First GT-R Warranty Denial due to VDC?

[kalrith]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: RichUK

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: RichUK
What is the 0-60 time with VDC on?

4.0 versus 3.3 without VDC.

Still pretty quick then.

Yep but .7 at that speed must feel quite a bit quicker. The whole thing seems silly.

I think it's a huge difference. The GT-R has been advertised and tested as a god-send of performance, but that performance can only be had at the expense of the warranty (and before long $20k transmission).

I think it's important to note that the CTS-V does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, so you'd have to void your GT-R warranty to beat it in a straight line (at least to 60mph).

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: kalrith

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: RichUK

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: RichUK
What is the 0-60 time with VDC on?

4.0 versus 3.3 without VDC.

Still pretty quick then.

Yep but .7 at that speed must feel quite a bit quicker. The whole thing seems silly.

I think it's a huge difference. The GT-R has been advertised and tested as a god-send of performance, but that performance can only be had at the expense of the warranty (and before long $20k transmission).

I think it's important to note that the CTS-V does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, so you'd have to void your GT-R warranty to beat it in a straight line (at least to 60mph).

I agree. I've defended the GT-R, and I still think it's a good deal for what you get overall. I think that the 'Ring time is true.

*BUT*

Nissan shouldn't advertise the car as being capable of performance benchmarks (0-60, 1/4, etc), and then void your warranty if you set the car to the mode that enables that performance.

Vette, Viper, etc, you can hammer on like mad, and they won't void your warranty unless you just rag the car to death.

 

[theeedude]

Originally posted by: kalrith

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: RichUK

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: RichUK
What is the 0-60 time with VDC on?

4.0 versus 3.3 without VDC.

Still pretty quick then.

Yep but .7 at that speed must feel quite a bit quicker. The whole thing seems silly.

I think it's a huge difference. The GT-R has been advertised and tested as a god-send of performance, but that performance can only be had at the expense of the warranty (and before long $20k transmission).

I think it's important to note that the CTS-V does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, so you'd have to void your GT-R warranty to beat it in a straight line (at least to 60mph).

There is more to performance than 0-60. 0-60 is more of an indicator of performance than a performance goal in itself. A lot of 0-60 times that are posted for all sorts of cars are done under very abusive circumstances that few people without money to burn on repairs would do to their own cars. Dropping clutches and brake torquing automatics at high RPMs, etc. There is absolutely no reason to do that on public roads, and auto warranties don't usually cover track or dragstrip use. If you want to use your car like a race/dragstrip car, prepare to spend the money to maintain and service it like one. Don't expect all other owners to subsidize it through higher purchase price to cover it under warranty.

 

[Kadarin]

A .7 second difference in 0-60 time is huge.

 

[alkemyst]

This is a typical case where 1000's that would / could not ever buy this car will cry out.

The VDC issue is clear in the manual. Even supercars aren't covered if the owner is out dragracing them and many are fragile in this manner.

1/4 miles and stop light drags are problematic for most cars worth their salt on a track.

In the cases where Nissan allows VDC turned off and the like are sponsered track events where you are required to submit to their service afterwards to keep your warranty intact.

 

[lurk3r]

I love all the ranting about a situation we know basically nothing about. Put some sticky tires on just about any performance car and run it full throttle light to light doing neutral drops or popping the clutch every time, how long do you thing that Mustang will last? I'm betting about a week of full throttle burnouts will break something. If you take ANY performance car and beat the hell out of it you can easily break it. That doesn't mean the rear end is glass, dear god its handling 500 hp.

Any manufacturer will void the warranty if they can prove you have been racing, and why shouldn't they? I doubt very much that a couple dozen full throttle launches caused this, more like a few hundred. The manufacturer called special service techs in and found that the car had been badly abused, which is exactly why they put such a broad cover their ass statement in the warranty description.

I'll bet that I can blow up a 911 in a weekend if I set my mind to it, does that make it a shitty car with a glass drivetrain? No it would make me an idiot that abuses a car.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: lurk3r
I love all the ranting about a situation we know basically nothing about. Put some sticky tires on just about any performance car and run it full throttle light to light doing neutral drops or popping the clutch every time, how long do you thing that Mustang will last? I'm betting about a week of full throttle burnouts will break something. If you take ANY performance car and beat the hell out of it you can easily break it. That doesn't mean the rear end is glass, dear god its handling 500 hp.

Any manufacturer will void the warranty if they can prove you have been racing, and why shouldn't they? I doubt very much that a couple dozen full throttle launches caused this, more like a few hundred. The manufacturer called special service techs in and found that the car had been badly abused, which is exactly why they put such a broad cover their ass statement in the warranty description.

I'll bet that I can blow up a 911 in a weekend if I set my mind to it, does that make it a shitty car with a glass drivetrain? No it would make me an idiot that abuses a car.

