A mechanic has taken to TikTok to state that after a customer brought their car to his dealership, he began work on the car only to find that the warranty was voided. Mozalez Auto Repair (@mozalez_autorepair) posted the video on his account.
The TikTok user wanted to highlight that just avoiding a simple mistake can ensure your warranty isn’t voided and that you won’t have to pay for certain repairs. The mechanic sadly had to direct much of the blame towards the customer, who had decided to poke around under the hood of the car.
“You know what’s the fastest way to void your warranty?” he asked. “It’s not taking it to another shop. It’s putting your own dirty hands into the mix,” he added. Mozalez said that it was what had voided their warranty and stated that the customer had been doing stuff under the hood of the car.
The incident does bring to light the type of repairs that can void a warranty on your car. Not everything you do will void it, but there are some things that will violate the policy that manufacturers have set for your car.
The Mechanic Was Frustrated by the Customer
@mozalez_autorepair #mechanic #mechaniclife #mechanicsoftiktok ♬ original sound – Mozalez Auto Repair, LLC
It was clear that this mechanic wasn’t happy. Mozalez was shocked that the customer had voided the warranty, and he only found out after he had begun working on the car. “How are you going to send me a picture and say, ‘Can you extract this bolt for me?’” he said. “And when I check, it has to do with the timing that I just did three, four months ago? What do you do? No, I can’t fix the bolt. I’m so sorry. Nope.”
It is important to stress that things such as oil changes will not void your warranty. The law protects car owners with warranties who use third-party mechanics for services. It means manufacturers can’t dictate where you go to get work done on your car, and you are not beholden to their own dealerships. It gets a bit more complicated when it comes to things such as the transmission, engine, emissions, and other systems.
Work on these jobs could easily go wrong. So manufacturers can void the warranty if the system is touched by someone not authorized by the company. If you are messing around with a car at home, then that is one way the warranty can be voided. Manufacturers do still have to prove that improper work was carried out on the car in order to prove that was the case. But it protects them from being liable if something goes wrong that was worked on by a DIY mechanic.
Reddit Users Discussed How a Warranty Policy Can Work
A Reddit thread in the r/hyundai subreddit discussed a warranty that was potentially voided. The owner of the car said they had an independent mechanic work on a piston issue. “Is this true? Where would I be able to read about this?” they said. Another user responded. “I don’t know where you are, but if you are in the US, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (a 1975 federal law) protects consumers by making it illegal for manufacturers to deny coverage simply because a car wasn’t serviced at a dealership,” they said.
“Unless that third-party work caused the issue,” added the Reddit user. Another stated that the work described would not fall under the category of a service. If you replace the cylinders, your warranty is voided, as it is a major repair and modification to the car. Hyundai, as a manufacturer, would still have to prove that this work was carried out by someone unauthorized.