Lets not forget when you REGISTER to autoX you have proof you entered..usually with a VIN.

Ironically most cars void warranties if you enter into a organized "race" and a funny story is Subaru used to pay for an SCCA membership but would actively look at events to flag cars.


But the real question is. How old are you and why the hell would you want to AutoX a heavy convertible?

 

im 20 (in 2 weeks)
and i want to bc what i normally autox is my mustang and the g is both faster and grips the road better than mine
and for me autoxing isnt about winning so i never care what car i do it with. hell my friend brought out his hyundai accent once and we had a blast beating that thing around the track
why do you ask?

 

You mean the parking lot with cones?

Try a road course; autox skills translate well to car control, but with a lot more things to pay attention to.

 

i would LOVE to try a road course believe me
thing is i dont have the money for it
the closest one to me is MSR in houston and it costs over 200 bucks to run your car there
i never have that much money because i have the mod bug bad with my mustang lol
that why auto-x works for me
25 bucks a month is much more manageable than 250

 

o and yes by track i meant parking lot with cones lol

 

neighbor! I go to MSR occasionally myself. They are, however, like the River Oaks of race tracks. There's GrandSport Speedway in Hitchcock that's quite a bit cheaper. Then there's Texas World Speedway in Bryan who offers 2 full-day instructions for the same price as 1 hour at MSR.

Come visit us at Strictlygs.com -- it's a Houston G group that's very active. If you decided to go to MSR sometime, let me know and we can track on the same day.

 

I can't comment on the Black Box but I do know that the Car can "Learn" your driving habits and adjust accordingly. That's why it is recommended to reset the ECU's "learnings" after winter. It is logical to assume that the Dealer can easily access the data used by this feature and determine what your driving habits are like.

 

hmm thats interesting calgary
how do you reset it?
and soundmike didnt really know about grandsport. i knew about tx world from my aggie friends but have just never bothered to make the trip up
also i dont really have good enough tires for it but in 2 weeks ill have real nice nittos that will be nice to thrash around. i will let you know for sure if i go, but it will be in a mustang since i doubt momma will let me drive hers around a real track lol

 

Yes, Nissans (including Infiniti) have a data recorder or "black box". Almost all cars do now. But as was stated correctly in an earlier post, it doesn't have a huge amount of data on it. More specifically, generally only has the last 30 seconds or so that the car was driven can be retrieved (because it does continually overwrite itself) unless there has been a significant crash event which is hard written to the recorder. It's very unlikely that Nissan retrieved this data to deny your dad's friend's repairs. They didn't need to. It's much more likely that there were obvious signs of abuse for them to make their denial. If daddy's friend took it to arbitration once denied coverage by Nissan, then they might have pulled out their ace in the hole with the data from the recorder. It's also much more likely that he "screwed up the transmission" not because of "some defect in the clutch" but because of a defect in the driver. What did he allege was wrong wit the clutch that screwed up his transmission?

 

True, but it still doesn't definitively prove that the car was abused. There are other reasons that synchros can wear prematurely. I owned a Mazda back in the day that went through the original 2nd/3rd synchro with very little miles on the car. Of course it was covered under warranty, so I didn't pull it apart myself, but the tech told me that it seemed like the cones weren't lining up properly and that's what caused it to wear so quickly.

Anyway, the point here is that dealerships should not jump to conclusions (and most definitely will not) when it comes to the cause of failure. If there is hard proof, that's one thing...but in most cases it's very difficult to prove that a failure was completely caused by abuse.

 

i dont know what kind of defect it was (again im hearing this from my dad who didnt get the whole story anyways) but the guy has owned quite a few performance cars before the nismo and i have seen him drive and he is damn good.
if i ever see the guy again at another auto-x i will def talk to him and have him explain to me what happened and then i can report back to all of you eager people lol.

 

So this has me intrigued. I don't abuse my car but I do like to get on it from time to time. Now if something were to go wrong and I was driving aggressively, they can deny my claim if they say that aggressive driving caused my failure?

So essentially, in order to be covered you have to baby your car? That's bull IMO, I bought the car to drive it. It has a redline for a reason.. to protect the engine. It has an ECM that monitors oil temps and lowers the redline to protect the engine. Aside from that, why the hell shouldn't I be able to flog the car and still be covered under warranty?

If I do repeated clutch drops and powershift every gear I wouldn't expect them to cover my synchros or clutch but I damn well would expect them to cover everything else.

 

exactly
and thats exactly why i came on here looking for answers bc my dad is worried about running the g in auto-x and stuff in case something goes wrong and the dealer can screw us over
maybe this was just a case of a bad dealership and instead of doing arbitration he should have just jumped to another dealership to find someone that would agree to do the work. i know thats what most mustang ppl do if a dealer is trying to jerk them around, so i would imagine it could work with infiniti

 

Nobody is implying that you need to baby a car to preserve warranty coverage. But the other side of that coin is that you can't abuse it either. Any type or amount of racing is going to be considered abuse. This is plainly stated in your warranty (that most seem not to have read).

 

FWIW, I'm getting new axles on my (Honda) that has seen the track regularly.

The catch here, is that I have a good relationship with the service advisor involved. He always provides me with free estimates, and clearly explains what needs to be done. In exchange, if the work can't be justified under warranty, then I pay for it, but if it CAN be covered under warranty, then it will be.

It started with a rear axle click. This is a fairly common problem that usually leads to the axle being replaced. He offered to just flat out replace the axle under warranty, fully knowing my car is tracked; I showed up at the dealer with track brakes on and my datalogger still on the windshield. The axle click is not something that goes out, even under track conditions.

On the other hand, if it had been a wheel bearing, it would not have been covered. It is a wear and tear item, that just happens to go out much faster on tracked cars. If it had been my differential, then an investigation would have taken place to see WHY the differential had failed. There's pretty clear evidence as to if it failed from a launch or not (the only probable cause for a diff breaking under abuse). However, as the CDV is removed on my Honda, and the clutch/pp/flywheel is aftermarket, it would be difficult for him to make the case to Honda that it failed under regular use.

At times, he will ask me to come back after I remove an aftermarket part, so that it can be covered under warranty.

As MSCA has stated before, the dealership has ZERO incentive to ever turn away warranty work; it's a lose-lose situation for them.