I have a ? for anyone that knows. Will mods to the suspension , like lowering or jacking it up, cancel out the entire warranty. I called the service manager here in Cape and he told me it would. But, he is a ***** and I don't know if I beleive him or not. Someone please help me with this. I can't afford to lose the 7/70 and the 3/36.

 

Magnusson Moss warranty act.

Read it.

Also, I would recommend bringing a copy of this to him and telling the fucer to read it, and never **** with someone elses warranty, because thats what he is doing, being a dick and taking advantage of those who DON'T know about this.

 

They can't void your entire warranty. They can however void suspension (which you are changing anyway) and will try to void differential warrantee's if the hieght of the truck is changed (hense driveshaft angle changes). When I lowered my GTO Pontiac tried to (and for the most part was successful) void the warranty on my rear diff when it started making noise. They did this even though the rear ends were known for going bad in stock set ups. MOST not all dealerships hate doing warranty work as they make less money than they would if you paid for it. I eventually got diff fixed, but you really have to fight sometimes (took me 4 months).

 

As long as your aftermarket parts to not CAUSE the problem, it should be warrantied.

For instance, if the factory can prove your gas engine went lean and scored a piston (and you have a programmer) - they can reject warranty because its very very likely the chip is what caused the lean situation.

Another thing that nobody seems to understand is the dealer doesnt decide what warranty will/won't pay for.. that all comes from above. i.e. the factory.

 

I agree with all you had to say right up until you said the dealer doesn't decide. On my GTO, 2 dealers declined to work on my car. The third one I went to actually sold and installed all the same items I had on my car (they did not install them though). They said the other dealers reasons for my cars problems were not valid and repaired my car under warranty. The guidelines are written by the factory, but the decision to work on car is icompletely in the dealers hands when it comes to mods. The dealer that fixed my car explained this to me in detail. Make no mistake, the dealers only get about 75% of the amount they would get through warranty repairs as opposed to the amount they would get from you. This is not a fabricated fact.

 

What he said... I had a local dealershid deny warranty on my hemi when my axle snapped after a rear end gear swap. Called DC corporate and they said sorry, it is the dealers choice on this one.

 

Ok, you guys are correct...
But there is no reason DCX had to know about these aftermarket parts....at least that is the way I look at it.

I would have no problem replacing a broken axle on a new vehicle with a suspension kit on it - as long as the AXLE itself wasn't modified...because if we need to return the part to DCX (rare, but it does happen) and they can tell it was caused by mods then we don't get paid.

Personally I think your dealership was being "*****-ish" about not warrantying your axle, they were in the right - but it still could have been done.

I konw I am not making sense of this - but warranty isn't just a fix-don't fix process - its really very very complicated on the dealer's end to get paid by DCX.


Also, as far as getting paid only 75% of retail v. warranty - I don't know what percentage I would call it - but warranty pays FAR less than a retail repair....
Parts mark-up is much much less.
Hourly rate is much less.
Flat rate is rediculous compared to Chilton or Motor. (a 2.0hr job by Chilton flat-rates at .7 by Chrysler -- sometimes)

 

I will give you all the dodgedlr... in fact it makes the rest of my story make more sense... I had the truck towed to the harest dodge house (who suck) under the watrranty and they said that it was accident damage caused partially by the mods and that i must have hit a curb. My point then was, ok no I did not, and even if I did why is my truck which is a work vehicle breaking a major componenet when it taps a curb?... why is solld steel breaking when rubber (my tire what would have actually hit the curb) is not getting gouged up or torn? They said we are standing by what we said and you are going to have to file it on your insurance.

So I did. Had my insurance coverage roadside assitance tow the truck to the local chrysler/jeep dealership from the dodge dealership. The dodge service manager called and said why you doing thuis, you are a long term customer we have always worked on your truck... and I said, because you called me a liar.

After that any time one of my fleet vehicles had to be repaired or serviced and I called for an authorisation for repair from the lease company I would specify that I did not want to use that dealership (I work as a dispatcher so have direct control over a few dozen vehicles)... and apparently they also pissed of our fleet managers too (or just were too expensive), because shortly thereafter we stopped taking all fleet vehicles there.

**** off enough people yhou eventually are going to screw with someone who can hit back a little.

 

I don't have any big fleet customers like yourself... but I like to think I treat all my customers as though they were.
I know, I don't mean to defend all other dealerships - I know full well there are terrible service depts out there - I have dealt with them myself - especially Landmark Dodge in KC. Yes I called them by name - they were that bad when I had MY vehicle in there as I was driving through KC.

 

I think when it comes to pickups, warranty work can be a tough call period. A lot of trucks are used for utility purposes or taken off road from time to time, not the type of use a car might see so there could be more opportunity for something outside a manufacturer defect that could possibly go wrong. A good dealer will take care of you as long as it doesn't look like the vehicle has been abused...