Does car maintenance affect your warranty?

Question

I have an excellent, reasonably priced local mechanic who could provide my 15k service (and 30k when it comes). Will going to him, instead of my dealer, affect the warranty on my 2006 Scion? If so, I'd go to the dealer until the car is no longer under warranty.

Just for my information, if no maintenance (other than routine simple things like tires, oil changes, wipers, etc.) was done until 30k, would that affect the warranty?

Thanks for your answers.

Answer 1

As long as a certified mechanic does the service and you get a receipt on the service performed, mileage and date, that will be good enough documentation. I had a extended 50,000 mile warranty a needed a new motor at 48,000 miles and they gave me some guff and I showed the all my receipts and most of my oil changes and service had not been done a dealership.But since the oil changes and schedule maintenance had been done they replaced the engine under the warranty. If your unsure just make a call to your dealership or even better is the 1-800 number in your owners manual.

Answer 2

Some warranty from car manufactures specifically by their Certified technicians only. But most of domestic cars do not required that specifics. Foreign car owners needs to follow their manufacturer requirements for routine maintenance, most brand name cars has their own guidelines, however, most certified mechanic could performed routine maintenance as long as no major works was performed, it will void factory warranty. Just to be sure: contact the dealer's service department.

Answer 3

If you don't have your regular maintenance done, then there may be warrantied items that will not be covered in the future, do to your negligence. For instance, if a mechanic goes to check out a problem you're having, and notices that there were contributing factors to its failure. And if the contributing factors would have been taken care of with regularly scheduled maintenance, then I would say the dealer may not honor your warranty for reason of negligence.

Answer 4

You might want to check with the dealer first. If he conducts the service work, it shouldn't make any difference in the warranty unless it is something specific that only the dealer is suppose to do. Call the dealership first.

Answer 5

It usually doesn't affect the warranty
The problem with using someone other than the dealer is that you have to keep all the receipts to prove that you did the maintenance.
At the dealer it's already in their system

Answer 6

The simple answer is no. As long as you are not making modifications to the vehicle that would void the warranty. ie. installing a turbo or some other engine mod.

Answer 7

not at all
you are going to lose money in this case