I agree with the overall sentiment there. Indeed the GT-R may be no more fragile than any other performance halo vehicle.

The big problem Nissan has is the wording of the situation. Simply telling people they can't disable VDC without voiding their warranty is very troubling, as that is how to get to the advertised performance capability. I can't think of anything similar with the Vette, Viper, GT500, 911, hell even the M3 and M5, where if you flip a switch, you're told your warranty is kaput.

They should have said, if there is a failure, we will examine it on a case-by-case basis for evidence of abuse, and if abuse is discovered, warranty = void. Not that you can't access LC, or drive without VDC.

The way Nissan has worded this causes two things :

(1)- The perception that the GT-R is fragile.

(2)- The perception (reality?) that Nissan is being deceptive with the performance numbers. You can take a Z06, set it up any way you want, and GM won't void your warranty outside of extreme circumstances. I'd have to imagine dumping the clutch repeatedly at 7k with Rcomps on the rear would do that

 

[Vette73]

^

Thats the thing. To get the numbers GM puts out for most Vettes/GTOs/etc... the best numbers come from bogging it off the line a little. If you dump the clutch on a vette you will probable go more sideways then forward.

Also turning off stabiltrak (GMs version of VDC ) does not void the warranty. Let alone compnaies will bore out the LS motors and put turbos/superchargers on a Vette and give it a full warranty.


Seems Nissan built their car to the max and maybe a little above. I remember the old 5.0 Mustangs had manual trans problems if you did just about any mods as the tranmission (Borg T-5) was barely strong enough to hold the power from a 5L Ford V8. Its also the reason the old 3rd Gen F-Bodies with a 350 only came in automatic as they also used the T-5 in those cars.

 

[joutlaw]

I agree the guy probably beat on it pretty bad. Check out the forum from the OP. Look at the guy other posts... he even posted a thread in late September about he had done 20 launces via LC and was wondering if it was going to void his warranty.

To me it comes down to you get what you pay for. Nissans have always been more performance oriented than their jap counterparts, but I've never felt their quality was that high. If I have a car that was programmed with a LC feature... I'm going to use it. I'm one of those guys who tends to "drive it like you stole it". I do it in a 94 accord, a 00 millenia, and 04 chevy truck... as well as all my past vehicles. Cars/trucks/boats/motorcyles/atv's are meant to be driven. Have I ever tore a transmission or rear end up... nope... but I've probably wore some tires down before their rated time.

I really like the GT-R, but even if I could afford it... this would be a nail in the coffin for me. I'd look towards the Z06 instead. I think GM is spot on with the C6 and the latest interior upgrades make it even better. I know the LS7 in the Z06 and transaxle are up to the task of 505HP and the car was meant to be driven hard. The GenIII and GenIV small blocks are bulletproof and respond very well to mods. They are also extremely simple designs that you can maintain yourself.

 

[zixxer]

This is what happens when you sell a child a supercar. It's very obvious that this was due to abuse, and it's unfortunate that the general consensus is that nissan should make the car retard proof.

This isn't a vehicle you should expect to get 250k miles out of like your Camry. It's really not even something designed for repeated abusive hard launches. To me, it's no different AT ALL from someone dumping and burning out a clutch in 5k miles... Nissan wouldn't replace that, now would they?

My bet is that they hooked up the black box or whatever and there was enough to make them void the warranty - it's not like he got a blanket statement.. They waited until looking at the box and then denied his claim. IMHO he's trying to rip of Nissan.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: zixxer
This is what happens when you sell a child a supercar. It's very obvious that this was due to abuse, and it's unfortunate that the general consensus is that nissan should make the car retard proof.

This isn't a vehicle you should expect to get 250k miles out of like your Camry. It's really not even something designed for repeated abusive hard launches. To me, it's no different AT ALL from someone dumping and burning out a clutch in 5k miles... Nissan wouldn't replace that, now would they?

My bet is that they hooked up the black box or whatever and there was enough to make them void the warranty - it's not like he got a blanket statement.. They waited until looking at the box and then denied his claim. IMHO he's trying to rip of Nissan.

^^ I have no problem with any of that.

I *DO* have a problem with Nissan saying that your warranty is void if you disable VDC, or use LC (which requires VDC to be disabled AFAIK).

Again, they should just say the warranty will be voided if they discover abuse, not that it's void because you flip a switch. The guy who broke his GT-R probably did it due to abusing it, I have little doubt of that. That still doesn't excuse Nissan for having a stupid policy.

This isn't a touchy 6-speed where someone might accidentally put it in 1st instead of 3rd and suddenly be putting 10k rpm through the drivetrain. This is a computer-controlled automatic, and simply flooring it shouldn't break it, ideally.

 

[zixxer]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: zixxer
This is what happens when you sell a child a supercar. It's very obvious that this was due to abuse, and it's unfortunate that the general consensus is that nissan should make the car retard proof.

