Your fears are understandable Fastcoupe. However Nikon's link shows there are laws that help protect us the consumers, especially on products where a warranty is provided. In many cases multiple warranties are provided, such as Hyundai's various limited warranties. For example Hyundai has these warranties: Powertrain (10yr/100k), New Vehicle (5yr/60k), Anti-Perforation (7 yr/unlimited mile), Replacement Parts/Accessory (1yr/12k) and Emmision/Performance warranty (8yr/80k).
So what does all this really mean? Well you are free to install or modify your car as you please but if a dealership finds that your modification was the direct cause of a malfunction then they do not have to honor the warranty for that specific claim. However, they can not say your Cold Air Intake was the cause of your anti-lock brake computer breaking, or they can not say your aftermarket exhaust caused your air conditioning to stop working and they can not say in generalities that because you have modified or have aftermarket parts on your car they do not have to honor warranty work.
Another added benefit is that the dealerships can not deny your warranty claims because you did not get service through them or because you didn't buy a Hyundai oil filter.
The flip side is if you swap in a bigger turbo and you are making 500 HP and then go blow your engine up because the fuel pump died, they can now say that your modification was directly (fully or even partially) the cause of this engine failure and you would be SOL, warranty claim denied.
Now I have seen cases where a dealership is very nice and they will help you out even when you have mods that could have been partially the cause of a failure. For instance my brother's SRT-4 is modified (reflashed, exhaust, big intercooler) and makes around 260hp to the wheels. One of his axles broke, could have been a fluke, maybe it was the auto crossing, maybe the drag strip abuse, who knows. Now the dealership could have been jerks about this and said "you are making more power than the stock parts were designed to handle and that is why your axle pre-maturely broke. we're not covering this", but they were cool and replaced it no questions asked. They replaced both sides actually. Basically this shows that some dealerships are nicer than others so ask questions find out which ones are cool.... We'll be setting up a section for dealership reviews and a place to report mod friendly dealerships so everyone can know which ones to avoid and which ones to support. Hopefully by creating such a section it will give a dealership incentive to provide good service as well.
So what does all this really mean? Well you are free to install or modify your car as you please but if a dealership finds that your modification was the direct cause of a malfunction then they do not have to honor the warranty for that specific claim. However, they can not say your Cold Air Intake was the cause of your anti-lock brake computer breaking, or they can not say your aftermarket exhaust caused your air conditioning to stop working and they can not say in generalities that because you have modified or have aftermarket parts on your car they do not have to honor warranty work.
Another added benefit is that the dealerships can not deny your warranty claims because you did not get service through them or because you didn't buy a Hyundai oil filter.
The flip side is if you swap in a bigger turbo and you are making 500 HP and then go blow your engine up because the fuel pump died, they can now say that your modification was directly (fully or even partially) the cause of this engine failure and you would be SOL, warranty claim denied.
Now I have seen cases where a dealership is very nice and they will help you out even when you have mods that could have been partially the cause of a failure. For instance my brother's SRT-4 is modified (reflashed, exhaust, big intercooler) and makes around 260hp to the wheels. One of his axles broke, could have been a fluke, maybe it was the auto crossing, maybe the drag strip abuse, who knows. Now the dealership could have been jerks about this and said "you are making more power than the stock parts were designed to handle and that is why your axle pre-maturely broke. we're not covering this", but they were cool and replaced it no questions asked. They replaced both sides actually. Basically this shows that some dealerships are nicer than others so ask questions find out which ones are cool.... We'll be setting up a section for dealership reviews and a place to report mod friendly dealerships so everyone can know which ones to avoid and which ones to support. Hopefully by creating such a section it will give a dealership incentive to provide good service as well.
