When is it EVER a necessity to take your car to the stealership

very rarely are there cars that cannot be serviced by indie shops. i guess electrics for now but indies are getting the equipment and expertise to deal with those too

Once fully electric cars enter the mid-price sedan market (which they will very soon), it will probably be easier to do self-repairs on them.

I guess on topic

>Bought used Subaru Legacy
>Being a dumbass I also bought the warranty
>Would hear a crunching noise whenever my foot was on the brake and I turned the steering wheel left
>Was most likely the tierod ends
>Checked, boots were shot
>Alright. So I can take it in to the dealer and have them fix it for free or I can pay for the parts.
>Took it into the dealer
>They kept the car for a month and a half
>Refused to give it back
>Gave me a loaner 2012 ford fusion ecoboost
>Only after I threw the biggest shitfit 2weeks into the 'servicing'
>Get my Subaru back
>"Yeah so we replaced the power steering system"
>"We also broke _____ but you wanted the car back soon so"
>I asked why the power steering system
>"Well there was metal in the filter"
>"So the total is going to be $2600"
>No fucking way, fuck you. I have a warranty that specifically states POWER STEERING SYSTEM FULL COVERAGE
>"O-oh well then it's going to be $100 for the deductable"
>Okay fuck you just give me my fucking car back

Pieces of shit. First and last time I've ever taken a car to the dealership to get serviced. Bob Penkhus is the biggest pile of shit, I really hope other dealerships aren't like this.

Are you retarded? Recalls are usually for shit that will kill you if they're not fixed. If it was an obvious flaw the manufacturer/the previous owner/you would've already fixed it.

Go get it fixed and stop playing games with your life.

>Recalls are usually for shit that will kill you
Definitely not usually. Majority of recalls are for quality control things.

>losing coolant, don't know why
>bmw, so free diagnostics at stealership
>found out that one of the main hoses has frayed to hell
>they want $500 for replacement
>for a $70 fix
>buy the hose from a website
>arrives in a few days
>me and dad open up hood, replace hose within an hour
>good as new, no more coolant loss
How much fucking training do you even need to replace a fucking coolant hose? Do you need to be BMW certified to pull out tabs and shit? They even tried upsell me, said that it's a """good""" idea to replace every other hose anyway, for $2000. what the fuck

For absolute bitchwork that you don't want to put a mechanic through, dealerships are great for. For example, the diesel Fords that require you to literally remove the cab from the frame to service the turbo. IF you could find an aftermarket shop to do that, you'll be out of a vehicle for a bit. The dealership, however, will probably charge a bit more, and should have it back to you lots quicker if they do them enough.

Also warranty and recall work. That shits free, you might as well do it.

>for service?
Anything to do with the computer in the car

Only the big computer with proprietary software in a dealership can fix some issues

The computer in my moms Cadi stopped "seeing" the catalytic converter and O2 sensors, would throw a bitch fit and not go over 40MPH

After determining that the cat and sensors were fine... 15 minutes hooked up to the computer, a software tweet... and $200... and good as "new".

sigh

>People should do labor for free!!!!111
Also
>Bought a BMW
>Expects dealership service to be cheap

Also
>Bought a BMW

kek, I bet your ATF recombitator is worn out too.

If I can't fix it I just take it to my dealership.

I can afford it so why not. Yeah, probably losing a few dollars or a hundred but whatever. Very rarely do this.

>for service?

My local chevrolet dealership is always trying to find reasons to invalidate my warranty. Improper maintenance is one of those reasons. Just because maintenance was performed does not mean it was correctly performed. They also invalidate warranty based upon incorrect maintenance procedures or faulty equipment being used. They are pretty vicious about warranty disqualification at Good Chevrolet in Renton Washington on new cars. For good reason. They make far more profit on doing the same work on non-warranty cars.

Good Chevrolet really ruins for me the magic feeling of owning a new car with their greed. Their car repair service shop is pretty large and they get a lot of service business. It's always packed full. So I can understand there is a financial reason to prefer non-warranty work because in-warranty work means GM pays the repair costs and it is not possible to fool or defraud GM as to how much it costs or to fraudulently overcharge GM on the fees and amount of service time needed to perform the repairs.

