Anyone ever have warranty issues with newer vehicles if you do your own maintenance? I have a vehicle that has always been dealer serviced until things went south at said dealer worker and manager wise so I think I’m going to start doing the oil changes myself. I plan on using oem filter, keeping receipts, time stamped pictures, all that crapola. What ya all think?
Warranty issues with own maintenance?
- Thread starter Ohio91
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Keep good documentation and go for it. If you want the job done right, do it yourself.
That is about the best you can do and maybe keep a log book. Best to also buy your fluids and filters at expected time of service to have similar dated receipts to match your recorded services.
I have been asked twice over the years to prove maintenance and just showed my log book and dated receipts. That sufficed for my needs.
90% of warranty hassles is going to be the dealership you are dealing with. The vehicle maker is going to be relying on them to feed them your info.
Our 24 corolla le required 0w-8 on 2 year yearly oil change per free maintainance from dealer,never came back to them doing DIY bought mobil 1 0w-8 at walmart and oe filter done it at 5k now 11 k still doing it my own,kept the reciept just in case. Email and call from them to bring it in for that free service not going to waste almost 3 hours which I can do it less 20 minutes.
I post all of my maint on CarFax and on the Honda owners site...along with my own notes that I keep in a book...
My closest Nissan dealer is an hour away and I’m not using their junk filters and dealing with a low paid employee overfilling my oil and putting the filter and drain plug on with a 6ft breaker bar. I have receipts for oil and filters and use carfax garage as well. I’ve never used the free oil changes nor do I plan on it. I will let them do my cvt @40k so service has been documented in case of an issue. But I’ll have changed that fluid at least once by the time I hit 40k.
No problem keeping your own records. There’s several apps available to log records and upload pics.
Federal states that you can do your own maintainance and not void the MANUFACTURERS warranty. While purchasing my wifes new Honda the dealer almost fooled me into buying THEIR extended warranty. The fine print said I would have to have all maintainance don't by them or I would void extended warranty. So I declined it said said just give the basic warranty that comes with the car. Car dealers try to use all kinds of scare tactics to upsell you.
Yep. I also started a Carfax account for posting repairs and maintenance. There were a lot of entries to make for two 18-year-old vehicles. Also I use an Excel spreadsheet for each vehicle.
Owen Lucas
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Good start,. Check to see if your manufacturer has a website where you can update and note the maintenance you performed. Honda has this, you can self update. I also take video / pictures of the work because I am paranoid lol.
Decades ago I owned a BMW 325e. "e" stands for efficiency. Very slow acceleration. Pretty good highway mileage. The car was out of warranty by about a year and 5k miles. Took the car to an indie shop in San Diego for coolant swap. cam belt change and valve adjustment. The tech noted that 2 valves could not be adjusted. Took the car to BMW of SD, and present the service manger with my log and receipts. The average OCI was about 3k miles (Castrol 20w50 and a BMW filter). BMW NA authorized a new cam. Found out some of these engines had cams that were not properly hardened.
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I have a manilla folder for my truck that's about an inch thick filled with an 8.5x11" with receipts stapled and mileage written down/what was preformed. After about 10 years, I got tired of adding to it. Figured anyone who bought it would get the drift that it was maintained without having to keep adding to it. I need to figure out where that thing went btw.
That's not a scare tactic when you're carrying the risk.
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Yeah, that whole magnosson moss act thing only applies to the original factory warranty.
Never had a problem with warranties and DIY maintenance. No engines but have replaced a few transmissions under warranty. Had the records and the fluids were correct, properly filled and appeared clean. Not much to refute there. I think people’s concerns are generally over inflated.
I just wanted a “cpupton” post to follow an “supton” post. 
Actually this was an excellent question and often wondered that myself. I had my transmission go out at 77k miles on my GMC Sierra and few weeks ago. Out of warranty but I reached out to GM anyway. They are going to pony up about 10% of the cost and I’m not sure if it was because I had all records at the dealership for every single oil change and transmission fluid change or because it was just too early for a tranny to go out and they know it. I think maybe it was the latter.
Anyway, I’m planning on doing my own scheduled maintenance as much as I can now.
Actually this was an excellent question and often wondered that myself. I had my transmission go out at 77k miles on my GMC Sierra and few weeks ago. Out of warranty but I reached out to GM anyway. They are going to pony up about 10% of the cost and I’m not sure if it was because I had all records at the dealership for every single oil change and transmission fluid change or because it was just too early for a tranny to go out and they know it. I think maybe it was the latter.
Anyway, I’m planning on doing my own scheduled maintenance as much as I can now.
I complete the maintenance (oil changes) entries on the Hyundai app and keep the receipts...hoping to avoid the engine replacement but at 5k miles per year I would be pushing 90 by the time the drivetrain warranty expires.
Oops...forgot about the 10 year warranty limit...make that pushing 80...which is probably good enough.
