has anyone have their warranty work denied because they didn't use an OEM oil filter?

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Hello, I'm new to the forum. I want to start out by saying this is a very interesting and informing forum. Now my question pertains to the issue of manufacturers denying warranty claims on their engine work because the owner used something other than an OEM filter and did their own oil changes. I don't know if this has ever happened before. But I have a 2004 Honda Civic that i want to do my own oil changes on, and I don't want to use OEM Honda oil filters since they are made by Honeywell the parent company of Fram. Even though Honda has the filters made to their specs. they still have Fram characteristics like cardboard endaps. For that reason I would like to use either Napa, Purolator, Mobil 1, or some other more reputable company instead. So has any dealer ever denied your claim because of this reason? (p.s. sorry for the long post.)
 
Google for the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act or something similar. The suggestion that using a non-OEM oil filter voiding an engine's warranty is pretty much absurd.
 
Then can they make it more difficult? This is my first car. I don't know anything about warrant, so that's why I'm asking this stupid question. Thank you.
 
Not a stupid question....it is good that you are thinking ahead.

No problem changing your own oil, if you care enough to be here at BITOG asking about it you will do a better job at changing your own oil than letting other places do it anyway....you'll actually use good oil and filters and pay attention to details...(and save $$$$)
(I normally keep a steno pad in my trucks and track every tank of gas and every maintenance and every repair. It helps keep me on schedule for everything...and it shows that you are changing oil/doing maintenance at recommended intervals as well)
welcome to the club!

[ January 13, 2005, 09:41 PM: Message edited by: ZR2RANDO ]
 
welcome.gif
,asiancivicmaniac

You ask a good question for a newbie. Googling for the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act is educational too.

I'd keep good records and keep all your receipts. Suggest also doing a UOA at about 10K-15K to verify all is well. And maybe another one or two before the warranty runs out.

Keep reading, there's tons of good info here.
 
Yeah, welcome aboard. Under the MM Wty Act, the mfr must prove that something you (or some other third party) did was the cause of the problem you're presenting to them for wty repair. Note that they have the burden of proof, not the owner. In addition, there's essentially no such thing as "voiding your warranty" a common boogeyman fear that you hear batted around, even here amongst some pretty car-savvy people. So let's say you use a Brand-X instead of a Honda, and your engine does melt down, heaven forbid. If Honda wants to avoid paying by blaming the filter, they'd have to find a qualified engineer who would examine your car and filter and agree with Honda. It's not enough just to say, "look, it has a gray filter not a blue one".

Now let's say you actually did find and use a bad filter, you had a failure, and Honda did prove that it was your (or the filter maker's) fault. Your wty is STILL GOOD! You just lost that one claim under it. If your door handle falls off, they still have to fix that because your bad filter did not damage the door handle (assuming you didn't tear it off in a blind rage after you found out about the engine. . .).

Pick the filter you want and don't worry about it. Again,
welcome.gif
 
Thanks for asking the question. Like stated above, it shows you care about your car, and you look ahead. Good for you. Take care of your Honda, and you should be asking about a ARX flush for a 2004 Civic with 300,000 miles on it.
 
quote:

Originally posted by asiancivicmaniac:
Hello, I'm new to the forum. I want to start out by saying this is a very interesting and informing forum. Now my question pertains to the issue of manufacturers denying warranty claims on their engine work because the owner used something other than an OEM filter and did their own oil changes. I don't know if this has ever happened before. But I have a 2004 Honda Civic that i want to do my own oil changes on, and I don't want to use OEM Honda oil filters since they are made by Honeywell the parent company of Fram. Even though Honda has the filters made to their specs. they still have Fram characteristics like cardboard endaps. For that reason I would like to use either Napa, Purolator, Mobil 1, or some other more reputable company instead. So has any dealer ever denied your claim because of this reason? (p.s. sorry for the long post.)

Check with your Dealer and see if the Honda-PCX-004 filter will fit your car. This is the new filter for the Honda 2000 and is a Toyo Roki made in Japan. Suppose to be one great filter. Larger filter with more capacity and great construction.

web page
 
if i went with a toyo roki filter, isn't the larger size going to affect oil pressure? also is there an advantage in using that over a store bought filter? also can someone make a suggestion on which brand filter i should get or stay away from?
 