>>dealership techs actually know how to do them correctly
>dealership techs
>doing things correctly

The problem is that if they do things incorrectly, they still charge you for their learning experience. That's because the total time in the shop is still charged to you. That's how it works at my local GM dealership

>Bob Penkhus is the biggest pile of shit, I really hope other dealerships aren't like this.

Good Chevrolet of Renton, Washington seems to be similar. That's why buying extended warranty coverage on new cars is a risky thing. What good is buying it when they find sneaky ways to cancel it on you? It's a very unfair feeling.

Because your dealer has plenty of business, it can afford to let warranty service jobs wait. So that may be why your car took over a month for servicing. It was probably waiting for an open slot when they had no out-of-warranty work left to do.

Your attorney general should have some rules for auto servicing to be done in a timely fashion. Taking a month is too long. You should look up the law and have the attorney general go to bat for you on that Subaru.

Try Titus will ford in Tacoma. Wouldn't honor the warranty on the brand new engine my dad payed 6k to have installed for my birthday. I wanted to throw acid in that faggots face.

Hi there,

Just so our good name isn't dragged through the mud, Good Chevrolet HONORED your warranty despite you having rounded off the oil drain screw and run the engine with low oil when you brought it in for service. You have been spreading your lies over the Internet and we are sick of seeing them!

I'm not that guy with the rounded oil drain screw. There's plenty of people you silence with lawyers and you can keep getting forum articles removed with lawyer threats though.

It does ruin the magic of buying my new car from Good Chevrolet just to have the warranty disqualification threat.

>Warranties
>Sorry Sir, the tech can't feel that vibration.
>Sorry Sir, the water pump is not part of the drivetrain.
>Sorry Sir, burning one quart of oil every 500 miles is within fatory spec.
>Sorry Sir, we don't accept store recepits as evidence of an oil change.
>Sorry Sir, the ECU shows that the car has exceeded 90 MPH.
>Sorry Sir, all of these transmissions shift hard.
>Sorry Sir, I know it's been a week, but we can't get to it until next Thursday.
>Sorry Sir, the tech found an un-approved modification.

How many miles?
Got one too, bought it with 36k.
Now have around 100k trouble free.

The majority of people don't even know what type of batteries are in their vibrators, and your expecting them to fuck around with high voltage DC? I've seen horrific repairs on USB charge cables, people are going to die if they fuck around with 400+ volts DC.

you think a average normie would know not to touch the orange wires?

This 100%. The only people that are going to be able to do repairs on electric cars are people who aren't retarded and able to repair cars currently.

Some dealerships are awful - like the Acura dealership in Salem, Oregon. All they want is your money.

You're better off finding a trust worthy mechanic through word of mouth. It is hard to do some servicing your self tho - like rotor resurfacing? How you gon do that huh? You need a mechanic.

>rotor resurfacing
I can get new rotors from RA for $18 ea. Why bother?

The dangerous aspects are ignored when People are desperate to try to get something to work. It's just like people using milk jugs to store transport or store gasoline. Need trumps safety.

>quality control

>yaris seat recall is for slider lock that could break in an accident, let seat slide freely
>Sienna rubber oil cooler pipe that can burst, recall replaces with metal
>SC430/Tundra airbag replacement
>Tacoma frame/leaf spring replacement because shit was rusting out/puncture gas tank

This shit can kill you, and this is Toyota alone. There is minor QC things like switches and trim, but if it's free, just fucking do it and decline if they try to sell you on service.

What is the point of your post?

>just fucking do it
FAGGOT

I need to take my car to a dealership that has a digital laser alignment rack if i ever mess with the suspension

Any tuning needs to be done by a shop with an awd dyno

Don't forget that for most car manufacturers, the mere presence of a recall indicates that by their own estimation, carrying out the recall will cost less than the litigation that would ensue from not fixing the issue (even with an army of elite lawyers).

