify the original vehicle so much that it was a different car and not even represented as a BMW or Merc.

Also, no vehicle manufacturer that I know of has ever warrantied any aftermarket modification or a failure in OEM parts (like your stock engine) if the same could have conceivably been caused by an installed aftermarket modification (your tune).

A number of Audi dealers tried something similar with Stasis, however, unlike Dinan Stasis did not pick up the warranty for the rest of the car, and when a failure did occur you were screwed as neither Audi nor Stasis would pick up the tab. I suspect this is also the case of an MB dealer selling and installing Renntech or any other aftermarket equipment. Like all others, the MB factory warranty is voided the moment you put an aftermarket tune on the car, and I suspect that Renntech will not warrant the engine on your car for the reminder of the factory warranty period.

As for BMW dealers installing Dinan equipment, I am not sure if this is still a blossoming relationship as a couple of years ago the word from BMW HO was that the Dinan mods were eating into their own market for higher-end models (people buying Dinan-modded 335is instead of M3s for example).

 

No tune is covered by MB..whoever told you that is drunk..my car is at MB right now and they wouldn't even work on it until I put the factory tune file on...and they dont even care I modd it, it's HQ in toronto that told them not to touch it until stock file is back on, So I highly doubt any MB dealer would put on a tune and cover it seeing the dealer I'm dealing with is getting told from MB HQ in toronto to not touch my car if it has the tune file on it, i don't have a warranty on my car either and i own it right out and they still told me that

 

ironically enough, there is a mb dealer here in my neck of the woods that actually is ok with renntech tunes. not advertised but once you know them well enough and ask about it, they will connect you.

my guess is that on a MB corp level, they do not support tunes. However, at the dealership level, you might find some that is more open minded.


on a side note, I had a great discussion with the head tech at a mb dealership last year, he said his previous mb dealer in another country would install aftermarket bodykits as well. obviously, a premium is charged. I think its just a MB dealer catering it is local demographic.

 

Aren't most of the MB dealerships somewhat privately owned? I only know 1 or 2 that are actually owned by MB. If this is the case it's pretty much up to each dealer what they want to provide warranty for? To the best of my knowledge if something needs to be covered under warranty, let's say the headers issue, all MB could do is just cover the expenditure and send the bill to MB for reimbursement. The same thing applies to buying a CPO warranty from MB. Am I correct on this or am I way off?

 

The dealers themselves do not warranty anything. When a dealership services your car under warranty, the dealership gets paid for the work by MB.

In Toronto all seven MB dealerships are corporate owned, although Toronto is the exception rather than the norm. Most car dealerships (MB or other brands) are privately owned, but again, it's not the dealer that provides the warranty. The dealer does the work and submits the bill for the parts and labour to the manufacturer, so at the end of the day the only thing that matters is whether the manufacturer will cover the cost of the repairs - and no car manufacturer ever will spend money on fixing your engine if you were running an aftermarket tune. Period. Even in the case of BMW and Dinan, it was Dinan who provided the powertrain warranty for the duration of the original BMW warranty, so the dealer invoiced Dinan for the work instead of BMW.

Some dealers may be more "mod-friendly" than others, but when it comes to picking up the tab for the repairs, unless the company making the mod (whether it's Dinan, Renntech or anyone else) is willing to pay for your repairs, it is you and YOU ALONE that's going to be on the hook. And, last time I checked, no aftermarket performance company except for Dinan has ever had a warranty policy that said "if any part of your drivetrain fails we'll pick up the tab for the repairs". The dealer certainly isn't going to pony up the cash and neither will MB.

 

Question: how can a dealer detect a tune (under what conditions would they check) and has anyone ever been busted for a tune by the dealer? When I go in for standard warranty service, will they check?

 

pretty sure they'd be more concerned with that h-pipe and res delete vs a tune

 

Tunes can be detected by the dealer, when you car is in service there is a good chance that the tune would not be detected. However, if there is a Warranty Claim or if something substantially has gone wrong with your car, they will do a full read of the ECU. This is when they will know a new file has been written to the ECU.

I say this from experience!!!

 

As TUF-C63 said, the dealers don't routinely spend any time looking for ECU tunes or any other mods for that matter. However, if there is some kind of catastrophic (read: expensive) failure that MB would have to pay for, MB will require of the dealer to do a full read of the ECU and send the data to their head office for analysis before the repair is authorised (and the engineers at AMG can easily detect any tampering with the ECU code). Again, this won't happen unless you're bringing in the car for warranty work on a component that may be affected by the ECU tune.