Definitive answer on voiding factory warranty?

naldy

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I know this question has been asked a million times but I can’t seem to find a definitive answer. Can the dealership tell if you’ve flashed back to factory settings before taking your car in? I’ve seen plenty of posts saying no but i’ve also seen a post of a guy’s receipt from the dealer where they wrote something along the lines of “customer tuned his vehicle and flashed back to stock”. I can’t remember where that post was or if it was Hondata or Ktuner though.

My CVT sport hatch is only about a year old so i’d really like to avoid voiding the warranty if possible
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Crakzor

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I'm sure they can check how many times you flashed. If your engine blows up, im also sure they'll will try everything to figure out if you were tuned. Otherwise, I doubt they'll put up the effort for anything that's not as bad

sorry there’s no definitive answer because it’s up to the dealer.
 

bluehatch17

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Only people who blow their engines are abusing the car and driving like a morons. I have been tuned on 2 different civics and 2 different engines 1.5t and the 2.0na for a combined 30k+ miles. No issues.

If this voiding warranty thing is always going to be in the back of your mind. Modding isn’t for you.
 

gtman

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Here's what I always tell people in terms of tuning and warranty. First you need to make an educated decision in terms of tuning safety. My survey would be a good starting point. There is some risk of course, but the rewards are fantastic.

Number two, you need to assume your drivetrain warranty will potentially be voided.

If you are comfortable with tuning after my saying that, tuning will transform your car. The difference from stock is incredible. If you cringed when I said your warranty might be voided, don't tune!
 

dallasjhawk

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First and foremost, if you cant afford to fix something you break with a mod, dont mod it. Second, deviating from the factory parts always leads to a chance the dealer will void your warranty for the parts you modded, i.e. lower springs would void your suspension warranty. and I dont care about magnusson moss or whatever it is. That is meant for using aftermarket parts that are oem replacement. Third, the dealer tool that honda uses, the HDS, does not have the capability to detect that you flashed your car if you have returned it back to the factory flash. That doesnt mean Honda Corporate doesn't, but my experience being flashed is I still got my warranty to cover a powertrain issue after returning the car to factory and taking it in. They even had an engineer out to look at my issue.
 


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naldy

naldy

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First and foremost, if you cant afford to fix something you break with a mod, dont mod it. Second, deviating from the factory parts always leads to a chance the dealer will void your warranty for the parts you modded, i.e. lower springs would void your suspension warranty. and I dont care about magnusson moss or whatever it is. That is meant for using aftermarket parts that are oem replacement. Third, the dealer tool that honda uses, the HDS, does not have the capability to detect that you flashed your car if you have returned it back to the factory flash. That doesnt mean Honda Corporate doesn't, but my experience being flashed is I still got my warranty to cover a powertrain issue after returning the car to factory and taking it in. They even had an engineer out to look at my issue.
That’s promising. i’m not planning on doing anything crazy to it, just a stage 1 or stage 2 dual. I’ve just heard of a handful of horror stories and just wanted to know where I stand in case something goes wrong.

What was the powertrain issue you ran into?
 

gtman

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Take a look at my survey. Generally, speaking most failures are from various types of abuse. But based on everything you are asking about warranty, you should not tune.

https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/the-tuned-civicx-experience-reliability-survey.42361/

Oldtimers here will tell you back in the day I asked question after question regarding tuning. I wanted to learn not just about it's safety but wanted to learn all I could about tuning in general. One thing I never asked about was warranty because I knew that tuning was likely a void. Not guaranteed but still a possibility.

If you are looking for assurances that tuning is 100% guaranteed safe and your warranty will for sure be OK, stay stock.
 
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naldy

naldy

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Take a look at my survey. Generally, speaking most failures are from various types of abuse. But based on everything you are asking about warranty, you should not tune.

https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/the-tuned-civicx-experience-reliability-survey.42361/

Oldtimers here will tell you back in the day I asked question after question regarding tuning. I wanted to learn not just about it's safety but wanted to learn all I could about tuning in general. One thing I never asked about was warranty because I knew that tuning was likely a void. Not guaranteed but still a possibility.

If you are looking for assurances that tuning is 100% guaranteed safe and your warranty will for sure be OK, stay stock.
I’m actually very familiar with your survey, it was actually what convinced me to want to do it to begin with.

but i understand where you’re coming from, and i appreciate the information. I goes i’ll wait for now and keep doing research for the time being
 

Gotch

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They can’t see specific tunes. On a car like mine with over 100k (kms) if you flash stock, it will show how many start cycles since last reset... this is when you have to have a poker face...

An OBDII scanner can “reset” the diagnostics, there’s your way out, opps, I must have accidentally reset after taking a live log....
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