Who said not to do it? I said that the majority of recalls aren't for safety critical fixes. They're for shit going wrong that shouldn't and that if they don't fix, they'll be sued for.

Nice link.

I work with QC and inspection of mechanical parts from china and can confirm they are unreliable as fuck.

>Business
>they want my money

No shit. That's what businesses do.

Resale value which you're really going to damage around here if you don't have a full service record even on everyman cars because nobody wants to buy a shiny turd with hidden faults. Of course this only goes for a certain age range which increases with higher original value.

>a full service record
Why is a dealership required for that?

There's an interesting website called China Law Blog that discusses many legal issues involved with doing business in China. Obviously, product manufacturing is a frequent topic.

Reading a few of those posts confirms the basic suspicion that it's normal for Chinese firms to try and screw anyone who comes their way. Hell, the PRC government practically encourages it.

>Why is a dealership required for that?
Because some dealerships try to find ways to disqualify you from parts of the warranty. Once they record that into the GM system, then further in-warranty repair on that is no longer available. For example, if you mod the power train, then can use that as a way to cancel warranty coverage of all powertrain coverage even if you bought the extended warranty.

Some dealers may do that because they still want to repair your car, but not in-warranty where GM pays them a smaller amount. They want it out of warranty where you have to pay them a much bigger amount. They can also upsell you on other related problems such as your oil plug stripped the threads, so now you need a new oil pan. They refuse to repair it by rethreading the hole and giving you a bigger screw for that hole. Thus the dealer makes more money AND also sells you several new expensive parts because you have to buy both the oil pan and a new expensive oil pan gasket AND the labor for installing an oil pan gasket and the new oil pan. And of course you get charged for the oil change since you needed new replacement oil.

Makes you wonder if they take your used oil pan and sell it to the body shop repair market as used parts after rethreading it.

>it's normal for Chinese firms to try and screw anyone who comes their way. Hell, the PRC government practically encourages it.
I don't think the PRC really has to do anything to encourage that since it's a Chinese societal view. In most of the world if you become known as a cheat you tend to be shamed, even ostracized to a degree, but not with the Chinese. There a cheat is considered a smart businessman and a role model. Now what the PRC does do is completely fail to curb any but the worst abuses (usually where foreign nationals died resulting in a diplomatic incident) which I suppose you could view as a form of encouragement.

there's a difference between preforming a service and ripping people off. Do you understand that?

>dealerships find ways to disqualify you from the warranty
No doubt about that, but I was responding to the post that was discussing selling a used car with a full service records, not about maintaining the shit factory warranty.

The manufacturer is the one that pays for warranty repairs not the dealership. The dealer will abide by the manufacturers policies but they still want to repair the car even if it's under warranty - because the manufacturer generally pays for more labor time than needed.

how is babby formed? how is babby formed? how girl use alldata?

they do not abide by booktime?

>There a cheat is considered a smart businessman and a role model.

From another thread at with graph of differences between identical battery model Eneloop AA NiMH made in japan and made in china. Quite a big difference in quality.

{quote}
USA or japan made results in more reliable batteries. Got to beware of chinese parts as even the new LiON cells they sell may have recycled LiON battery parts inside of them. They know you arent' going to send the cell back to them for replacement, and if you did, they would simply not respond.

See this thread article for examples of chinese LiON batteries taken apart showing how they are actually recycled used batteries or are missing required safety features.

LiON from China has scam or illegal (in usa) parts inside:
candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?400136-Disassembly-of-some-UltraFire-batteries

Other chinese batteries also have variances, so it is not just those few brands proven in that thread. For example, the same model/size of ENELOOP NiMH batteries can be made in either japan or china. But the chinese ones have half the life of the japanese ones even though they are supposed to be the exact same battery model and catalog number.
{/quote}

Oh, there's absolutely a cultural aspect to it, but the Chinese legal system also really limits recourse for foreign firms that are wronged.