A larger filter won't effect your oil pressure. Oil is virtually incomprssible, so the filter fills up with oil and the pressure is passed right through the filter.

Despite talk about the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act, be carefull about part substitutions while under warranty. If a reputable company says their part is OK for your vehicle, you're pretty safe. If you use a part that wasn't specified for your vehicle by the part manufacturer or your vehicle manufaturer, or don't follow maintenance recomendations, you are hanging out there.

None of the people that tell you you can do anything you want will be there to help you if you have a problem. Do a search for "Cathy" with the search function and read about what she went though because she didn't follow oil change recommendations.

Technically the burden of proof may be on the manufacturer, but you may go broke before you get some court to recognize that.

The $2000 filter shouldn't be problem if it fits. Get the dealer to install one at your first oil change and keep the paper work showing they installed it. After that, the dealer has blessed using that size filter so you can use an $2000 filter without reservations.

Toyo Roki are good filters, it might be a good idea to stick with them until you get a better feel for what you are doing.

It's nearly universally agreed here that Fram is the bottom of the food chain and should be avoided.

Most other filters are at least OK. You won't do much better than Toyo Roki from your dealer no matter what. OTOH, you can do quite bit worse. It's a good safe place to be while you learn more.

[ January 14, 2005, 12:54 AM: Message edited by: XS650 ]
 
quote:

Originally posted by asiancivicmaniac:
if i went with a toyo roki filter, isn't the larger size going to affect oil pressure? also is there an advantage in using that over a store bought filter? also can someone make a suggestion on which brand filter i should get or stay away from?

I think a larger filter would provide increased partical collection efficiency and better oil cooling benefits.
 
quote:

Originally posted by XS650:
A larger filter won't effect your oil pressure. Oil is virtually incomprssible, so the filter fills up with oil and the pressure is passed right through the filter.

Despite talk about the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act, be carefull about part substitutions while under warranty. If a reputable company says their part is OK for your vehicle, you're pretty safe. If you use a part that wasn't specified for your vehicle by the part manufacturer or your vehicle manufaturer, or don't follow maintenance recomendations, you are hanging out there.

None of the people that tell you you can do anything you want will be there to help you if you have a problem. Do a search for "Cathy" with the search function and read about what she went though because she didn't follow oil change recommendations.

Technically the burden of proof may be on the manufacturer, but you may go broke before you get some court to recognize that.

The $2000 filter shouldn't be problem if it fits. Get the dealer to install one at your first oil change and keep the paper work showing they installed it. After that, the dealer has blessed using that size filter so you can use an $2000 filter without reservations.

Toyo Roki are good filters, it might be a good idea to stick with them until you get a better feel for what you are doing.

It's nearly universally agreed here that Fram is the bottom of the food chain and should be avoided.

Most other filters are at least OK. You won't do much better than Toyo Roki from your dealer no matter what. OTOH, you can do quite bit worse. It's a good safe place to be while you learn more.


The OEM S2000 filter can be ordered at a great price from this dealer. See the link.
web page
 
If you take care of the car there will be little reason to question your maintenance habits. Most dealers do not ask for oil change records unless it is evident that oil changes have been missed.

That said it is best, as someone else pointed out, to keep good record. Keep receipts and keep a maintenance log. Do be careful about what parts you do use. Make sure that they are the correct part for the car. In the capacity of a service manager I have had to inform a few customers that the repairs to their car would not be covered by warranty. I have seen a few cases where the wrong oil filter was installed and was the cause of the failure. One was a Mercury Villager that had a filter that stuck down below the pan and was hit and split open where it was exposed. Service station paid for that repair. Another was a ZX2 that had an oil filter specified for the SOHC regular escort engine, not the filter ment for the DOHC Zetec. It didn't flow enough. Service station paid for that engine. Another was a Volvo that had a Fram ment for a Ford on it that was too long and got hit. Jiffy Lube paid for that engine.

