Sella604

Hi everyone, been reading up on JKs for the past few months, missed my old TJ after ten years and now ready for a 2013 JK 2 door.
The basic plan is Wrangler Sport, with 2.5" lift 35" rubber and aftermarket rims.

I've been reading some horror stories about warranty issues here and I'm concerned.

I don't turn wrenches, I do Management as the day job and wood working as a hobby, I know my limits to say the least.

I live in Maple Ridge BC, Canada.

The BIG dealership knows me by face from wandering in for the past few months trying to choose a colour and waiting for me to pull the pin $$$$.

If the dealership installs the lift and tires they will TRY and hose me $$$$$, no secret there right?

Going down the street to ABC tire guy he will do the same but cheaper.

Can anyone clear up the what is covered under warranty, no longer covered if it is modded question for me?

I'm 1/2 Italian so I'm ALL CHEAP but I do know the value of paying for a quality product and I expect quality customer service, I, like I'm sure all of you work hard for our money and where we choose to spend it comes with requirements from the seller.

I'm "that guy" that gets a better deal from any sales man everywhere I go. Or at least give them 100% raking over the coals until Ive gotten something for free.

Anyone who can help clarify the benefits of the dealership installing the lift please feel free to share.

Thanks!

shabbernigdo

no matter who does the lift and tires the warranty is pretty much up in the air. if the dealership wants to be a dick they can or will at least try to void it or they can be cool like some dealerships and not have any issues with it. Either way if you have issues normally associated with lifts and running bigger tires ( worn tie rods / ball joints other suspension linkages / bushings ) they may not be covered.

schild09

i just recently bought a 2013 jkur and i asked about the warranty issues with lifting and tires. dealership said if they install the mopar lift that it would not void the warranty and all lift components would be included in the warranty. keep in mind the mopar lift is fairly pricey. One of my coworkers also just purchased a 2013 jkur and had them install an AEV 2.5" lift kit and his lift is covered in his warranty and lift cost rolled into his total cost of the vehicle. Hope these experiences help out. Also i was told by the dealer that warranty will not be voided by tires up to two sizes larger.

Rednroll

Putting a lift on your vehicle does not "void" the warranty. You can find this in the Chrysler warranty contract....found online, use Google.

Where it gets sticky is if you go to make a warranty claim and if a good case can be made that the lift or any other aftermarket accessory could have contributed to the failure of that OEM part. Then you can be denied warranty claim service. So then you have to realize, that when you add a lift and bigger tires, this can effect quite a bit of items, for instance it can put additional stress on the trans and pretty much your entire drive train, steering and suspension.

This is why a lot of dealers are "dicks". They are risking putting themselves in between a rock and hard place. On one hand they would like to help the customer out and they also get paid for performing warranty work and they sure as heck would rather have their mechanics doing work and bringing in money rather than paying them to stand around and do nothing. So some may choose to just avoid the whole situation. For them to be able to get the replacement parts and get paid for doing the service, they have to submit a claim into Chrysler. Usually, what happens is that if it's a known problem that has already been seen, then this usually doesn't raise any red flags. However, if it's a part that usually doesn't fail with low mileage, Chrysler may want to investigate further. If Chrysler does decide to investigate further, they usually call in engineers who are specialists on the part that failed. These engineers therefore may look at the lift and be able to make a pretty strong case that the part failed due to extra stress the lift caused on that part. At that point Chrysler may decline paying the claim that the dealer submitted on your behalf. So what happens then, is that the dealer is left having to foot the bill for the part and all the labor they did on your vehicle.

So if you had a lift and oversize tires put on your vehicle, and the radio died, I'm pretty certain most every dealer would do the warranty work. However, if your transmission seized up and you have that same lift and larger tires, then I wouldn't expect too many dealers to volunteer footing the bill for a new trans and performing all the work up front, and hope that no one from Chrysler wants to come and investigate more, so they can understand why your trans failed at 10K miles when 99.5% of all the other JKs out there haven't. So a lot of "bad" can happen for the dealer, and not a lot of good. The only good in that transmission replacement example is that they kept the customer happy, but it may have cost them $5K+ in doing so, which is more than they earned on selling you that vehicle as well as the next one you may buy from them.

The reason why the Mopar lift, installed by the dealer is covered under the warranty without any questions is that it's already been tested by Chrysler to work with the OEM parts. So they therefore already know that particular lift is ok, when installed with their specified install instructions.

otservice

Another local guy, if you haven't already come over to bcjeepclub.ca and join the local club. You'll get all the help and answers you need there as there's a ton of us who can either install it, work at dealers and can give a you discount etc.

If you're looking at buying from Maple Ridge Chrysler, stay away....there are WAAAYYY BETTER dealers here than them!!! We've got a few members who work at the local dealers and will give you the best price possible on a new JK and discounts on parts/labour if you go that route.

As far as warranty is concerned, yes the majority of the dealers here wont help you but that's only if the part damaged is directly related to the lift. (Driveline failure: drive shafts, gears, axles, transmission - possibly) The main stuff, engine and electrical will always be covered still. Personally, even if there's a warranty repair I fix it myself because the dealership charge $100+ just to look at it. Last time they tried that for a job that takes 1 min to look at and let me know if it's covered or not. I got mad and they gave the keys back and I didn't pay

If you want to go with a lift and 35s, just do it and not worry about the warranty, because most of the time everything breaks just outside of the warranty ending

Nate

Sella604

Hmmmmm.... do you know the price of the MOPAR lift?

Sella604

Wow.
Thank you for spelling it out. Obviously you can type a heck of a lot faster than my 2 finger so thank you for getting ALL that info out.
Wicked.

The GREY areas, lets call them that, I guess is the part I want to try and avoid.
I like to pre-plan most purchases, and then poke holes in all choices, start over, and in the end be completely happy with my final decision and proud of the time and effort that was invested.
OCD? Maybe a little.

Going to price out the different options this weekend.
Looking forward to the HAGGLE hopefully next week.

Thanks to everyone with all this great input.

Sella604

Nate:

Thanks for the reply, loved everything you had to say except the part about breaking outside of warranty, thats bad karma dude!
Will check out the site you mentioned now.

Thanks,
David.