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Old 02-14-2008, 02:43 PM   #1
els.sti
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Default can the dealer tell if you have a tuner

i was thinking on buying a cobb tuner but dont want to void the warrenty, can the dealer tell if you have tuned the car through an ecu memory or does it not have one. even if i set the settings back to stock
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Old 02-14-2008, 02:51 PM   #2
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yeah man they can nail u for that .. they check ecu n everything .. they aint stupid
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:01 PM   #3
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I've heard of people that say their dealer could never tell they reflashed, and other say the dealer voided their warranty because of it. Supposedly the mechanics can tell how many times the stock ECU has been reflashed, but I don't know for certain. Unless your dealer is cool with you modding the car (which they usually aren't) then you should leave it alone. Or just screw the dealer and do your own maintenance.
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:07 PM   #4
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yes they can tell if your ecu has been flashed. having a stage 2 flash doesn't automatically void the warranty.

since you have an 07, it is very highly recommended that you get some sort of tuning (cobb stage 1, openecu stage 1) on it before you start doing any mods.
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:11 PM   #5
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Good luck on that.... I spoke with the service director @ our sister store which is Riverside Subaru & they're saying it does indeed void warranty & they can tell very easily.
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:14 PM   #6
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your service director is wrong. no mods automatically void your warranty. they can, however, be cause to deny you warranty work but the burden of proof is on the dealership. they must prove to you that the mods you have done accounted for the problem with the car.
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:15 PM   #7
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i bought the car with the spt package is there upgraded tuning already on that. they told me they changed somthing because of the intake and exaust it came with. will a cobb stage two give me an advantage over the spt. i waS READING THE COBB site and the stage two for a stock intake
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:15 PM   #8
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the subaru dealership that i go to has speed parts like the cobb accessport and other stuff... the guy at the counter said that as long as they get the parts and they install them, they wont void the warranty. they will only go through a well known acredited supplier like cobb or perrin. and of course anything they sell on subaruparts.com or spt.com.
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:38 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NSXHan View Post
Good luck on that.... I spoke with the service director @ our sister store which is Riverside Subaru & they're saying it does indeed void warranty & they can tell very easily.
Well of course they're going to tell you that.
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:39 PM   #10
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ANY modification you do may void warranty, Installed and bought at a Dealer or not. Its at the Descretion of the Dealer or SOA. Plain in simple if your worried about warranty dont mod the car. Like someone complains about there clutch slipping, but the previous night i was watching them drag race there car at the track for 3 hours, and they swear they dont beat on there car.
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Old 02-14-2008, 03:55 PM   #11
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Many of the salesmen that work at Subaru dealerships have or had own a Subaru. I was talking to one Subaru salesman near where I live, and he was telling me about all the parts he installed as well as able to use the lift.
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Old 02-14-2008, 04:07 PM   #12
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STOP POSTING MISINFORMATION

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=803106

Quote:
Your warranty cannot be voided

Well. actually it can, but for very few reasons:

1. The odometer cannot be verified:
If there is evidence the odometer has been messed with or disconnected at some point, SOA can void your warranty. This is because if your warranty mileage cannot be proven. You could have 60,000 miles on your car and if the odometer says 23,000, technically you would be out of warranty.

THIS HAS TO BE PROVEN

2. Vehicle has been in a major accident and repaired:
If your vehicle has been in a major accident, most likely there will be additional problems down the road. SOA cannot be held responsible for something related to an accident. Most vehicles that have warranties voided for this reason have a salvage title issued by the issurance company.

THIS HAS TO BE PROVEN

3. Your vehicle has a salvage title:
If your vehicle has a salvage title it is because it was in a major accident or under water. SOA cannot be held responsible for something related to water or accident damage.

THIS HAS TO BE PROVEN

There may be a few other reasons, but these are the most popular. Most have to do with accident or odometer fraud.

Alot of people think that because their car is modified or "abused" that the service advisor, the dealership or SOA can void their warranty. They cannot!! Most people that go to the dealer and have an issue with something not being covered STILL HAVE A WARRANTY. Their warranty has not been voided, their warranty claim has been denied. There is a difference.

For example, if you have a problem with your transmission and the dealership or SOA determines it will not be covered under warranty, they are still under obligation to fix your window regulator if it breaks, as long as the window regulator was not damaged due to outside influences.

If you modify and/or abuse your car, that is not reason for your warranty to be voided. IT HAS TO BE PROVEN that the modification and/or abuse caused the defect. And even then your warranty is not voided, the warranty claim was just denied. Other things on your vehicle not affected by the modification and/or abuse are still covered.

Most people think that because something was not covered under warranty that their warranty is automatically voided. They don't understand that just that claim was denied.

If you are ever told that your warranty is "voided", make sure they are saying the ENTIRE warranty is voided, and not that the warranty claim was denied. If they say that the warranty is voided, get it in writing and call SOA. Most likely it is just the claim that was denied.

It is also possible to get just portions of your warranty voided. For instance, if you have had your car painted because of scratches or you change the color, then only your paint warranty could be voided. The paint is no longer original so SOA is under no obligation to cover it. It is now the responsiblity of whomever painted it.

Sorry for the long rant, it just makes me mad when people slam dealerships and SOA for "voiding" warranties, when in all acutallity, it is not.

