WRXtranceformed Wrote:A page from the GTR's warranty book.

Quote:I guess I will chime in about my Lotus Elise experience.

The Lotus has the so called ÔÇÿBlack BoxÔÇÖ and it is regularly checked by the service tecs, Sometimes they print it out and provide it to you with your service receipt so you can see what they are seeing, but not all the time. I know that if you have a warranty issue they review the box and if it shows any signs of you ÔÇÿabusingÔÇÖ the car, they will tell you they have the right to void specific parts of the warranty (IE Driveline, Engine, tranny, clutch, etc.). BUT if you have a good relationship with your dealer, a lot of the time they will be on your side if it is not outright abuse.

Here is a brief rundown of my initial experience: I bought my car in Vegas (after my Z blew a headgasket on a x-country Rally. I told the dealer I was driving straight back to Washington D.C and asked of any special maintenance that needed to be done. He said no, just get it serviced when you get there. I drove the car in the rally (and yes I will admit I beat on the car a bit: some ┬╝ runs, autocross and track time on the way back). In 1 week I put 3,200 miles on the car and drove it straight to the dealer to have itÔÇÖs scheduled 1,000 mile service.

They blew their tops and said my warranty was voided for putting so many miles on it. I explained what the dealer told me in Vegas, they called and confirmed and then said they would need to call the regional Lotus rep. He cleared the warranty service so no problem. BUT I got a call in a couple of days saying I needed to go see the GM. When I got there, they has this LONG printout and he told me that I had been abusing the car and they had a right to refuse any future service if they thought it was due to my misuse of the car.
When I asked about what he meant on misuse, he said I had done 5 ÔÇÿstanding startÔÇÖ launches, stalled the car on multiple occasions, told me that over 50% of my driving time was in the top 25% of the RPM range and even said my top 5 recorded speeds were in excess of 140 MPHÔǪ I was stunned to say the least. It even says the engine running time when these things occur so they can narrow down the timeframeÔǪ.

Needless to say I argued that the ÔÇÿstanding startsÔÇÖ in the ┬╝ were the only way to reach their purported 4.2 second 0-60 timesÔǪ I was told that still voided the warranty, it did not matter that their sales brochures showed this time and the sales people sold the car utilizing this figure on itÔÇÖs quickness. So after some more haggling it came down to this: They sell the car with the 0-60 time as 4.2 seconds, but in order to achieve that you need to do a ÔÇÿStanding StartÔÇÖ BUT if you do that more then 3 ÔÇô 5 times, they consider that abuse and have the right to void your warrantyÔǪ.! End of discussion.

So fast forward 2 years and now if you look at their sales brochures, there is a * next to the 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds and guess what.. It says in the footnote * may void warranty..!!!!!!

Anyway, the black box is used by a # of car companies even if you donÔÇÖt know it. For Lotus any major warranty repairs must be approved by a Regional Lotus representative. They always ask to see the black box printout and service history and will call to discuss any missing service or details in the printout before they approve warranty work. Sounds like the GT-R might be heading down the same road.

Sorry for the long post, just figured I would put in some actual experiences I have had both with the black box and with Car Companies that sell you a feature/ability and forget to mention that they do not want you doing that with their car or they will not support their warranty claims.
--B

mrbaggio Wrote:Shouldn't doing dumb things like clutch dumps/failure to use proper fuel void your warranty?

D_Eclipse9916 Wrote:At first I thought that was goodspeed in the picture.

Quote:A member of the North American GT-R Owner's Club forums started a thread recently in which he tells about dropping off his Nissan GT-R at the dealership when he began hearing loud noises coming from the rear of the car. The dealership told him that his transmission was toast as a direct result of him turning off the car's VDC (Vehicle Dynamic Control) too much, which you have to do in order to use the Launch Control function. The cost to repair the tranny is $20,000 and Nissan won't cover it under warranty since the GT-R owner's manual states that damage to the transmission is not covered if it is proven to be the result of using Launch Control with the VDC turned off. In fact, the manual states that the only reason you should turn off VDC is for when you're rocking the vehicle because it's stuck in mud or snow. That's kind of like Nissan saying you should never use the Launch Control function despite the fact it's there.

The situation clearly sucks for this GT-R owner, and we can certainly understand his frustration. Nissan, however, has itself covered in that the owner's manual makes it clear that any damage to the transmission resulting from using Launch Control is not covered, and we're told GT-R owners actually have to sign something when picking up the car to show they understand this policy. And to be clear, just switching off VDC will not void the warranty, and many owners have used Launch Control with no damage to the transmission whatsoever.

We think there's something a little fishy going on with both parties in this conflict. For one, no one knows for sure exactly how many times this GT-R owner used Launch Control. Doing it once in a while to show off is one thing, but abusing any car with that much power will eventually lead to something failing, and in those cases the automaker shouldn't necessarily be held responsible for the repairs.

That said, we're also not exactly sure how delicate these GT-R transmissions are. If Nissan had any idea that its Launch Control function could damage the car, it should have built a system that could protect itself. Take the new Porsche 911 and its PDK dual-clutch transmission that also has Launch Control. The new Porsche will let you rip off about a dozen runs in a row before a dashboard light illuminates and the ECU limits engine power until everything cools off. Why can't the GT-R watch out for itself like that?