This isn't a vehicle you should expect to get 250k miles out of like your Camry. It's really not even something designed for repeated abusive hard launches. To me, it's no different AT ALL from someone dumping and burning out a clutch in 5k miles... Nissan wouldn't replace that, now would they?

My bet is that they hooked up the black box or whatever and there was enough to make them void the warranty - it's not like he got a blanket statement.. They waited until looking at the box and then denied his claim. IMHO he's trying to rip of Nissan.

^^ I have no problem with any of that.

I *DO* have a problem with Nissan saying that your warranty is void if you disable VDC, or use LC (which requires VDC to be disabled AFAIK).

Again, they should just say the warranty will be voided if they discover abuse, not that it's void because you flip a switch. The guy who broke his GT-R probably did it due to abusing it, I have little doubt of that. That still doesn't excuse Nissan for having a stupid policy.

This isn't a touchy 6-speed where someone might accidentally put it in 1st instead of 3rd and suddenly be putting 10k rpm through the drivetrain. This is a computer-controlled automatic, and simply flooring it shouldn't break it, ideally.

No, voiding the warranty due to 'abuse' is WAY too vague. This is Nissan, not Lamborghini.

And it is a touchy supercar, not a sentra. They make it very clear (since everyone seems to know about it) that turning off VDC is not recommended. I would bet that doing 9-10 hard launches with VDC will not void any warranty, but rampant abuse (as the OP seemed to indicate happened based on his prior posts) will get your warranty denied.

I own a few high performance vehicles, and I completely respect that Nissan denied this douchebag after grenading a 20k tranny. Nissan made a to-the-limit high performance supercar and it should be respected as such. It is NOT a 1/4 mile vehicle nor designed for stoplight drag racing. It was designed for TRACK duty, which means you might have ONE hard launch when you start - and if you've ever done any type of track day you'd realize that even then it isn't necessary to push the vehicle to the limit at every red light.


A lot of these responses are coming from people that don't drive this 'type' of vehicle. You don't drive something like this around racing civics at every red light..


Edit:

And the reason I say voiding due to abuse being to vague is because there are too many different 'versions' of abuse. In my opinion doing a track day is NOT abuse, but many companies say it is. I'd rather they simply say turning off vdc will cause a voided warranty but let me do a trackday.

Either way, I very strongly feel like if this guy hadn't treated the car the way he did that Nissan would've honored the warranty. I've seen many of these types of things (with superbikes - Ducati, Suzuki, and Kawasaki) and you'd be really surprised at what a manufacturer will do for a warranty claim UNLESS it's something you did.


Unfortunately there are too many scam artists like the GTRDouche that have cause companies to have policies like this.

 

[Arkaign]

No, they didn't just say that turning off VDC is not recommended. They state, and make you sign a document apparently, that turning off VDC = your warranty is void, abuse or no.

This is unusual to say the least.

 

[zixxer]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
No, they didn't just say that turning off VDC is not recommended. They state, and make you sign a document apparently, that turning off VDC = your warranty is void, abuse or no.

This is unusual to say the least.

No kidding? I didn't know that...



That's ridiculous.


/me hugs his 1098


Edit:

I still wonder what the condition was of the other vehicles that had their warranty denied over this. Anyone know how many GTR's have been sold?

 

[theeedude]

Warranty is void if you damage car while VDC is off, unless you are turning it off to rock the car out of mud.
It's not void just because you turned VDC off at some point. Maybe Nissan saw from the blackbox that the tranny was damaged while VDC was in fact off.

 

[Arkaign]

IIRC, global GT-R production is in the ~3000 range/yearly. So it's definitely a rare vehicle. Most of them will probably be pretty well taken care of, as $70k+ cars generally aren't driven by people under 30. There are always exceptions though.

 

[lurk3r]

I just read the whole thread, the guy is swearing that he only use the LC 20 times, and had a 2 week break from launches before the trans blew up, if he's not lying I'd definitely have to flipflop my opinion.

If I dropped $80k on a performance car with a special customized button to make perfect launches every time, an Nissan Execs have been caught on camera advertising, I'd expect to be able to use the damn button once a week, not every time I take off, but 20 times, hell ya.

Couple that with the wording of the warranty voiding it if VDC is disabled ONCE (there is a procedure to use launch control, which involves disabling VDC), and several Z06 customers getting warranty replacements for blowing up transmissions on modified cars, and the Vette gets the nod now.

I keep switching sides, mainly because I don't know if I believe the OP, I hope I'm making my opinion clear lol

 

[Arkaign]

^^ Yeah, this just isn't enough info to base a full opinion on. What isn't in dispute is the crazy wording that Nissan has regarding VDC/LC and their warranty.