You are more likely to need good records if you have an aftermarket extended warranty. They seem to be able to get away with more stringent rules. Again, you are still not likely to have a question if the car looks like it has had proper maintenance. Even so the extended warranty companies sometimes seem to be looking for an excuse not to pay. They wtill respect good records, even if it is a collection of receipts for parts and a handwritten maintenance log.
 
quote:

Originally posted by XS650:
{snip}
Despite talk about the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act, be carefull about part substitutions while under warranty. If a reputable company says their part is OK for your vehicle, you're pretty safe. If you use a part that wasn't specified for your vehicle by the part manufacturer or your vehicle manufaturer, or don't follow maintenance recomendations, you are hanging out there.

None of the people that tell you you can do anything you want will be there to help you if you have a problem. Do a search for "Cathy" with the search function and read about what she went though because she didn't follow oil change recommendations.
{snip}


XS, I think you're taking what's been said above a bit too literally. Cathy Covington's situation was different. They used the minimum acceptable oil for well longer than it should have been used. That's a virtual setup for a fight with the manufacturer after a failure, and as much as I feel for her, what happened is sadly predictable. OTC filters, on the other hand, evan Frams, are not recognized to be a regular cause of failure. In fact, such failures are almost unheard of. Some guy at the dealership who wants to sell parts may try to tell a customer that they must use an OEM filter, but I think it's very unlikely that a decision-maker in the mfr wty department is going to try to push use of a Purolator, M1, or K&N (versus OEM) as a basis for a warranty denial. They will, however, go after you if you've got cooked oil on which you've logged too many miles.

Anyway, I don't read this thread as telling the original poster that he can do "anything he wants", but rather, that as long as he makes an appropriate selection from good, competitive products, he's practically speaking, just as safe as if he uses an OEM.
cheers.gif
 
If you are concerned about it and want a Hoonda OEM filter and don't want to use the Fram Honda OEM filter check out this site:
www.handaaccessories.com they have OEM Honda Filtech filers. Ask for the part number ending with A01. They have a limited supply, I recently bought a ton of them. After I am out I might go to a Wix, Purolator, or something like that.

The Filtech OEM filters are made by Filtech and look very high quality. I havent taken one apart yet but just visually they look much better than the Fram OEM. Also Filtech is the American sub. of Toyo Roki.
 
I'm at lunch so just a quick reply.

The Magnuson-Moss act basically says if the OEM company won't allow warranty because of the use of an aftermarket filter...then the OEM must provide their filter free of charge.

So with your situation, ask Honda if they will warranty their engine when aftermarket filters are used.

What the OEM really means, is that they won't warranty the filter itself. They will warranty their engine parts. It is up to the filter manufacturer to warranty their particular filter element.

Just as Sony won't warranty someone putting a Panasonic chip into their product if the Panasonic chip goes bad, Sony will only warranty Sony parts... Honda won't warranty a Motocraft filter..they didn't build it or it doens't have the Honda name on it, so they should have to. Motocraft will warranty thier filter. As long as you use the part number that the catalog calls out for based on the application.
 
quote:

The $2000 filter shouldn't be problem if it fits. Get the dealer to install one at your first oil change and keep the paper work showing they installed it. After that, the dealer has blessed using that size filter so you can use an $2000 filter without reservations.

Does this mean that if they would install the s2k filter that they basically condfirmed it is okay to use it and if something goes wrong because I used the s2k filter instead of a filter that fit like the OEM Civic filter that my warranty is still valid?
 
asiancivicmaniac:

There's always a risk when you start using aftermarket (or alternate) parts while a car is still under the manufacturer's warranty. ALLEGEDLY, you have certain legal protections and rights, but Honda has the lawyers who can deny/ignore/postpone and make your life miserable until you just give up, even if you are clearly within your rights.

Although I sympathise with your desire to stay away from FRAM, if Honda's warranty scares you that badly, it may be best to use the OEM filter specified for your engine for the duration of the warranty...then there can be NO chance of them denying a claim due to use of an aftermarket or inappropriate part. When the warranty is up, you are free to use any filter you like...

To answer your other question: Napa Gold, Purolator, Wix, Mobil 1, K&N, Motorcraft...they're all good.
 
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