Modding to keep the warranty

[Slimer]

Fellow Canadian FiSTers!
I have been doing a great deal of research on what mods are factory supported (Mountune, Ford Racing).
Turns out that if you are looking to keep your warranty intact it will cost you a bit more money but it can be done.
You can get intercoolers, tunes, short shifts, suspension packs, intakes and full exhausts.

I have some links and some documents to support this that i will be posting soon but i will be taking this information to Ford in the near future to confirm everything i have read.

2 things.

1. You have to buy from either Ford Racing or Mountune.
   
2. You have to have a Ford certified dealer install the parts.

The one last part i want that isnt included is the Cobb lower engine mount, but i doubt that Ford would get their poopy pants on about a superior mount.

Will update when i can.

 

[Phreak]

I've modded pretty much every car I've ever bought new. Really you can do anything you want to the car and so long as it isn't the cause of a failure the rest of your warranty remains intact. I've rolled my jacked up Hummer with massive armored front end, oversize and stanced out tires in for tons of warranty work (mostly related to pushing the limits off-road) and never been turned away. They will bitch, but ultimately they know if it gets challenged in a court room they usually lose.

Putting an aggressive tune on the car is one thing that unfortunately can be pointed if something on the engine fails, but other stuff like headers or an intercooler are not items that are going to be tied into a major failure

 

[zxtost]

The issue is the tune. If you tune to add more boost and experience engine failure 99% of the time you are on your own. So then what is the point of installing an exhaust, downpipe, intake or other mods if you can't tune for it???

 

[zxtost]

Didn't mean to kill the thread but its just the conclusion I came too... I called Ford Canada Customer Service and all they would say is any part not installed at the factory can void your warranty if it is found to have caused the issue. This includes Ford Racing etc. I was disappointed

 

[BlueBomber]

My little caveat to that is I run a tune from Mountune now XD

 

[Phreak]

Didn't mean to kill the thread but its just the conclusion I came too... I called Ford Canada Customer Service and all they would say is any part not installed at the factory can void your warranty if it is found to have caused the issue. This includes Ford Racing etc. I was disappointed

Just do the tune... then it something fails, take it out

It isn't usually a witch hunt unless you give them a reason, they usually just see the broken part and then throw it under warranty work. Dealership gets paid by the manufacturer, everybody is happy.

 

[CanadianST]

My dealership instantly started throwing the "voided warranty" card around as soon as they seen my intercooler even though I had prior approval for anything as long as I "didn't get into engine internals" when I bought the car. I was skeptical but went ahead and modded it anyway that's realistically the price you're gonna pay when you decide to modify a new car. Now I just have an excuse to pick up my bigger turbo

 

[Slimer]

I have the Ford Corporate documents that support a list of mods approved under the warranty.
They aren't crazy 300 whp tunes but I don't think that would be nice to drive in our cars anyways.
As soon as I get my stuff together I'll post the relevant documents for all to see.
BTW. Do yourself a favor. If you do nothing else, add the steeda rear sway bar.
The understeer improvement is awesome.

 

[rodmoe]

I am still waking up gotta link for the STeeda BAR??

 

[BlueBomber]

I am still waking up gotta link for the STeeda BAR??

what i have.

http://www.steedafiesta.com/parts/ford-fiesta-rear-swaybar/

POOF.
voila. huge improvement in the car's rear end behavior. and you can even install an eibach or whiteline setup with it in place too, but GODDAMN it is a BITCH drilling through the torsion bar to install the two horizontally oriented mounting bolts. It was the hardest part. it took like TWO HOURS of drilling effort to get through.

I also had to narrow mine to get it into the u-channel.

Sway bar is a misnomer as i think it is a Rear Torsion Beam Brace - 3-wheeling is gone!

 

[rodmoe]

Thanks

 

[ed_the_sledd]

I contacted my Ford dealership about upgrading the exhaust. I purchased the extended warranty so I wanted to make sure I wasn't voiding it. They said that CBE are okay, but I can't touch the Catalytic Converter. Any mods after the catalytic converter are okay, so I purchased the Cobb CBE. Just a tip in case anyone was interested. This upgrade is purely for cosmetic purposes though, as a DP is what would really improve performance gains

 

[Slimer]

Thanks for the link BlueBomber.
www.steeda.ca/ford-fiesta-parts/11-12-focus/suspension-chassis-steering/2011-fiesta/555-1074/ for the Canadian site. Although i should mention that the Canadian site is brokedown garbage and frustrating.

Also i have the relevant documentation for the FRPP Warranty Limitations and i would like to upload it.
Can anyone tell me how to upload pictures or PDFs on this forum?

 

[Slimer]

SELECT FORD RACING AND mountune? PERFORMANCE PARTS Limited Warranty

So i figured out the Advanced Post Attachement function.
Here is the documents supporting what i have been saying.
I think its great that Ford will allow us to mod the cars under warranty. It wont be the Porsche murdering car you dreamed about but itll be much improved and covered all the way.

SELECT FORD RACING AND mountune? PERFORMANCE PARTS
LIMITED WARRANTY
Rev. July 15, 2014

 

[ZREXER]

If I am in the mood to 'Murder Porsches' or Nissan GTR's, I just take my tuned Kawasaki ZX-14 out... 0 to 100 mph in under 5 seconds.

For my fellow Canadians, I have a private message into Nikki our Ford Service Rep to see what she can tell me about the warranty approved Mountune pieces. My local Ford service manager looked at me like i was on drugs talking about factory approved modifcations.

 

[zxtost]

Yup that happened to me too. And I also called a local dealership known for racing mustangs and got the same look.

 

[zxtost]

Nice bike. I had a 2011 zx10r until I wrecked it in June.

 

[Slimer]

Did you buy in Sherwood Park?
I was up there earlier in the year and they told me they werent being allotted any FiSTs (which i thought was strange).

I will be taking the same documents to a few dealers here in Calgary to get their feedback as well.
If its something that they dont know about, do you think its safe to assume that as a legal document it needs to be honored by Ford Corporate?

 

[ZREXER]

Nice bike. I had a 2011 zx10r until I wrecked it in June.

The only thing worse than wrecking a bike is not being around to talk about it! I think my ZX-14 is going bye, bye in the spring. Too easy to go too fast. I have no discipline. Devil on the right shoulder over rules the angel on the left shoulder all the time. Find myself too often what feels like a cruise speed, but I'm going 200 kph. The bike is not even remotely working hard at that speed. Since you had a ZX-10, you know what I mean!

 

[ZREXER]

As I mentioned in my prior post I sent the Mountune links to Nikki, our Ford of Canada rep, so I will b e interested in her response. I think stuff like this takes a long time to filter down to the dealership level.
Got all winter to get it figured out. I see the Mountune stuff is not showing up under Ford Racing, but other Fiesta stuff for non ST's is.