Toyota Denies Warranty for track day blown engine.... again

formerMiata said:

On the comment about the phone, that’s a bad analogy.

A better analogy would be if Samsung offered me a “Scuba diving with your phone!” trip including all expenses paid training on underwater phone cinematography.

No surprise that nobody does this, because it would be an endorsement of the phone as an underwater camera and they’d be replacing a lot of phones. Phone manufacturers are quite clear that the water resistance is intended only to prevent incidental contact. It’s quite the opposite situation to this, where Toyota issuing statements explicitly stating that the car is intended for track use.

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TessaSeveride said:

That's not how it happened at all. They didn't start giving out a free track day and NASA membership to prove going to said events wouldn't necessarily void your warranty. Those freebies were given to owners the second the cars hit the lots in the US. They made an official statement about HDPE and NASA events AFTER a lot of bad publicity from declining warranty repairs on multiple vehicles. And that is only Toyota USA themselves. Individual dealers as private businesses can decline your warranty claim all day long regardless of what Toyota USA says.

There is nothing confusing. Tracking can be considered racing, racing is prohibited by the warranty, dealer declines warranty work, done deal. Until you take it to court or Toyota USA puts pressure on the dealers to do the warranty work anyways, warranty claims can be declined if you admit you took it to a driving event.

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ibar said:

How does it work with warranty work? Does the manufacturer reimburse the dealership? If Toyota pays the cost, I would imagine the dealer would love the free money.

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formerMiata said:

Yes and driving at a track event isn’t racing so driving at the track is not outside of the terms of the warranty.

The statement would make no linguistic sense whatsoever if track=racing. It only makes sense if they don’t consider track use to be racing.

Let’s look at the second paragraph:

While the vehicle’s warranty excludes damage that results from activities such as misuse and racing, simply participating in National Auto Sport Association (NASA) High Performance Driving Events (HPDE) or similar NASA instructional events provided complimentary to GR owners would not, in and of itself, void the warranty.

How could this be true if HDPE=racing?

Lets look at the facts:

• Toyota states in the manual that the warranty doesn’t cover damage from operating outside the intended use and list racing as an example
• Guy blows up car and dealership denies warranty due to “racing” clause because, as you said, dealerships are dumb and don’t understand the distinction
• Toyota issues a statement explicitly stating that use on track is part of the intended use and therefore covered under warranty
• Toyota clarifies that racing is not covered but HDPE is, drawing a line in the sand that shows the distinction between track days and racing from a warranty perspective

I’m not sure where the confusion is here. Track days are covered under warranty.

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ibar said:

How does it work with warranty work? Does the manufacturer reimburse the dealership? If Toyota pays the cost, I would imagine the dealer would love the free money.

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TessaSeveride said:

The confusion is with the dealerships, not with anyone here. No one here would decline this warranty claim after watching the video. The issue is the dealer will not honor the warranty because they consider it racing. Whether Toyota USA will put pressure on this specific dealer by pulling allocations or declining manufacturer support on future issues is up to Toyota USA and only them. Nothing can force this specific dealer to accept the warranty claim regardless of what Toyota USA says is or isn't racing or misuse. I don't know if you've ever been part of a warranty dispute before, but it is not pretty and the dealers will not help you nor repair your vehicle even if their corporate entity says your warranty claim is valid.

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Vertigyn said:

I didn’t read through the whole thread but from my experience: when the engine fails, they look at the whole history of the car and the computer tracks everything. Speeds, what gear in, turn angle, break percentage, etc. There is no hiding anything.

If the owner didn’t follow break in properly - they can deny coverage.

If the owner had any prior mis-shifts or over revs - they can deny coverage.

Point being, we are only seeing a 5 minute window of this cars life. There could be a whole slew of things that caused for warranty denial within the other 19,000 miles of use.

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Vertigyn said:

I didn’t read through the whole thread but from my experience: when the engine fails, they look at the whole history of the car and the computer tracks everything. Speeds, what gear in, turn angle, break percentage, etc. There is no hiding anything.

If the owner didn’t follow break in properly - they can deny coverage.

If the owner had any prior mis-shifts or over revs - they can deny coverage.

Point being, we are only seeing a 5 minute window of this cars life. There could be a whole slew of things that caused for warranty denial within the other 19,000 miles of use.

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vincentyang246 said:

Latest response out of that specific dealership.

God forbids you are going 100 mph on a highway, instant warranty denied 😂 sarcasm

View attachment 26894

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formerMiata said:

I can’t comment on this particular dealer or anything.

My commentary was only about whether or not track use is explicitly covered under warranty from the perspective of Toyota. It’s clear to me it is. If so, we can track our cars secure in the knowledge that eventually Toyota will pony up even if we have to take it to another dealer to get the work done.

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TRU-BOOST said:

While on the topic of warranty absurdities.....
Back in 2005 I bought a saleen focus N2O. The car came off the showroom floor with a 75hp nitrous setup. Everything was there and installed nicely. The catch was the bottle obviously came empty and in order for that clean OEM installed kit to work you had to purchase and install an additional relay. The moment that relay gets installed in the car your powertrain warranty was void.
I was told that by activating that circuit with the relay it left some kind of digital stamp on the ECU, so they would know if you tried deactivating it for a warranty claim.
Obviously I had the relay installed before I picked up the car..!! Used lots and lots of nitrous and never an issue. The car did have other random electrical and suspension gremlins that the dealer covered no questions asked.
I miss when Ford was cool.

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LordXenu said:

Was that based off of the SVT Focus?

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