Additionally, the Chinese consumer market is effectively closed to foreign companies. Selling to Chinese consumers means setting up a Chinese majority owned partnership to sell (and typically manufacture) the goods. This system then allows the Chinese half of the partnership to steal the foreign company's intellectual property and/or just force them out of China and take over the business.

tesla's door handles are so complex and full of innovative technology, literally NO ONE is allowed to remove them except for telsa techs. If the body shop needs to remove the handle to paint the car, they have to fly in a tech from tesla.

>needed a cheap but hard to find part
>went to VW dealership because I didn't want to wait for it to ship
>while waiting in line this women starts yelling
>she had brought in her car for some simple service
>the dealership recommended some additional more extensive service
>she declined
>dealership did it anyway
>they wouldn't give her car back unless she payed the $1200 for the additional service
>got my part and was leaving
>she was still yelling

>tesla's door handles are so complex and full of innovative technology, literally NO ONE is allowed to remove them except for telsa techs. If the body shop needs to remove the handle to paint the car, they have to fly in a tech from tesla.

That sounds like how manufacturer's were like before the Magnuson-Moss Act was passed. Only Tesla has found a way around it to limit bodywork or the ability to take apart certain parts of the car.

I can see it now: Tesla's engines are so complex and full of innovative technology that literally no one is allowed to supply repair parts for the car other than Tesla.

Anyways, Magnuson-Moss made it so that if the manufacturer required consumables or certain other things to ONLY come from that manufacturer, then the company had to provide those items for free. So if Tesla required that only tesla tires can be used on the car, then those tires must be furnished free of charge.

It's a fine point for the batteries since they are only furnished as a patented assembly in a special container package with proprietary software in the processors overseeing the batteries. But the cells are commodity cells in the earlier models of battery packs. So they technically could be replaced one at a time by some other company than tesla.

In my state, we had for a time a democrat attorney general that was big on consumer rights. In my state, if she didn't sign the form, then it is furnished free of charge. The shop cannot take it back either without her permission as it is her car. The shop must also obtain signed permission to perform repairs and prior to signing, the cost estimate is provided. Exceeding the estimate can be done only with approval.

PCM flashes.

Because no mechanic around me will pay the massive amount of money it costs to release specific software.

>When is it EVER a necessity to take your car to the stealership

When I need to document the scheduled maintenance. I dread those because every time I visit the dealer for each of my cars, they are so expensive. It's always some terrible price like $400 for spark plugs, plus the basic fee for the inspection and diagnosis of what is wrong with the car.

You need blinker fluid replacement. The gasket is leaky so that's $1600. A few times with past cars, the scheduled maint ended up $800 or more. The worst was your A/C compressor has a leak and needs to be replaced. Stealership scores +$2000.for that scheduled maint. Do I really know if it needed it or not? The dealer doesn't really repair anything. They love to replace. So if you were like that stripped oil plug guy, they wouldn't rethread it (a repair). They'd sell a new oil pan and drain screw. That's how my dealer is.

At least other places don't charge me for the basic inspection but I hope the dealership is more thorough since they are charging me a big fee to inspect to see what is wrong with the car that they can then charge me to have proper maintenance to maintain my warranty.

Time for sched maint soon for my blinker fluid and to replace the plugs with new iridium ones. The car doesn't seem to need new plugs, but every time without fail they always push new iridium plugs. Just like JiffyLube urges you to get a new air filter because it's time you get a new one. and another flush too.

Fuck those guys. Lakehood fag here, went to those guys once to check out the lot. They're all insufferable cunts.

>stealership
>JiffyLube
I can't decide which is worse!

> manufacturer generally pays for more labor time than needed.

kek
you know nothing about how factory warranty pays. it pays shit and every tech hates it.

At our dealership you get free inspection with your oil change, that inspection is only for regular maintenance items. We will show you air filters and present you an estimate. It's up to you to get it done, but if shit fails and you haven't done the service you may have to pay a lot more for a repair.
If you have a specific problem you want us to diagnose, that's $110 fee.

We have one electric car we sell. We literally have ONE technician that is certified to work on those. Every time we have to replace a battery on an electric car, it arrives on a pallet along with a special jack, tools and a fucking pair of rubber gloves and boots that will fucking ground you, because if you fuck up - you done goofed.

I know this because Tyler knows this.

