GM Voids Warranty because GMC Terrain owner changed own oil

[M.alex]

Originally posted by THE GOVERNATOR
plus you won't have old oil an filters in your garage.

that's what the sewer is for.

[Supa Dexta]

^I love.. Oh no, wait, I hate - how you always troll around thinking you are edgy and cool..Or is it funny you aim for?

You never were and you can't fake it online..

Eat a dick.

[dj_rice]

Originally posted by thetransporter


my new signature.^

how many old changes does one need within 7000km ?

I may be wrong about the mileage. I just heard about the incident vaguely.

[r3ccOs]

I bought my Altima used, and it had 50kish on the odo, and with it I bought a FCPP warranty on it

changed the oil every 5k, using mr. lube or whatnot, synthetic...

by 90k the vq35de ended up with cam phaser wear issues and they wanted proof of oil change maintenance every 5k, since the car was bought... ever

I had proof of what I had, since I bought the vehicle from the dealer, but they said its in the fine print that any claim can be subject to as much proof of maintenance as they "require" for that claim.

as such, any 3rd party warranty is bs and a waste of money, especially when they don't tell you this stuff when you buy it, from a dealer authorized to sell it to you, even when the vehicle is "factory certified pre-owned"

so I changed my engine (a loss of 4k for the install, and another $1200 for the 3rd party warranty that did nothing) and now my own oil.


My Volvo on the other hand... I have to take it into Valentine and it costs $189... because well... they charge individually for the filter, lube, tire rotation, inspection/time... but they do wash the car, and the maintenance is done every 12k...
but it sucks knowing I can do the same work, paying myself my salary rate for probably about half with the same oil and filter :P

the way around it is... do it yourself, but bring it in every 12 k, cause I never like to run oil, regardless of whatever these companies tell you, over 6k... BUT with volvo, the late model cars are a pain.. they use locking torx to remove the skid plates that is required to get to the drain plug... and a set is expensive from snapon :P
also you need a stupid tool to remove the oil filter itself... mine is on order http://www.ipdusa.com/products/5585/...ter-cap-wrench

Even if you run mobile 1, royal purple/amsoil, a number of mechanics have told me that these extended intervals that all these companies are now pushing their cars to... i.e. BMW, Volvo, GM etc... are causing premature wear on basically all internal componants, which present themselves usually just after powertrain warranty wears out

that terrain probably uses the GM ecotech 2.4 engine that's leveraged everywhere... while not a bad engine, the oil change interval is probably close to 10k if you follow their "oil% indicator" and I know a couple people with that engine who follow that guide, and have bad sounding lifters already, and both cars are less than 80k on the odometer.

[SJW]

Originally posted by Duckman


That's too bad. Mine uses exactly zero between changes and I drive it like a pursuit special. Just coming up to 60K in less than 15 months though.

You wait. Mine started doing this at 80K.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

Originally posted by r3ccOs
I bought my Altima used, and it had 50kish on the odo, and with it I bought a FCPP warranty on it

changed the oil every 5k, using mr. lube or whatnot, synthetic...

by 90k the vq35de ended up with cam phaser wear issues and they wanted proof of oil change maintenance every 5k, since the car was bought... ever

I had proof of what I had, since I bought the vehicle from the dealer, but they said its in the fine print that any claim can be subject to as much proof of maintenance as they "require" for that claim.

as such, any 3rd party warranty is bs and a waste of money, especially when they don't tell you this stuff when you buy it, from a dealer authorized to sell it to you, even when the vehicle is "factory certified pre-owned"

so I changed my engine (a loss of 4k for the install, and another $1200 for the 3rd party warranty that did nothing) and now my own oil.