I predict that more light will be shed on this as time goes on. As it is, it's just too sketchy to make any firm conclusions regarding the reliability of the GT-R as a whole, or how flexible Nissan is going to be on problem areas / failures.

 

[GTaudiophile]

LOL. I just read all 50 pages of that thread.

I love "GTfallapart" the most...

 

[theeedude]

Maybe some Nissan bashers who still have cars under warranty can do an experiment for us, just so we can compare warranty coverage.
Repeatedly drop clutch at high RPM to match magazine 0-60 runs. If (when) this causes transmission to fail for one reason or another, take the car to dealer, tell them what you were doing, and ask for a repalcement transmission.
Report back to us what you hear from the dealer, but please omit the expletives.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: senseamp
Maybe some Nissan bashers who still have cars under warranty can do an experiment for us, just so we can compare warranty coverage.
Repeatedly drop clutch at high RPM to match magazine 0-60 runs. If (when) this causes transmission to fail for one reason or another, take the car to dealer, tell them what you were doing, and ask for a repalcement transmission.
Report back to us what you hear from the dealer, but please omit the expletives.

I'd do it with my 944, even at 160,000 miles. Of course, in that car the best 0-60 is achieved by slipping the clutch, not dumping it, so my transaxle would be fine.

Clutch would be smoke though.

Probably could have done it in the Mustang too, the T3650 is supposed to be pretty stout. Of course, that car is built with drag racing in mind.

Still, I generally agree with your point. There is something to the argument that the computer-controlled transmission in the GT-R shouldn't be calibrated such that it allows damaging launches, but the fact of the matter is that racing definitely is cause for voiding a warranty. If you track your car, you shouldn't expect the warranty to be honored when you break something while racing.

ZV

 

[zixxer]

Ok - I read the entire thread, and that kid did the launch control crap ('secret' unofficial mode you can put the car in to do 3.3 second 0-60 launches that are VERY stressful on the car) over 20 times in two weeks... Are you kidding me?

This is ridiculous... That launch control ish is ONLY for drag racing type starts - even without it guys are getting less than 4 second 0-60 times and track times are unaltered either way. People.. That is NOT what this car is made for. Someone in another thread even said that nissan is allowing a certain number of these special launches but this guy was going crazy with it.

The more people complain about this the less likely you'll ever be able to get these secret high hp modes in the high performance cars. Even the ferrari/porsche guys have issues with REPEATED 100% 0-60 runs.. This is EXACTLY as if you 'dumped' the clutch - and if you drop the clutch in any ~500hp supercar twenty times in a row you WILL break something - especially in an automatic, where the ecu assumes you aren't putting those types of repeated stresses on the vehicle.

Basically, he was out street drag racing and fscked up his car. In my opinion this is FAR worse than doing a track day - which nissan won't void your warranty over (subaru?).

 

[zixxer]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: senseamp
Maybe some Nissan bashers who still have cars under warranty can do an experiment for us, just so we can compare warranty coverage.
Repeatedly drop clutch at high RPM to match magazine 0-60 runs. If (when) this causes transmission to fail for one reason or another, take the car to dealer, tell them what you were doing, and ask for a repalcement transmission.
Report back to us what you hear from the dealer, but please omit the expletives.

I'd do it with my 944, even at 160,000 miles. Of course, in that car the best 0-60 is achieved by slipping the clutch, not dumping it, so my transaxle would be fine.

Clutch would be smoke though.

Probably could have done it in the Mustang too, the T3650 is supposed to be pretty stout. Of course, that car is built with drag racing in mind.

Still, I generally agree with your point. There is something to the argument that the computer-controlled transmission in the GT-R shouldn't be calibrated such that it allows damaging launches, but the fact of the matter is that racing definitely is cause for voiding a warranty. If you track your car, you shouldn't expect the warranty to be honored when you break something while racing.

ZV

There's a very important element no one in this thread is mentioning - he wasn't just racing. There is a secret combination of flipping a switch, holding down the brake while flooring it or some mess that causes a seemingly 'automatic' computer controlled launch that is very hard on the car, but gets you a 3.3 second 0-60.. IMO it's worse than slipping/dumping a clutch - and not a Nissan approved thing either. This guy did it over 20 times, and the cars black box told on him. Now he wants a new transmission...

 

[fstime]

He should of read the fine print, his fault, not nissans. If he didn't agree to it, then he shouldn't of bought the car, period.

How about I buy a GT-R, do a launch control 3 times a day for a month and then whine when my transmission breaks.

 

[SithSolo1]

This has been covered but turning VDC off does not void the warranty in and of itself, however if damage occurs while it is off then it will more than likely not be covered under warranty. The black box records the number of LCs indefinitely, non time stamped. It also records a time stamped record of the last 48hrs of driving. Odds are if you blow the tranny/break something while the VDC is off it will be in the time stamped 48hrs and that's where they get you.