Warranties

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

"The below quote was cut and pasted from Biodieselnow Forum. Anybody know if we have a similar wording act in Australia. One under which the manufacturers cannot deny the warranty unless they can prove the damage was caused by - for example - biodiesel???



"This topic seems incomplete without a link to the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act, which many agree applies to biodiesel usage, but as far as I know, hasn't been tested in court yet.
The gist of it: OEM's cannot "blanket deny" warranty coverage simply for use of a product. They have to be able to prove specific damage as a result of using that product, and because ASTM spec biodiesel, used properly, cannot harm an engine, that would seem to be the loophole to these warranty statements."


Slippery
Small steps taken one at a time.

[Guest Close David]

Re: Warranties

Probably better than getting a lot unqualified opinions, you should enquire with the Dept. of fair trading in your state to see what the situation is as it would apply to you.

It may be on their website or you could ring and ask.
This would be something a lot of people would be interested in I'm sure.

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: Warranties

No manufacturer will warrant the fuel that goes in the engine anyway. There have been more warranty claims refused for bad batches of dino diesel than there ever have for bad batches of biodiesel.

The point is that the manufacturer can't simply blame the fuel without good cause, but this has not stooped them in the past. Biodiesel is just another easy option for them to pick on.

Wherever you buy your fuel, keep your receipts and be prepared to be in the middle of a finger pointing session between fuel supplier and manufacturer. If your fuel "met spec" and it can be proved, then the manufacturer is required to honour the warranty.

Remember that the warranty covers defects in manufacturing, not bad fuel. Unfortunately, each case will probably get argued differently.

Just my 2c, if anyone has anything more definitive to add, please do.

[moonan Member Find all posts View Profile Close moonan]

Re: Warranties

I think the trade practices act will put the onus on the supplier to prove that whatever YOU did was the cause of a problem, not the other way around. This would apply to a modification, getting it serviced at a non-dealer service centre, or using biofuel.
But that is only an opinion.

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Warranties

I agree that the Trade Practices Act will come into play in Aust.

In theory, if you use ASTM standard B100 from day one from new, the fuel should not cause a problem, taking into account winter affects on the fuel source (gell temp).

You can keep receipts for fuel purchased from recognised outlets and that supplier will have "records" ( or will he) that will reflect his fuel met the standards.

The home brewer will have an impossible task proving his fuel was up to the correct standard if the car manufacturer digs his heels in and says the fuel caused the problem.

I guess you could be setting yourself up for an argument if you use home brew in a brand new car or even if you remanufacture an engine and are given a short term warranty.

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Warranties

I have just come across this from Ford :-
t Utility Vehicles

Vans

http://www.fleet.ford.com/showroom/e...Technology.asp

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: Warranties

Funny. Before I rant, I will point out a pertinent analogy:

I use Firefox as my web browser, as it is not owned and run by a large money glutted corporation intent on owning and stagnating web technologies, but is instead created and run by a large community of people who want to have their own say in how it works and try to make the web a better place. Of course, it is faster, smaller, lighter and packs far more features. Additionally, it has complied with web standards that every other browser has done for 10 years where Microsoft deliberately and cynically have refused and obfuscated.
Microsoft have some very convincing arguments, press releases, marketing and even tech specs telling everyone that theirs is the best and the masses will feel much safer chewing their cud and simply using what the majority does. They know this works, they know that fringe dwellers will stay there and be marginalised for a while, but eventually, true innovation cannot be held back and then they will have to find a way to own it themselves in such a way as to appear to have embraced it on their own terms for the good of their public.

Now, before I get too off-topic, what has this got to do with biodiesel?

Well, can you hear the dinosaur stomping?

Ford, the folks that gave us the Cleveland 351, one of the most loved, but also most sorely inefficient engines are now swilling together a nice page with lots of words like "mono alkyl esters" and "transesterfication" which they have clearly simply cut & pasted from wikipedia and then dress it up into a very convincing argument about how 5% should be enough and there is no need to go further as they believe they can achieve new emissions standards with existing technology and fossil fuel. They also pepper this with the standard old arguments about why biodiesel is bad. I also note that they pulled out the old "increase in NOX" favourite from an old EPA study, which has since been discredited.

The clincher of this analogy (Firefox users will appreciate this), when you first browse their site, there is a java popup window that tells you that their site will work best on Internet Explorer 5.5 and up, inferring that your browser is less capable than a clunky product several years out of date. The server hosting it is of course Microsoft with very deliberate misinterpretations of standards. The code that it runs on fails to validate web standards (w3c consortium) with 156 errors!

So do we believe them when they tell us that the new kid on the block can't compete?

[mason1956 Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close mason1956]

Re: Warranties

I must put in my 2 cents. I had some troble with bio jellin in my 2005 chevy. The dealer had no problem with the bio for 35000 miles. The turbo went out, they changed it but didn't install the new one in the right order. After that the truck was in the shop every week for 6 weeks. ( it was always some thing diffrent ) The dealer started blaming the problem on the Bio so I went back to fossil fuel. I filled a complaint with GM. They had me return to the dealer, removed the turbo and reinstalled it in the proper order (also found a vacum leek in the turbo) reprograming the trucks computer & turbo fins, raising the boost to where it should of been GM had no problem with me running Bio and every thing was covered under warranty. Im back to running B100 again