Warranty and/or Extended Warranty Question

bman2033

Member
:
2007 Mazdaspeed 3
Hi all, I have owned my car now for about 6 months now and have searched and read all of the cool threadsabout different things us owners can do for our cars. At the time of the purchase from the Fitzgerald Mall Dealership I bought the car with 27,000 miles and it is a 07 mazdaspeed3 and I was either suckered into or made the right choice as to buy the extended warranty (whip). Now I am thinking more and more about installing upgrades and new parts that may void the warranty or be too much of a hassle to unistall the parts and installing the original before taking it in to the dealership to get fixed. For example, hearing how the "easy way" to upgrade the exhaust on our cars involve cutting of the oem exhaust. I am wondering whether or not I should keep the extended warranty or call them and take it off my car and have that go towards the principle of the car. I am a very big car enthusiast and would love to do more with the car. I have owned a CRX with a B-18 swap and a 240SX with the Sr20DET (silvia) swap. Ilove the mazdaspeed but cant decide if I want to go through the risks of getting caught with aftermarket parts on the car when i take it in to the dealer. once the after market parts are on I plan on not taking them off, why reverse the progress of the car? well just want to know what the friendly people of the Mazdaforums have to say or think. thanks in advance.
 
There are the OEM upgrades Mazdaspeed CAI and the Mazdaspeed CBE. But as far as upgrades that don't void your warranty I believe that's it. It also depends on the car dealer some are more picky than others. How far are you thinking about going with mods? But you said "I am a very big car enthusiast and would love to do more with the car." I'd say the safe bet would be to get rid of the extended warranty.
 
Yeah in the furture, but because of funds not the near future I woul dlike to install FMIC, TBE, already have the MS CAI (was on there when I bought the car and the dealer did not know it was an "upgrade") , Accessport tune, BOV, and way down the road maybe upgrade the K04 turbo. Everyone I know would love to do lots of mods to a car, and I am just thinking I wont be able to last much longer with it stock lol.
 
If you do install extra stuff, try to go for things that will be easy to remove and put stocker stuff back on in case you do need to go to the dealer. This is one of the advantages TMIC has over FMIC for example.

Oh and another warranty-friendly upgrade is MS coilovers. You don't always have to go for the power upgrades.
 
If I had the space to work on my car I would actually think about dealing with install and then uninstall. I am thinking about just taking the extended warranty off the car cause if I do all the installs I want to do there is no way to change all the parts back to stock and then take it to the dealer. It will be a headache. I could just wait till my extended warranty is up then start the upgrades, but that wont be for another 3 years and i dont think i could wait that long.

How many of the Mazdaspeed owners still have a warranty and who doesn't and what are they doing to their car??
 
i'd stay away from the extended warranty and get one of those other aftermarket warranties from someone OTHER THAN MAZDA. That way you can take it wherever you want to and not be limited to just the dealership where they can void you.

My wife's jetta past her dealership warranty, so we got an aftermarket one. It allow us to go to any shop we want and there isa deductible for warranty work that you can pick (ours is only $50). So when her MAF unit went out, power window motor went out, fuel pump went out, headgasket started leaking, and ignition coils needed replacing we went to a shop other than the dealership. (yeah yeah I know it sounds like a lot of things broke, but the car has lots of miles on it and s*** happens down the lime it didnt all happen at once)

Our local dealership sucks balls, and they are always busy and backed up so it was nice going to a more personal style shop for the warranty work and not wait in line for 3 days at the dealership for them to find time to check things out. Dealership also charges $105 for check engine light checks! But they will waive that if you get the repairs done with them if they they diagnose the problem.
 
yea I have seen those aftermarket warranties. Did not know how they work, do you pay monthly kind of like insurance and when s*** goes wrong you just pay your deductable and everything else is covered? more info like company name that your talking about? And yes I have been screwed from the mazda dealership near us and do not want to go to that particular one.
 
Typically you buy the warranty policy up front, then just pay a deductible every time you need to get repairs done.
 
GMAC has a decent aftermarket warranty. You can pretty much contact any GMAC dealership for details. They would be happy to sell you one.

If you are going that big with the car, i.e. turbo upgrades, internals. I would definately have a warranty that will cover that stuff. Nothing but problems from what I see with people going big on their MS3's.
 
Most aftermarket extended warranties don't care about your non-OEM parts. Naturally, you need to check into any specific warranty company you consider to be sure. But if you bought the car used, I would bet you don't have an extended warranty from MAZDA. Dealerships sell more 3rd party extended warranties than manufacturer's extended warranties.

I discussed extended warranty options with my dealer here in Tampa when I bought my MS3 new in September of '08. I specifically told them I'd like to be able to modify the car, at least after the factory coverage runs out. (3y/36k should only last me about 18 months) So they steered em away from the Mazda plan & offered a 3rd party plan that was a flat fee up front, zero deductible, bumper to bumper (less wear & tear items- brakes, clutch, etc.) to 7 years/100k. And to their knowledge, that company didn't really care about upgrades & aftermarket parts. Best part- the dealership assured me that they would honor that warranty right there in their service department.

IIRC, that cost me an extra $1,200 or so, but I'm a little hazy on that right now.
 
I lol'd when I saw the thread title, silly OP, MS3 is second only to the GT-R in bad warranty contests...
 
I have my extended warranty through Zurich i believe is the name. I paid 1,200 as well. But not to sure what they cover, i guess i can give them a call lol.
 
i have cost guard, and they pretty much told me they didn't care, but if the car had an issue that was anywhere near to what I added to the car was and issue, that they wouldn't cover it. I would say to just buy ms parts and spend the extra money to keep the warranty because you will most likely be jumping into the warranty parts around 40k miles and up. i have an 02 spec v that's still under warranty for another 6 months and 12k miles, and right around 50k miles it was one thing after the next, so considering the car is turbo, you will run into the same issues, plus more. spend the $1k on ms parts and install them yourself and let the car stay that way. it seems too many mods make the car unreliable anyway.
 
oh yea cost guard is really great considering, I haven't spent any extra money on the car, such as dianostic fees, repairs, and car rentals. There are some pretty crappy companies out there who does the reinburtsment thing and only want to cover half the parts and what not. Also, if I did take it to another dealer, then it would be $50 as a deductable, but the dealer I bought it from just sends it to Nissan anyway.
 
Damn, i bought the extended Mazda warranty for my car and paid $2000. This was about 2 months ago. They tried to jack me on it too and didnt even MENTION it to me, instead tried to get my to sign the paperwork. I ended up getting it anyway because i run the car hard occasionally, plan on only doing Intake and a few other easy to uninstall components, and want to keep the car a long time.

I wonder if they inflated the price too because they are assholes. I will NEVER go back to them - this isnt the only thing they tired to screw me on. Millennium Mazda, Durham NC
 
yeah i was thinking about returning it, but know i think im gonna keep it a litlle longer. But once i start modding the car im canceling it and they will prorate it and give me back the difference.
 
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