>... with the Chinese. There a cheat is considered a smart businessman and a role model.

Chinese tire manufacturers imported substandard unsafe tires to the USA. Some Chinese manufacturers had forced recalls. Some are:
. . . Westlake Tires
. . . AKS Tires
. . . Telluride tires
. . . Compass Tires

These brands with recall tires are all actually made by one company Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Company. Among the recall complaint is alleged the tires even lack basic safety features such as gum strips which are a rubber feature that helps prevent steel belts inside the tire from separating or damaging the rubber.

While other Chinese-made tires not under recall can be considered better, if you buy, make sure your Chinese-imported tires have safety and performance features such as belt stiffeners, bead wedges and nylon cap plies that are considered to be industry standards these days. Don't believe what they tell you, you need to have verified real marketplace examples. After all, one chinese "all season" tire is claimed to be better than Michelin Pilot.

It's Li-Ion, not LiON.

and people wonder why no one likes the chinese...

My exhaust cracked right before the cat, go to dealership, talk it up with the supervisor about old cars while it gets a free check to see what's up, mechanic comes back with a parts-sheet and tells me they need to order an entire new exhaust and circles area with crack the highlighter, walks away. Supervisor tells me $2000 for parts who knows for labor, tells me to just walk out and find a small shop that does custom exhausts that will weld it shut.

Not all stealerships are bad...
But then again at a different one they changed a solenoid in my fuel system and in the end it was a $15 gas cap that had a crack and caused the leak error on the computer.

In general if you can't feel comfortable with the guy's at the stealership, bail on them.

>My exhaust cracked right before the cat, go to dealership, talk it up with the supervisor about old cars while it gets a free check to see what's up

You have a Dealership whereas mine is a Stealership. Over here, for new car warranty work, they put your car into an exam process and write down the cost of the exam. If they find something wrong that is in warranty, then they do not charge you for the examination of the warranty problem. If they could not find anything wrong, then you have the exam fee to pay. Or if they find something else wrong, you have the exam fee to pay.

At this Stealership, there is occasionally courtesy towards exams and charges, but it is more by serendipity than by deliberate constant effort to please the customer. The service writers clearly have the profitability of the stealership in mind when they write up the contract. Don't get me wrong here, all employees of every business should have the welfare of the company in mind. But in this situation, that is all there is; there is not much welfare of the customer in mind. The young woman service writer there is more into trying to satisfy some sort of quota or goal in avoiding in-warranty work if it can be steered to out of warranty work.

There must be some reward program going on for them to do such things. It's too "obvious" with attitudes like that.

I bought a new car with a warranty for a reason

I'd get the car worked if you ever plan on selling it.

I take it to the dealer so I don't have to pay anything.

Lets say a new car with warranty will cost you 50k. If instead you buy a five year old model for 35k is there literally anything that extra 15k wont fix? You can likely even buy a beater as a temporary while your car is being serviced.

I genuinely think the whole "new car" thing is an absolute hoax.

>Going in for the 4th recall on my car

Thanks for finally fixing the headgasket issue, GM. It's only been 12 years.

>I bought a new car with a warranty for a reason

And now your dealer has found ways to disqualify parts of your 3 year bomper to bumper warranty. That info is now entered into the GM network..

If new cars were bought with cash then you might've had a point but since they are financed for the most part that $15k doesn't exist and any repairs would be paid out of monies intended for other things. Like rent or house payment.

What a new car gives is stability and predictability. You may be spending $400/mo but you know it's coming and can plan for it. That $2000 trans rebuild the used car without a warranty suddenly needed was a surprise and set back your financial planning by months at the least.

Why would they do that? They WANT to make money. You fuckers think auto warranties are trickery. Only 3rd party warranties are.

>They WANT to make money.
The Stealership makes more money if it is out of warranty repair. As others have said, in-warranty repairs are paid by GM and the profit for the dealership is less. Even a service writer said so but in different words.

The car owner still needs the repair. By removing the repair from warranty coverage, the Stealership makes more money doing that repair out of warranty. It's ruthlessness by the dealer. Same ruthless approach in how they get rid of posts in moderated forum sites by threatening lawyer action for negative posts.

