How 4x4 modifications kill your factory warranty protection
If you’re fantasising about modifying your new four-wheel drive wagon or ute, this story is your official warning and reality check. Here’s how aftermarket 4WD accessories can ruin your life…
Most people grossly underestimate just how easily even a seemingly innocuous aftermarket modification can destroy your 4x4's new vehicle warranty.
After this report, you will not be able to claim that you had absolutely no idea that such a thing could even happen.
If you are that quintessential beard-stroking blue singlet and safety thong wearing 4x4 adventurer who is about to take delivery of a brand new 4x4, there’s a good chance you’re getting equally excited just thinking about all of the modifications you’re planning to make.
If you’re intending to just rock up at your local ARB dealer and let them loose, this is a stark warning to reconsider, because according to the 4X4 enthusiast media, standard off-road vehicles are crap and you simply must make them ‘right’ before you can drive them across the Simpson Desert or to Cape York.
Our hero will remain anonymous here, and so too will the small business whose aftermarket accessory he bought and fitted, but here’s what he wrote to me via email:
I bought a 2018 BT-50, it has done 44,000 kms. It is still under warranty.
It cracked piston five. I've now learned four out of five injectors have failed.
Mazda have denied the claim as the vehicle was fitted with a throttle controller. The vehicle is manual and Mazda are saying the throttle controller cause the failure.
Mazda won't talk to me and everything has to be done via the dealer.
Any advice you can give me would be appreciated.
So he's only driven it about 8000 kilometres a year since 2018.
My first piece of advice here is go back in time and do not fit that bloody throttle controller. What the hell was it fitted for in the first place?
Of all of the modifications that you could possibly do to a 4X4, a throttle controller is among the most useless. Think of the name - a throttle controller is what you are for. That’s what your foot is for. There's really no benefit and as you will see, there is a hell of a lot to lose.
I've seen the writing on the wall for this dozens of times over the years; I've had the emails from people at their wit’s end because they are going properly under the bus.
Mazda's not going to help (and nor is any other carmaker) because they're going to claim that the modification caused the failure, a claim which they are quite qualified to make, however true or false the claim is, or how unknown the actual cause might be.
The throttle controller company is certainly not going to help because they're going to say it wasn't their product that caused the problem, and you're going to be stuck in the middle, which is never a pleasant situation.
Modifications are a choice. I might often seem very anti-modification, but I'm only ‘anti-modification’ because people do this wrong. They treat modifying the vehicle as an absolute priority instead of a necessity to overcome or solve a problem.
Vehicle modification is treated like something you're mandated to do before you can drive it up your own driveway. But nothing could be further from the truth.
A stock 4WD generally doesn’t need a snorkel, roof rack, driving lights, throttle controller, ECU re-mapping, towbar, side steps, or bigger wheels or tyres to drive in most conditions… but an awning for shade might be a good idea.
When you go four-wheel driving - and I've done a shitload of four-wheel driving: Canning Stock Route, Cape York, crossed the Simpson Desert, Gun Barrel Highway etc. - I'm amazed at how far a standard four-wheel drive can go, how capable they are out of the blocks.
Yeah, you could change the tyres. If you do change the tyres from “highway terrain” and buy a set of all-terrain tyres that are more off-road biased, then you'll probably go a lot further. For many people, that would be the only modification they ever need to do.
The weakest link, therefore, with most 4X4s is the nut hanging on to the steering wheel. That's what holds the vehicle back…
I'll help you save thousands on a new four-wheel drive here
Just fill in this form. No more car dealership rip-offs. Greater transparency. Less stress.
MODIFY YOUR SOFTWARE FIRST
To improve the vehicle’s capability off-road, it doesn't need mechanical, digital or electrical modification - you need a software upgrade. Here’s why…
The same phenomena happens every weekend at race tracks right around the country. You've got all of these men and women who need to make their race car go faster. They can spend thousands of bucks making their car potentially faster by replacing parts with carbon fibre, hotting up the engine somehow, but in its current state of trim and tune, the driver is unable to milk it for all it's worth at every point on the track.
Obviously the easiest way to go faster around the track is: software upgrade for the driver. Only after you’ve extracted every ounce of current-state tune do you then seek modifications.
Most people don't think like that, certainly most newbie 4X4 drivers don't think like that. When should you modify your 4WD? >>
Don’t go on forums and listen to bad advice from other beard-strokers who are usually people who can't really drive properly either.
This is why I might seem anti-modifications, because frankly modifications are not a first resort - they're the last resort. If you buy a vehicle and you discover that you need it to do something and it is flat out incapable of doing that, then yeah, okay: modify it.
But you are rolling the dice. There's a set of potential outcomes that come with that modification and you better hope it's going to be worth it. This is a pretty serious door to open and step through.
If you're not thinking about the full extent to which the accessories are going to be used in a quantifiable way, if you’re not thinking about the consequences that could flow in a worst case scenario, you could end up with a two-tonne garden ornament.
LEFT: The apprentice. RIGHT: The Jedi Master
People are going to say ‘Oh, but I've had a throttle controller and I love it, it's been great, blah blah blah…”
To which I would retort respectfully that Russian Roulette is fine, statistically, for five attempts out of six. But with cars, you just don't get to decide when the hammer falls down onto a loaded chamber. Modifications and failures and things of this nature are just a game of chance.
