so my car is in for warranty right now because of a check engine light related to clylinder number one misfiring. they now believe it is a bent valve so they have to disassemble the head. the problem is, they are making me sigh an agreement that says if warranty doesnt cover it because of possible abuse or modification, then i will have to pay the labor of $900. the problem is they say that if i abused the engine, due to overrevving (which the service rep says in our engine will very commonly make the pistons slap the valves, causing them to bend) or if i modified/tampered with it, warranty is void and i have to pay it. but what voids the warranty? he told me that there are signs that i have "tampered" with it. he says rounded off bolts and such. i told him that i have opened up the intake box to look at it, but that wont void the warranty. the only other thing i have done is that i have removed the valve cover. can they blame that on me saying that it causes my check engine light. i need to know asap because i am going in tomorrow morning to sign the papers. if i sign, i run the risk of them knowing that i have ran nitrous. if i dont let them, they will automatically know that i did something, most likely flagging the car. HELP PLEASE

 

You just told everyone that you modified it in a way that would void our warranty

 

ok i dont see how that helped ^ of course he did... he wants help


i would go in there, sign the papers, and bite the bullet and hope your good. worst comes to worst, you can fight it. all of this stuff will probably be up to the head tech as to whether its covered. unless its blantantly obvious that you messed it up, then theres always some "gray space" where its just the techs opinion. then maybe it could get thrown out. i would just say sign it, and pray

you've got my prays. best of luck. Scotty

 

yea i did. thats why i wanted to know if they can tell that i did. i dont think that removing the valve cover would void our warrarnty, which is mainly the thing i did. but the fact that i ran nitrous...is that detectable? thats more of what i am asking. all the parts have been removed and there are no physical signs that i can see. i ran about 14-15 lbs through it. would there be any internal signs?

 

I don't know anything about Nitrous but maybe some residue from it could be left in the cylinder heads or somewhere along the block. I'm sure if they did some DNA testing on the block, they'd find it. lol

 

what they said ... um btw hope the head tech doesnt read this board ... as this is not a common malfunction of this motor ... um daaaa....
and besides putting n.o.s. system on a 108 hp motor ?? thats like buying a moped to race a porsche ... wtf?

 

thats not that much. and ya, it made it run a little bit harder for what 20 seconds at a time? its probably not even going to be noticed. if you drag raced the ____ outta it maybe.... but for the most part it should just look worn, not abused

 

i do know some techs are on the boards, and i was hoping that one of them will respond to this. and the service rep did tell me that a bent valve is common if you overrev the engine.
yea. i ran it for less than 15 seconds at a time. the most was probably around 13-14. i did drag the car, only twice on the track and of course i ran some people on the streets.

 

This post = dumb. You ran nitrous and you think you can cake walk this???? OMG are you high? They will totally know, if they don't already. They are setting you up to take the blame by signing such nonsense. They just want YOU to take responsibility.

Come on! To ruin such a small engine like this can not happen stock. Or if you did screw it up, it still is your fault and has nothing to do with warranty... wear and tear....

Take it like a man. You aren't going to get away with this unless you are a total kiss ___ and smooth talk your way out of this saying ____ like your dog just died and you are dying from a rare disease in less then a month and all you wish for is your tC to be fixed. You have a smoking gun and they totally know it.

 

My dad said that it would cost them way too much money to even be able to detect the nitrous b/c of how clean it burns. I wouldnt mention anything about the nitrous b/c they wont find any evidence unless they spends thousands of dollars on getting it tested.

 

That is not true. they can plug and play the ecm and know what the hell was going on.

 

PM sent

 

i am not high. just trying to find a decent answer to my problems as to save myself $900. if i cant get away with it, im not going to do it...ill just get another motor, it would be like $400 cheaper anyways. and i have an xB by the way, not a tC. and for your informantion, a bent valve can happen stock. like the service rep said...all you have to do to this engine is over rev it and BAM...a bent valve and no warranty.

really? thats all it takes? so they probably did this already and just are f*cking with me? how do they tell that i ran nitrous? i know its not going to say "NITROUS USED". i plugged in a diagnostic, a SNAP-ON MOTIS and it didnt say anything. but im not sure if this is even close to the power of the program they use

 

they are not going to be able to tell that there was nitrous used in the system as I said. In the case of the ECU they might be able to tell that there was a sudden burst of energy in the engine or some parameter may not seem right but they are going to need some concrete proof (like nitrous) to prove that it was a shot of Nitro that caused. Coulda been a sudden burst of energy from having to rev??

 

see the problem is that if you look under your warranty, it states if you "abuse" your engine that it will void the warrarnty. so they can basically void my warranty based on the assumption that i "abused" my engine...ie any sort of stress on the internals of the engine.
also, the ecu is a closed loop so it resets itself to the factory settings. meaning if i do boost and the a/f ratio changes, it will reset it. therefore not being able to read use from the ecu.
toyota has fullproofed their warranty. anytime they want to void it due to "abuse" they can just say that it was over revved or driven to hard and *poof* no more warranty

 

just say that one day the gear slipped and went back into neutral and that caused an overly high rev situation.

 

And don't we have a rev limiter? Shouldn't that protect against this? Make them explain why it wouldn't...

As for having you sign the estimate, they will do that on most repair visits. I don't think it's a set-up. When you take your car in for many things, they will write an estimate of like $100 in case its not covered under warranty. Time is money...

 

i am pretty sure we have a rev limiter. unless he took it off or reprogrammed the ecu. sounds like he knows what he is doing....somewhat....kinda....sorta.....maybe

 

So you're trying to get Toyota to fix your car for free even though you willfully modified your engine in a way that voids the warranty? What was it again you needed help with?

 

yes i have a rev limiter. i was talking to a friend and he said that its not fullproof. for instance if you accidentally go from 5th to 2nd, the rev limiter is not going to catch that and you will over rev your engine.
$100 would be ok if they were doing it just to cover themselves. but they are asking $900. thats a whole lot. i can get like 2 echo motors for that price. which i might have to do.

yes, that is what i am doing. the question is wil they be able to detect that i willfully modified my engine. and i dont like the fact that they can just claim that you "abused" your engine and your warranty is void. basically its a way for them to get out. IF i didnt do this and i still had the same problem with a bent valve, which can happen if you misshift, then i void my warranty.