You're paranoid. This pretty much never happens.

You're the shill for the dealer. Dealerships do deny warranty coverage if they find something they don't like. It is one of the traditional irate complaints about "stealerships".

>And now your dealer has found ways to disqualify parts of your 3 year bomper to bumper warranty.

Not legally possible.

Like I said, you're paranoid.

Only time i went in for a recall was when my honda needed its airbag replaced since it could burst and send shrapnel into my face.

>Change auto fluid
>$220.95usd

>not budgeting for repairs
It's almost like your average person is an idiot

>You're the shill for the dealer

Seriously?
>Shilling on the Japanese pedophile financial escrow database

Ok?

you are so fucking pretentious, your post was not necessary

>you are so fucking pretentious, your post was not necessary
That guy sounds just like the dealer's service writer line for line. If you mention that other shops also have digital alignment, the service writer would then twist things around like their gear is not calibrated and depend on you not defending them because you don't know the gear. But that gear has its own calibration for each usage (but the dealer's service writer depended on you not knowing that).

Nevertheless, there are dealerships and there are stealerships. Using examples of dealerships to defend stealerships is sophistry and just plain wrong. Stealers are stealers. You have stealership supporters or staff saying that dealers never find ways to deny warranty coverage that it is impossible to do so. That is very wrong.

>I need to take my car to a dealership that has a digital laser alignment rack if i ever mess with the suspension

There's plenty of places with digital laser alignment tools. In fact, quite a few independent auto maint shops in my area have digital laser alignment. No need to go to the more expensive Stealership.

If you do too much messing with your suspension, the dealer might even say you have damaged it.

Body repair

>Body repair
All the dealers I know of have NO Body Repair shop on the premises. They simply refer users to other body shops. And if you have insurance, the insurance will take over the whole process since it is their money. They have their own pre-contracted body shops.

If you don't ask which shop, they might even choose one for you without you choosing. That's the case for undrivable cars since they tell the tow truck where to go. But if it's driveable, then they will tell you where to drive to so in those cases you will get to choose. So always be involved in the process to always be able to make choices.

Remember, the car goes somewhere to get estimates. Some body shops have higher estimates because they do "top quality" work. That almost always means swapping out all damaged gear or replacing with new parts. That results in a high estimate and the insurance company will say your car is totaled and pay you a small used car price (LOW BALL). Some people have negotiated a higher payment so don't accept it without research.

If the estimate is high, you may look over the insurance company's list of pre-approved body shops and pick a LOW Quality one. WHY the fuck you do that? A lesser quality repair has a lower estimate and that might mean the insurance company allows the repair and doesn't total the car. There are times where that is the better choice if the engine and power train are unaffected and remain in good shape. So, "more quality" is not always the better choice. Remain flexible in your thinking.

>All the dealers I know of have NO Body Repair shop on the premises.

It would be a huge image problem to have junker cars constantly being towed in seen by the new car buyers. And it also uses a lot of space the dealer doesn't have. I've never seen any dealer not totally pack every square inch with cars or service department.

>I bring my car to the dealership for everything it needs, they're the only ones I let touch my baby.
Face reality, you go there because they give you a complimentary penis massage each time you go for servicing.

Actually a lot of dealerships are refusing to open body shops simply because its too much of a pain to deal with anymore. Insurance companies have a very firm grip on the auto body repair business. If they don't like your rates, they wont deal with you anymore, and will try to talk their own customers out of using them.

Then you have the fact that new cars can be written off by looking at them wrong. Today's "hyper safe" cars can experience damage to the unibody in most accident types. A head on collision above 20mph is a good way to ensure your car wont ever be fixed simply because of how the body is designed to deal with the impact.

Basically, between having to fuck around with insurance companies all the time, and having customers demand their junk vehicle to be towed to the dealership, where it will sit, often for free, until another tow truck shows up to take it away, makes auto body repair a good business for a dealership to burn money with.