My Volvo on the other hand... I have to take it into Valentine and it costs $189... because well... they charge individually for the filter, lube, tire rotation, inspection/time... but they do wash the car, and the maintenance is done every 12k...
but it sucks knowing I can do the same work, paying myself my salary rate for probably about half with the same oil and filter :P

the way around it is... do it yourself, but bring it in every 12 k, cause I never like to run oil, regardless of whatever these companies tell you, over 6k... BUT with volvo, the late model cars are a pain.. they use locking torx to remove the skid plates that is required to get to the drain plug... and a set is expensive from snapon :P
also you need a stupid tool to remove the oil filter itself... mine is on order http://www.ipdusa.com/products/5585/...ter-cap-wrench

Even if you run mobile 1, royal purple/amsoil, a number of mechanics have told me that these extended intervals that all these companies are now pushing their cars to... i.e. BMW, Volvo, GM etc... are causing premature wear on basically all internal componants, which present themselves usually just after powertrain warranty wears out

that terrain probably uses the GM ecotech 2.4 engine that's leveraged everywhere... while not a bad engine, the oil change interval is probably close to 10k if you follow their "oil% indicator" and I know a couple people with that engine who follow that guide, and have bad sounding lifters already, and both cars are less than 80k on the odometer.

.

[sputnik]

I don't understand why people are mad at GM here.

Should GM warranty their engines if I just TELL them that I changed my own oil?

It is quite simple. If you have a warranty, let the guys you expect to honour your warranty do the work they require for the warranty.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

Originally posted by sputnik
I don't understand why people are mad at GM here.

Should GM warranty their engines if I just TELL them that I changed my own oil?

It is quite simple. If you have a warranty, let the guys you expect to honour your warranty do the work they require for the warranty.

I dont think anyone is mad at GM here. The guy from the story probably is but really at 155000km and he only has "hand written" oil change receipts what does he expect?

[msommers]

Before I picked up my 4Runner, I called every single dealership in town to ask them about this kind of thing. All said the same thing: keep an organized booklet of all your receipts indicating mileage in the book and on the receipts. Toyota even offers a service schedule on their website which I use and print off at each interval, plus FSM instructions regarding each item that needs to be checked/replaced. Short of taking a video doing all the work, I'm covered.

I don't think greasy hands would indicate proper maintenance Not sure what this guy was thinking. Good luck in court!

[spikerS]

ok, I agree with everyone in here, but to stimulate thought and debate, I want to pose this question.

Would it not be up to GM to honor the warranty, and find out if the issue was from improper maintainance, or if there was a faulty part, or other influences to this, instead of just outright denying the claim? I mean, if there is a crack in a connecting rod, and it finally lets lose at 30,000kms, no amount of oil changes would stop that from happening...Instead, dealers just use the no receipts as a blanket reason for denial...

Discuss!

[FraserB]

Originally posted by spikers
ok, I agree with everyone in here, but to stimulate thought and debate, I want to pose this question.

Would it not be up to GM to honor the warranty, and find out if the issue was from improper maintainance, or if there was a faulty part, or other influences to this, instead of just outright denying the claim? I mean, if there is a crack in a connecting rod, and it finally lets lose at 30,000kms, no amount of oil changes would stop that from happening...Instead, dealers just use the no receipts as a blanket reason for denial...

Discuss!

Not really, it's common knowledge (especially for a mechanic) that you need to do oil changes. Having a provision of your warranty that says you have to do very basic upkeep to maintain warranty is 100% fine. Not being able to provide receipts is basically admitting that you don't do maintainance. And customer abuse should never be covered.

If he is this ignorant about his own vehicle, imagine the crap work he must do on other people's.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

Originally posted by spikers
ok, I agree with everyone in here, but to stimulate thought and debate, I want to pose this question.

Would it not be up to GM to honor the warranty, and find out if the issue was from improper maintainance, or if there was a faulty part, or other influences to this, instead of just outright denying the claim? I mean, if there is a crack in a connecting rod, and it finally lets lose at 30,000kms, no amount of oil changes would stop that from happening...Instead, dealers just use the no receipts as a blanket reason for denial...

Discuss!

Yes but the customer has to preauthorize us for engine teardown before hand in case it turns out it isnt warranty, and it sounds like this guy didnt want to do that.