CLIFF NOTES: Your warranty can only be voided for few reasons. Most of the time it is just your warranty claim that has been denied. The rest of your warranty remains in effect
happy valentine's day
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Old 02-14-2008, 04:58 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NSXHan View Post
Good luck on that.... I spoke with the service director @ our sister store which is Riverside Subaru & they're saying it does indeed void warranty & they can tell very easily.
Riverside Subaru where? The one in west Little Rock, AR?
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Old 02-14-2008, 06:00 PM   #14
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Riverside Subaru in Riverside, CA?
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Old 02-14-2008, 06:39 PM   #15
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A Flash will void most of the warrenty. You might still have warrenty on things that aren't effected by the power output of the engine. For example: The brake lights.
And yes most will check on your ECU if you bring it back for a problem.
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Old 02-14-2008, 06:41 PM   #16
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wow did you not read what i posted? or did you not see it? is the font too small? not enough usage of bold lettering on my part?
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Old 02-14-2008, 06:43 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nhat View Post
wow did you not read what i posted? or did you not see it? is the font too small? not enough usage of bold lettering on my part?
If you're asking me. Yes I read it
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Old 02-14-2008, 08:54 PM   #18
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Hm...interesting. I am curious to see how the dealer can tell if the ECU has been reflashed. In order to do that, they would have to pull the ROM off the ECU, do a checksum on it and compare it to the stock image. Either that or they have software to view your maps off the ROM but I am yet to see that at the dealership and they'd still have to pull it off the ECU to check. On top of that, each MY has multiple revisions of the ROM so there are multiple versions of the ROM for any given MY.....so if they check, they better know all of them and have them handy to compare to make that determination. They could just read the ROM header and see if the ECU ID matches but AFAIK all reflashes retain that.

I am pretty sure there's no reflash counter being incremented when you reflash. The only persistent memory on the ECU is the ROM and when you reflash, that is what you're blasting away with the new version so I can't see how they could tell unless there's another mechanism that I don't know about in the ECU that keeps track of that based on the sequence of SSM commands that lead to the reflash....doubtful.

I really, really doubt they can tell. But go ahead and ask them....I wonder what they will tell you
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Old 02-14-2008, 09:02 PM   #19
nhat
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per unabomber's faq:

Quote:
Can the dealer detect my reflashed ECU (AccessPort/EcuTek)?

YES the checksum of the ECU changes.
YES the dealer can easily read the checksum.

NO the dealer has nothing to compare the checksum against there are many revisions of the WRX ecu they all have different checksums. If the dealer had someway of putting this checksum into a database he COULD verify that the code had been modified but at this time he doesn't.

The 05+ ECU and some of the 04s have the VIN in the ECU code. The current versions of reflashed ECUs only change the tables so the VIN will report when queried.

Bottom line: If you don't want modifications to be detected, don't modify the car.
i'm pretty sure that applies to opensource as well. from this, it seems there really is no possible way for the dealership to tell without pulling the rom. even if they do, they have nothing to compare it to. so i guess the answer is no? they can't tell.
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Old 02-14-2008, 09:46 PM   #20
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i was going to ask my local dealer cuz they were real cool and helpful and smoothed out some of the tunning for me. but sadley they closed the dealer and put in a freakin acura dealer ... how lame is that .. now i have to go alot further to go to the dealer
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Old 02-15-2008, 10:41 AM   #21
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yeah there was a law passed a while back that makes it illegal to void a warrantee due to adding or modifying your car unless it has been proven through testing that indeed that exact modification or part WILL cause a certain problem.

anyone remember the law ??
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Old 02-15-2008, 10:58 AM   #22
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lets say i have a AP with stage1 but i reflash to the OEM tune before going to the dealer... they can know that the car got flash before, but no way to know with which kind of tune ?
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Old 02-15-2008, 11:19 AM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by els.sti View Post
i was going to ask my local dealer cuz they were real cool and helpful and smoothed out some of the tunning for me. but sadley they closed the dealer and put in a freakin acura dealer ... how lame is that .. now i have to go alot further to go to the dealer
Your Subaru dealer will not smooth anything out by tuning, thats what our Protunes are for. They will simply load the OEM ECU parameters. Dealers are not allowed to load anything other than SOA mappings. They can scan and look for updates for your car but thats it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Courteau View Post
lets say i have a AP with stage1 but i reflash to the OEM tune before going to the dealer... they can know that the car got flash before, but no way to know with which kind of tune ?
No there is no tuning on the SPT Power Package install (even though they might say there is which they did to me and I called them out on it when it came to some warranty items)

My dealer asked me everytime I flashed it back to my OEM was this car ever tuned? They fish for it because they can't tell.

A Checksum in a PC or ECU is the dealer running the diagnostic against the current loaded map at the block level looking for inconsistent algorithms and will return it a CRC or error. If your matching against the OEM map the dealer cannot tell. I have proven this more than once on my 07 STI that is why the AP will marry to your ECU and download the stock mapping for when you have to make it look all stock again. Now if they go in and find a Hydra

Last edited by 4ST-AIR; 02-15-2008 at 11:27 AM.
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Old 02-15-2008, 11:32 AM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 4ST-AIR View Post
Your Subaru dealer will not smooth anything out by tuning, thats what our Protunes are for. They will simply load the OEM ECU parameters. Dealers are not allowed to load anything other than SOA mappings. They can scan and look for updates for your car but thats it.
In some cases (07 STI etc) I believe they have updated maps that they can load that are revised to address specific problems if a customer is complaining, i.e. jerking/bucking throttle, etc.
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Old 02-15-2008, 01:05 PM   #25
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what would a hydra be
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