I'd further suggest that Mazda probably doesn't know for sure that the failure of the engine is due to the throttle controller, but they are don’t need to because they are in the perfect position to claim that, and they haven't engineered themselves into this position - you've done it for them by fitting this throttle controller that you absolutely did not need.
It’s a similar situation in fitting bullbars to your 4WD for safety >>
This particular throttle controller probably costs $500 or something, I guess, and while that's not very much money, that's not actually the price our hero has paid. Is it? You can see clearly that the price of this modification is the evisceration of the warranty and the staggering further cost of a replacement engine, which is going to be in the vicinity of $20K or something.
Then, having replaced the engine, all you're going to get after you spend the 20 grand is the same vehicle that you had before - it’s not like a major upgrade - you're just going to get a basic BT-50 with a working engine that is now going to have a modification applied to the certification placard. And that could have ramifications for selling it on in the future.
I have seen manufacturers do this time and time again. I have even seen a manufacturer arc-up and refuse to even do the consumer law warranty thing over a lightbar that they claimed blocked air flow to the turbocharger which caused the turbo to fail.
Now, I don't know if that's bullshit or not, but the problem for you as the consumer bunny with this problem is that there are three parties to this situation. There's the aftermarket guy, the carmaker/brand/importer, and there’s you, the dude or dudette who owns the car with the blown up engine.
But I'd suggest that only one of those parties actually has a problem. It's not the aftermarket beneficiary, nor the carmaker. It’s the party with the blown-up engine. The other two parties have only one main objective, to deny any liability. This then puts the burden of proof back on you.
You have to prove which product was defective leading to whichever failure, and then you have to go to court, hoping a judge will agree, and this process could cost you anywhere from $10,000-$20,000 and could take a year, which which is a long time to be without your 4X4 (because it's still got a blown up engine during all of this).
And all for what?
The only winners are the solicitors.
There's a complete imbalance of power: the other two parties don't have a problem, you're the only one who does, they've invariably got deeper pockets than you, and they can afford to wait - or stall you for as long as possible.
Whereas you don’t have the time, you need to get your car fixed. This is the real price you pay when you modify your 4X4, because it eviscerates your warranty.
WHAT’S EVEN WORSE
In practice, even if you do want to hire a lawyer, and then you want to hire an expert technician-type witness who can do whatever diagnosis is needed to investigate the cause of the engine failure and present a report to the court. Even if a judge agrees, they could get a settlement for you, but this is a long, laborious process that is going to suck out your soul and leave you a disgruntled, withered husk.
Or in the worst case, you could spend your $10,000-20,000 and wait a year for a verdict - and you might still lose.
Then, you've still got a car with a blown-up engine, and the court has determined that neither party is liable for this problem, and it's back on you - but you've blown tens of thousands, putting you in the red - before anyone has even lifted a spanner to fix your vehicle.
Even if you win, you lose. And if you lose, it’s probably going to be a catastrophic one. Every other party in this situation has played this game before.
And that’s why my only genuine advice here is two things:
DON’T MODIFY YOUR VEHICLE (unless it absolutely needs it) and accept those consequences, and;
If you do end up in this situation, pay to take the advice of a solicitor (because they’ve played this game before).
Solutions to this kind of problem include spending $350 (or thereabouts) talking to a lawyer. Then, taking the lawyer's advice, because the advice might be words to the effect of, ‘you're just better off trying to solve this yourself because 20 grand is going to be a minimum cost to resolve this.’
The old BT-50 shared virtually all of its major driveline and powertrain components with PX Ford Ranger, so used engines and parts generally won’t be hard to find…
Given that the vehicle is five years old anyway, I'd suggest getting an independent repairer to either rebuild this engine (if it is amenable to rebuilding), or I'd get a used engine with some sort of warranty and get that installed.
You’re looking at about $12,000 for a reconditioned engine from a reputable supplier, and about $3000-4000 for the labour to fit it. And you’ll likely get an upgraded oil pump to replace the variable vaned version which is known for failures. All up, about $15,000 is going to be much more palatable than wasting five figures and a year of your life taking it to court.
That will also be a fraction of the price of a brand new engine from a dealer who just wants to order a part and fit it before handing you a bill for $25,000 - minimum.
Given that the BT-50 is that old, I think the used engine option is probably looking okay. If rebuilding won't work because there's some kind of catastrophic damage, just treat it like an economics proposition and find a solution in the used or reconditioned parts market and find an independent mechanic to fit a new one.
Oh, and crush the throttle controller (so nobody else can use it again), then throw it in the bin.
HOW TO BUY A NEW 4X4 UTE OR SUV/WAGON: Start with the right mindset
Approach the purchase of a new 4X4 like getting married. You've got to live with and appreciate the things that you like about the 4X4, and you've got to tolerate the things that you don't like.
If you think you’re just going to fix things that you don't like about your 4X4, that's a fool's errand because hopefully you've chosen, more or less, the right vehicle to begin with. It's got to have more things you like than things you don't.
Therefore it's easier just to be grateful for the the features like and capabilities you have, and accept the things you don’t like about it.
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