Will this VOID my WARRANTY?
After Market Products and Factory Warranties
There’s an awful lot of confusion out there when it comes to vehicle warranties and installing after-market products on your car. Simply and briefly, this article is meant to inform you about your rights in regards to your vehicle’s manufacturer warranty and the ability to modify or upgrade your vehicle with after-market parts.
In 1975, the Supreme Court passed a law called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Among countless other things, this law included the standards to which companies offering warranties had to comply in relation to 3rd party or after-market products. First off, I’ll give you the technical version:
15 USC 2302(c) Prohibition on conditions for written or implied warranty; waiver by Commission.
No warrantor of a consumer product may condition his written or implied warranty of such product on the consumer’s using, in connection with such product, any article or service (other than article or service provided without charge under the terms of the warranty) which is identified by brand, trade, or corporate name; except that the prohibition of this subsection may be waived by the Commission if –
(1) the warrantor satisfies the Commission that the warranted
product will function properly only if the article or service so
identified is used in connection with the warranted product, and
(2) the Commission finds that such a waiver is in the public
interest.
So what does all that mean? After a little bit of in-depth research, we figured out what it’s saying in layman’s terms:
The company providing the warranty (warrantor, as they call it in the legal system) cannot require the customer to use only company-branded parts on their product for it to retain its warranty. For example, if I own a JK Wrangler and decide to put an after-market suspension system underneath, the manufacturer’s warranty still applies to all original parts left on the Jeep. The warranty cannot be voided just because I did not use a Jeep branded suspension system.
Now obviously if I added an after-market suspension kit my suspension system would no longer be covered by the warranty, because the original parts are no longer there. So be careful that the aftermarket products you are installing come from a reliable company and include their own warranty.
Also, many times dealers will try to tell you that if they install after-market parts onto your vehicle the warranty will remain intact, but if you go to a 3rd party to get it installed they will void your warranty. This is what is called a ‘tie-in-sales provision’ and is also illegal according to federal law.
That’s the basic idea of what to expect in regards to your vehicle’s warranty. To sum it up:
1- YES! You have the right to install after-market additions to your vehicle while retaining your original warranty for all stock components.
2- The company offering the warranty cannot void the contract simply because the parts you use are not company-branded parts or because someone else installed the parts for you.
3- Although the warranty will still apply to all stock parts, additions and after-market parts are NOT covered by the vehicle’s warranty.
For more information visit the FTC website HERE.