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So as an early 30th birthday present to myself I bought a 2015 XLT Sport SCab 3.5 EB 4x4 Black on Black. My 1st new vehicle after a long list of used Fords. That being said I'm struggling with things that I never had to worry about maintaining before... like a WARRANTY. lol
Love the customization everyone is doing on here. Lots of cool ideas! I myself have always loved the Harley Davidson Edition trucks so I'm thinking of doing something along those lines without adding the HD badges... Black headlights, black leather, chrome slits in the grille, 22" chrome/polished factory wheels, 32-33" AT tires, remove rear 1.25" blocks... Anyway so here's the thing... How do I do all this WITHOUT voiding warranty? If you call Ford and ask them they say if you basically look at the truck the wrong way you'll void the warranty lol so the question is for all of you guys on here customizing, is there a way around it? Are you just winging it and throwing caution to the wind? I've read that Ford knows whether you have previously tuned your truck or adjusted your speedometer even if you return it back to stock before bringing it to the dealership. If I change the overall tires' circumference/diameter I know it will affect the speedometer but will it affect anything else? In other words can I throw on the wheel/tires I want and just deal with the speedometer being slightly off?
Thank you & I'm sorry in advance! 😎
- Ryan Ziegler
Last edited by RyanCZiegler; 08-21-2015 at 08:34 PM.
But what I've done is gone though and talked directly with my Ford dealer, since they have an aftermarket sales section. They are doing my exhaust kit and cai, and assure me neither will void my warranty.
It's funny you ask as I just had that conversation with the service manager and their head mechanic at my dealer last Friday.
All of the work I've had done with them was well out of warranty, however, with buying a new truck I wanted to sort out how that stuff would get handled.
For me dealership service departments fall into 2 categories, those that want your business, those that don't. Mine falls into the former category.
They told me that I in general (as you expressed in your post), if they have to get Ford involved, and Ford can even unreasonably point to something you've done on the truck (no matter how unrelated) and say, that must be what caused it, they will dodge a warranty claim. It is just a fact. They told me that they'd both go to bat for me with Ford, but in the end, Ford will be Ford and there is nothing they can do about it.
They told me that anything that they did not have to involve Ford in, they would absolutely take care of for me under warranty regardless of the modifications I had made (or had them make) to the truck.
One of the things I asked them about specifically was putting an under 3" leveling kit on the truck and sticking a bigger block in the back. The service manager told me that he has seen this time and time again, where if the truck is raised like that in any way, Ford will deny any warranty claim related to the transmission, axles, suspension, etc. At this point the mechanic chimed in and nodded his head and said, I've literally pointed out specific problems to them before on raised trucks, where the fact that the customer had raised his vehicle had absolutely no possible way of causing the problem and still had them ignore me and deny the claim.
So, their advice to me was:
A) If you're thinking of putting some aftermarket cat-back exhaust on there, go for it we've never had Ford come back and point at that on a warranty claim, so that would be safe.
B) If you're thinking about any standard accessories you want to dress the truck up with go for it.
C) If you're thinking of doing ANYTHING suspension or drivetrain related, like a tune or something like that, put about 5K or 10K miles on the truck and make sure everything is working like it should. Then go nuts if you want. Ford will still be Ford and deny any big ticket warranty claims, but at least you'll be at a point where you'd hope if anything from the factory was wrong with it, that you'd be aware of it with that kind of mileage on it. No guarantees, but it is a good buffer mileage for anything to go wrong early in the life of the truck.
D) In the end it's your truck, your money, so you can ignore everything we've just told you and do whatever you want. You know we're happy to take your money.
In the end, my personal suggestion, go in to the Ford service center of your choice and have this conversation with them. Tell them exactly what you want to do with your truck and let them tell you exactly how that would affect then handling warranty work. This was just my experience with the FSC I use.
Best of luck to you my friend, great looking truck!
Well said QuickM3. Basically if you give Ford any excuse not to cover something they won't. And I went to my service department and got 12 different answers so I can't and won't trust anything they say unless it's in writing. It's just funny because our stock wheel/tires are basically a 32" so anything close to that within +/- 1" shouldn't affect anything important for one reason... That 32" tire from the factory will no longer be exactly a 32" tire from the moment you drive it. The tread depth is usually 15/32" so let's say 1/2" worth of wear all the way around equating to 1" total height difference when the tire is worn and bald. So now your 32" tire became a 31" tire over the life of the tire. Anyway that's just my half cocked theory. So basically if I want to put 22" Harley wheels with a 305/45r22 tire on making it a 32.8" tire I better hold onto my stock wheels and tires in case there's an issue. :-/
This is why my SCT X4 tuner just sits in it box in the garage b/c I don't dare use it for fear of something going south on the truck and having a claim rejected by Ford.
I am going to do a 2" leveling kit as I can't see that possibly having any side effects but then again maybe I shouldn't do it.......
If there is another, Ford dealership near you, you might want to try them. Buying your car from them doesn't mean you'll get good service from them. A good service manager knows that their department is a HUGE revenue center for the dealership. The margins on selling cars is not where the big money is anymore.
The FSC at my dealer, although honest with me and willing to do anything to the truck that I wanted, they were not crazy about it. Now there is another one about 45 minutes from me that I spoke with about it and they were like "Hell yeah bring it in, we do that stuff all the time." I had talked to them about swapping in some FabFours bumpers, lift kits and the like. One of the guys actually walked me out behind the dealership where they parked and showed me his truck and that of two other guys there, that all had lift kits on them and some other assorted mods. Damn near spent an hour just BS'ing with the guy about that stuff. So moral of the story, try another FSC and see if you can find one you like. Might be more of a drive, but in the end it might also be well worth it.
For just wheels and tires, I've never had anyone at a dealer get bent out of shape about swapping wheels and tires, so I can't imagine Ford being any different.
But yeah, if you're going to be changing the level of the truck by using a leveling kit, block, or even more so by swapping larger suspension mods like Skyjacker or something to get you above 3", everything they told me was in line with the fact that they'd ding you on that.
Which I'm my estimation, I'd be OK with, if for example a control arm failed or something like that. Obviously that type of stuff is going to put added stress on them that they weren't intended for with a factory set up.
However, if I added a 2.5" lift to the front and a larger block in back, spacers and a nice wheel tire combo to round it out and then the transmission failed, I can just see them pointing at that and using it as the excuse as to why they wouldn't honor the powertrain warranty. It is honestly one of the reasons that I won't buy the extended service plan stuff. Just for the fact that I want to make my truck "my own" and don't want to pay extra for something that is just going to get voided the moment I slap one of the more common mods onto my truck. I can see them getting touchy about tunes, superchargers, larger aftermarket turbos, etc., but saying your transmission failed because of your 2" lift kit... that feels like a stretch to me.
All in all I think it's sound advice to put a couple K miles on it before doing anything that would make Ford b*tchy about honoring a big ticket warranty item. It's not like people don't do it immediately, but for me personally that's how I'd handle it. Past that though, for the money you spent on it, you should enjoy it however you damn well please.
I better hold onto my stock wheels and tires in case there's an issue. :-/
Hell if you live some where that gets a good bit of snow, it might not be a bad idea anyways. I always wind up swapping wheels and tires and the stock wheels work great to slap a set of snow tires on.
See the benefit of buying a factory wheel is that I can offset the price by selling mine. I saw these 20" sport wheels in chrome and I'm tempted. Remind me of the old 2nd gen lightning wheels! Wonder if they come with sensors or I can swap mine into them. Hmm...
08-21-2015, 09:16 AM
Fast Track to Losing Warranty
