And this folks is why so many of us are watching gleefully from the sidelines as we watch the dealership sales model crumbling under the pressures of the new vehicle shortages. Direct to consumer auto sales cannot come soon enough.
Looking for first person story: My warranty denied because of oil used
- Thread starter ammolab
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Read my posts.
Depending on the dealer and the nature of the issue etc., yes.
This is the case more often than not w/r to warranty and mods or variation from service (the subject here). My car is modded out and have had things replaced under warranty that likely wouldn't be at other dealers b/c I know the tech at the dealer plain and simple. The issue here is the worst case scenario of a blown motor (which is so unlikely I can't believe it's debated like this all over the internet) and in that case, manufacturers aren't going to likely go willy-nilly and want to see some evidence that it was maintained according to their standards including the oil used regardless of whether it has anything to do with it. The reason you don't see this issue is because motors don't blow up statistically and the ones that do are just odd balls out past the tail of the curve....
MM is touted all over the internet as the end-all-be-all of "that's illegal to do that" w/r to aftermarket modifications. MM was all about making it so manufacturers (this is w/r to autos...MM is about a lot of things in addition to) couldn't force you to use their parts/service to maintain the warranty - so you can use that Fram filter and M1 oil as long as it meets the manufacturer's requirements. That's it. Aftermarket performance parts/modifications are a different animal and not part of what MM is intended to do or can be used for. Now that doesn't mean you can't fight that the lowering springs on my wagon don't impact the secondary air injection valve that failed when they want to deny my claim - but they can deny it for the ECU tune for sure.
Good ol' Mongo!
But what they would do is test the recommended lighter oils and ensure that things are ok for some XYZ mileage and say "yes, this will not blow up in XYZ miles".
The challenge here is - it really says "you need to use 0W16" more or less and I read that in the "...it much be replaced with SAE 0W-16 at the next oil change." This is the muck that your lawyer and EWs would be using to present that you can in-fact use higher viscosity oil in the car and maintain the warranty but the "high speeds/extreme load conditions" could bring their own warranty issues...
No doubt - the franchised dealer model is dead/almost dead IMHO. Dealers will be tech centers and delivery centers.
Per the OM verbage, the 0W-16 is "recommended" ... not "required". It never says you "need" to use 0W-16. The bulb about changing it back to 0W-16 at the next oil change is all CAFE.driven - no technical reason involed.
If any vehicle manufacterer wants to deny warranty for not using the "recommended" viscosity, they better change the wording to say "xW-yy viscosiy is required" or "manditory" is be used to maintain warranty.
Can anyone pull up an OM that specifically makes it clear that a certain viscosiy is "required" or "manditory" (or any similar words) to maintain wartanty?
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You probably won’t see that verbiage in any owners manual.
The engine will run fine on 0W-16.
If the verbage that xW-yy viscosity is "Recommended" then it's not going to hold up if a battle goes to court. "Recommended" does not mean required or manditory. Especially when there's an additional statement about using thicker oil for harsher driving situations.
There's no Autobahn with areas of unrestricted speed in the US, so 99.99999% of drivers won't be meeting those conditions to justify using heavier oil.
That 0.00001% that would meet the requirements, Toyota would likely nail the owners for Misuse or abuse and not have a warranty claim approved by ToyMoCo, since the technician would have to pull ECU recorded data as part of the justification for the warranty claim. The warranty manual that comes with your toyota still applies.
OVERKILL
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It does also state extreme loads
(not just high speed). The bigger point is that Toyota themselves are ceding that a heavier oil, under more demanding conditions, is a better choice, even if the official recommendation is 0W-16 (which it has to be, it can't be a range of grades, due to CAFE requirements).
Heavier use aka Severe Service has its own requirements and requires 5,000 mile oil changes instead of 10,000 miles. Having a cargo box on the car is considered to be severe service.
High speed and high loading, there will be a small percentage that will meet that requirement. And since the computers in the cars record information, that a technician can download and submit it as part of a warranty claim, it would likely be denied, due to other terms in the warranty manual that comes with your toyota, which can fall under misuse and abuse. Toyota has denied warranty claims based on the computer recorded data before on other items.
And let's not forget the ECU controlled variable discharge oil pump that is tuned to 0w16, not heavier weight oils. Because if the ECU thinks you're running a 16-weight oil, and you're not, then you can run into insufficient lubrication problems.
Read the warranty manual. It's obvious you didn't bother before you made your response.It does also state extreme loads
The bigger point is that Toyota themselves are ceding that a heavier oil, under more demanding conditions, is a better choice, even if the official recommendation is 0W-16 (which it has to be, it can't be a range of grades, due to CAFE requirements).
Extreme loads can be considered to be misuse, which is not covered by the Toyota warranty.
OVERKILL
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Being a bit pretentious (and I can think of another p-word that might fit) doesn't change the relevance of what I stated in regards to what Toyota is ceding with that verbiage.
I don't get the attitude you are using here. I used a smiley, you rolled out some rather overt unpleasantness that is not well received. I was NOT rude with you, I'm not sure why you felt compelled to not maintain that civility in kind.
We aren't discussing the intricate details of Toyota's warranty booklet. Yes, I'm sure they've given themselves an "out" if conditions that could be considered abuse are encountered, but that doesn't change the validity of the statement being highlighted that is really quite simple in terms of what it states.
I'm curious why they mention it at all, since, if anything, it would likely confuse your typical end user. Other marques don't tend to make similar statements, so while it's a valid statement, I'm not sure what value it provides for your typical Toyota owner.
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OVERKILL
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The Toyota variable volume oil pump isn't "tuned" to anything. Remember, viscosity is far more dependent on temperature than what's on the bottle. Toyota uses a couple of different variable displacement oil pump designs, the one I suspect you are thinking of is listed under Type 2 here:
Variable discharge oil pump
Operation principle of variable discharge oil pump at Toyota engines
www.toyota-club.net
Which operates using a number of parameters (temperature, RPM) to manipulate oil volume relative to some predetermined levels for load and RPM. It's basically a more advanced version of the Type 1 design that used stepped delivery to decouple volume from RPM; provide relief earlier on in the RPM range over the traditional relief mechanism, because that volume was unnecessary in that RPM range.
With the more advanced pump, the effective size of the pump is changed instead of the relief pressure; the volume of oil displaced per revolution is manipulated. But this is still a positive displacement oil pump, it doesn't matter if that oil is 10W-30 or 0W-16, as long as the relief isn't engaged, it's moving the same volume of oil per revolution on whatever setting it is functioning at, so there would be no risk of insufficient lubrication, you just wouldn't be getting the fuel economy benefits that Toyota was shooting for with this design, as you'd, typically, unnecessarily, be adding pumping losses.
Toyota wouldn't put that statement in the OM about using higher viscosiy oil for more severe use conditions under the assumption that people are going to be mis-using the vehicle to the point of voiding their warranty. It just goes to show that Toyota engineers know that more viscosiy protects the engine better any time it's being driven above a benign level. If the Toyota engineers thought the "recommended" oil gave the same engine protection level under all use conditions, they wouldn't have included that statement in the OM.
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