yomondo

With all the talk about dealers not honoring the factory warranty because of modifications or offroading, I thought I'd share my success story along the same lines. If you don't want to read the whole story, the bottom line is something that has been stated on this forum before, and that is if one dealer isn't willing to honor your warranty, try another.

So here's how it all went down. A few weeks ago while adjusting my passender-side side-view mirror, it cracked right down the middle as I pressed in on the outer edge. At the same time, a tiny 1mm diameter piece of glass popped out from the exact center of the mirror. I had not adjusted this mirror for probably over a year, and it probably froze a bit from corrosion.

So I took it to my dealer, who I've previously had a very pleasant experience dealing with on several prior visits. My service advisor told me that Chrysler won't honor any warranty service on any type of broken glass, and that it's out of their hands, and not their decision. I said okay, I understand your position.

So since it was a Chrysler issue, I took it up with Chrysler, telling them what the dealer told me, and saying that I understand as a general policy not covering any type of broken glass, but asked them if they could consider my case on an individual basis. A Chrysler agent called me back and I was surprised to hear that she immediately said that the broken side-view mirror should be covered under warranty, and that she'd call the dealer to authorize them to replace it under warranty.

The next day the Chrysler agent called me back and said that after talking to the dealer, this incident has been classified as negligence/abuse and would not be covered under warranty. She offerred all kinds of lame run-around excuse like "I broke it by pressing on it" and "I allowed it to get corroded by not adjusting it for so long". We argued back a forth for maybe ten minutes before she finally told me that the dealer believes it was broken by a rock or something hitting it while offroading. So my service agent lied to me and didn't have the balls to tell me to my face that he didn't believe me and instead blamed it on Chrysler. And then even the Chrysler lady didn't have the balls (so to speak) to tell me that she was no longer buying my story until I finally broke her and dragged the truth out of her. She said that since she can't see it, she has to go by what the dealer tells her. So since this in fact was NOT a Chrysler issue (as the first dealer told me) but a dealer issue, I told the Chrysler lady that I'm going to take it to another dealer for a second opinion.

That afternoon, I took it to another dealer who immediately said that the side-view mirror should be covered under warranty, and did so. And I thanked the dealer by also having them do an oil change and replace my wiper blades. I wish I could say I'm not going back to the first dealer, but unfortunately their location is too convenient for me to just blow them off for not believing my and lieing to me, so for now I need to maintain a good relationship with them even though I'm pissed at them.