>Today's "hyper safe" cars can experience damage to the unibody in most accident types. A head on collision above 20mph is a good way to ensure your car wont ever be fixed simply because of how the body is designed to deal with the impact.

It just feels like the car companies want cars to be easily totaled. It's not like the old (but less safe) cars that had repairable bodies that lasted forever. Those cars keep hanging around as used cars. If only all used cars totally failed at the age of 12 years, then the companies would sell a lot more new cars.

It seems like the new super safe cars will do that. By the time it reaches 10 years, it statistically had a good chance of getting just enough collision damage to be totaled. As to what percentage chance, I cannot accurately say, but I bet it is a lot larger than for cars made in the 1990's and 1980's.

Words of wisdom brother.

Why do we go to dealers? Because we paid for the new car warranty as part of the purchase price of the car. But dealers make less from warranty jobs than if they did the same job out of warranty. That is where the greed trap occurs.

>Warranties
>YOU MUST PAY THE EXAMINATION FEE IF THE REPORTED PROBLEM DOESN"T EXIST OR IS NOT COVERED BY WARRANTY
>Sorry Sir, the tech can't feel that vibration.
>Sorry Sir, the water pump is not part of the drivetrain..
>Sorry Sir, we don't accept store recepits as evidence of an oil change.
>Sorry Sir, the ECU shows that the car has exceeded 90 MPH.(violation of the law and warranty doesn't support legal violations)
>Sorry Sir, the tech found an un-approved modification.

That example about Good Chevrolet sounds lime my stealership too. Having items refused to be covered under the new car warranty is nothing new. Lots of people experience that problem during the typical 3 year/36K warranty period. A real problem is the large fee the dealer charges for the examination where he rejects your problem as being covered under warranty.

If the dealer says the problem was done by the owner or other people it is not covered and the warranty for that category could be voided. If the problem occurred as a result of not enough maintenance or not-on-time maintenance, then it is not covered and the warranty for that category could be voided. If the problem exists as a result of incorrect repair or incorrect maintenance, the warranty for that is voided. If the problem exists as a result of user-supplied parts, then the problem is not covered. If user-supplied parts caused damage to other subsystems, then the warranty for those subsystems is voided. That is how the stealership approach to warranties works.

What adds salt to the wound is that - -
YOU MUST PAY THE EXAMINATION FEE IF THE STEALERSHIP CLAIMS THE REPORTED PROBLEM DOESN"T EXIST OR IS NOT COVERED BY WARRANTY.

>Warranties
>YOU MUST PAY THE EXAMINATION FEE IF THE REPORTED PROBLEM DOESN"T EXIST OR IS NOT COVERED BY WARRANTY
>Sorry Sir, the tech can't feel that vibration.
>Sorry Sir, the water pump is not part of the drivetrain..
>Sorry Sir, we don't accept store recepits as evidence of an oil change.
>Sorry Sir, the ECU shows that the car has exceeded 90 MPH.(violation of the law and warranty doesn't support legal violations)
>Sorry Sir, the tech found an un-approved modification.

OK. I'll take it to (mechanic down the road), and have him send you the bill.

Then actually do it. And then report them to corporate. If you have a certified local mechanic write up stuff for you to pass onto the higher up, your dealership will come crawling back to you for settlement offers. Most of the time you don't even have to go to court.

Even if you do, small claims is like 50 bucks to file in most states, and most judges fucking hate car dealerships trying to pull shit. Buddy of mine got stonewalled by a local dealership and showed up with the warden after they refused to pay a judgement. Took 12 grand in cash out of their safe in the back, in front of the manager, and there was nothing they could do about it. I'm of the opinion that he should have walked off with all their tool chests and auctioned them off, but he just wanted it over with.

The problem is that most people are too timid to stand up for themselves, and those that are are frequently loud mouthed fuckwits. Both are problems that are cheaper to ignore. You have no reason to play the game on the same level as the dealership. If they give you the runaround, go for the nuclear options available to you, and let them hang themselves in front of a judge when they try to explain why they violated their contractual obligations to you. Don't threaten to do something when they tell you to do something, just document it, then actually do it.