[spikerS]

Originally posted by FraserB


Not really, it's common knowledge (especially for a mechanic) that you need to do oil changes. Having a provision of your warranty that says you have to do very basic upkeep to maintain warranty is 100% fine. Not being able to provide receipts is basically admitting that you don't do maintainance. And customer abuse should never be covered.

If he is this ignorant about his own vehicle, imagine the crap work he must do on other people's.

but not having the receipts is NOT an indication that the maintenance was not done, it is an indication of not having receipts.

As I stated in my example, a hairline crack in a connecting rod finally lets go at 30k kms, this is something service intervals would never catch, nor be able to prevent. Why should his claim be denied then because he can't provide oil change receipts?

[spikerS]

Originally posted by Twin_Cam_Turbo


Yes but the customer has to preauthorize us for engine teardown before hand in case it turns out it isnt warranty, and it sounds like this guy didnt want to do that.

Ahhh, ok. That does make sense, and I am cool with that. I figured that would be the case.

[w_man]

You guys are lucky - In the UAE, you MUST bring your car to the dealership for all maintenance/service or the warranty is void. Forget doing it yourself and maintaining records, you can't even take it to any other shop, keep receipts etc.

That's the case for all the dealerships; Honda, Toyota, Mercedes ...

[lilmira]

I thought they just buy new cars. What oil change?

[CapnCrunch]

Originally posted by FraserB


Not being able to provide receipts is basically admitting that you don't do maintainance.

I don't agree with this at all. I buy my oil filters online 12 at a time and use them for both my truck and my wifes car. I buy synthetic oil on sale and stock up.

So I have a receipt from Jan 2012 for oil filters and another receipt from July for oil. Does that mean I haven't changed my oil filter in the past year? Or changed my oil since July? Smarten up.

Regardless, I don't buy GM's and have never had an issue with warranty claims.

I think the lesson here is GM dealers are complete garbage, and no matter what GM does to improve its image and quality, the dealerships are destroying everything they're working to change.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

Originally posted by CapnCrunch
I think the lesson here is GM dealers are complete garbage, and no matter what GM does to improve its image and quality, the dealerships are destroying everything they're working to change.

Where the hell do you get this from? The dealer is acting in GMs best interest to have the proper documents and authorization from the customer before tearing down the engine. If they tear it down and find GM wont cover anything under warranty and the customer never authorized them to tear it down in the case it was not warranty, why should the dealer pay for that?

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by CapnCrunch


I don't agree with this at all. I buy my oil filters online 12 at a time and use them for both my truck and my wifes car. I buy synthetic oil on sale and stock up.

So I have a receipt from Jan 2012 for oil filters and another receipt from July for oil. Does that mean I haven't changed my oil filter in the past year? Or changed my oil since July? Smarten up.

Regardless, I don't buy GM's and have never had an issue with warranty claims.

I think the lesson here is GM dealers are complete garbage, and no matter what GM does to improve its image and quality, the dealerships are destroying everything they're working to change.

You should still document your oil change though. Take a photo or two, including one of your odometer at the time of the oil change.

You've probably never had a problem with warranty claims, because you haven't had a blown engine, lol. I think most stealerships would demand some oil change evidence if it came to replacing an engine.

edit: But I do agree, GM's are shit, and I hate them all past '72 (with the 'vette being the exception)

[CapnCrunch]

Originally posted by Twin_Cam_Turbo


Where the hell do you get this from? The dealer is acting in GMs best interest to have the proper documents and authorization from the customer before tearing down the engine. If they tear it down and find GM wont cover anything under warranty and the customer never authorized them to tear it down in the case it was not warranty, why should the dealer pay for that?

First, the article mentions NOTHING about this guy not authorizing them to do a tear down.

Second, from the article, "The onus of responsibility is not on the victim, it’s on the seller of the product"

So in closing, stop making shit up, and try learning how the legal aspects of a vehicle warranty works.