I'm new to the boards. I just dumped my American engineered 1999 Oldmobile Alero for a new 2003 Nissan Frontier. Being that I poured a mass amount of $$ into the Olds for maintenance I'm a little concerned about making upgrades to the Frontier. I don't want to do anything to put the warranty at risk. The things that I want to do are simple things like, off-road lights, maybe some interior neons, beef up the audio,etc. Any words of wisdom from you folks would be greatly appreciated.
The way I understand it, they can't deny you warranty coverage unless they can prove that your modification hurt the performance of the vehicle or caused the malfunction. For instance, if you changed your wheels to aftermarket wheels, and months later, one of your CV boots busted, there's no way they could prove your wheels did that. They'd have to take care of fixing that boot. If you added real abrasive high performance brake pads that ate your rotors in 10,000 miles, they could easily say that you destroyed the performance of the stock rotors with the aftermarket pads. Your bad. You get the picture.
Just make sure everything is wired and installed correctly and keep everything clean. That will show them that you cared about the vehicle and made sure to do everything correctly and they'd be hard pressed to be able to deny you coverage for anything I would think.
Congrats on the new Frontier! I bought a 2003 SE in August. did you get the V6 or the 4 banger.... it's funny you made the switch from GM as I traded my 2000 Saturn L-Series for mine! The mod I want to do is run those hotter cams that everyone talks about with a free flowing exhaust and intake that seems to give a nice boost to the 3.3 v6.
Later,
__________________
Black Knight - 2004 Crew Cab XE-V6 4x4
"...God made men the way they are because we desperately need them to be the way they are. Yes, a man is a dangerous thing, but so is a scalpel. You don't make it safe by making it dull, but instead you put it in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing." - John Eldridge
Interesting...we also made the switch from GM to the Nissan, although it wasn't really deliberately. When my wife and I got married, I had the Cadillac Seville and she had a Saturn coupe. She really liked the Cadillac and started driving that (she stole my baby!), but I couldn't really fit in her Saturn and I wanted a 4x4 vehicle anyway. So far, the Nissan has been just as good as the Saturn for repairs (read: none), and I hope it continues that way.
We'll eventually undo the switch though...in a few years, we're planning to either replace the Nissan or supplement it with either an Expedition or a Yukon (used, probably '00 or '01 vintage).
Black Knight, I also had a buddy of mine replace his Saturn L-series with a Nissan Altima. He loves not going to the dealer for repairs every few months.
I think I am going to enjoy that benefit of owning a Nissan to.
Jason, It's hard to believe that we all are former GM owners. My dad, sister and bro in-law all worked at GM in Ohio so I DID feel a sense of obligation to the company. I mean, they did put food in my plate and clothes on my back. But I just can't afford the repair bills. This is my first foreign vehicle, even though it was built in Tenn. I just hope that I have good luck with it. My goal is to get 350,000 miles.
I'm new to the boards. I just dumped my American engineered 1999 Oldmobile Alero for a new 2003 Nissan Frontier. Being that I poured a mass amount of $$ into the Olds for maintenance I'm a little concerned about making upgrades to the Frontier. I don't want to do anything to put the warranty at risk. The things that I want to do are simple things like, off-road lights, maybe some interior neons, beef up the audio,etc. Any words of wisdom from you folks would be greatly appreciated.
One comment on the original question, if you do all the maintenance yourself like I do I'd recommend keeping your own document detailing service history and all receipts of maintenance if possible. I don't think this would be an issue with the normal Nissan warranty, but when they provide extended warranties under certain conditions it could. For example, Toyota engines have been having trouble with sludge over the last few years and they finally told 3.3 million owners of specific engines that any engine repair costs would be covered under one condition, they could prove they had at least 1 oil change a year. Not sure what hoops do-it-yourselfers had to go through to get the warranty coverage but with receipts and your own service history documented it would help.
Jason, It's hard to believe that we all are former GM owners. My dad, sister and bro in-law all worked at GM in Ohio so I DID feel a sense of obligation to the company. I mean, they did put food in my plate and clothes on my back. But I just can't afford the repair bills.
I love GM vehicles. If I could have found an S-10 for a reasonable price, I would have bought that. This Nissan was sitting on a lot where I knew the owner (of the lot) so I decided I would check it out. It drove good so I bought it. Every single car I've ever had have been GM's, though. An '84 Olds Cutlass. An '87 Buick Regal. A '97 Cadillac Seville. A '97 Saturn SC2. Previously, my family pretty much bought exclusively Fords ('92 Ford Crown Vic, '92 Ford Mustang 5.0 LX, '00 Ford F-550, '01 Ford F-650 SuperCrewzer). We also like Jeeps ('88 Cherokee Chief, '89 Cherokee Laredo, '96 Grand Cherokee Laredo, '04 Liberty Limited). Never an unreasonable repair bill, just normal maintenance and stuff that WE broke (like twisting a tranny skid plate on the '96 GC off-roading). All my GMs have had well over 100,000 miles. My Cadillac's sitting at a hundred and a quarter. I'll get 200k out of it easy. They use Northstar Cadillacs in Detriot in taxi service as test mules and get a quarter of a million city miles out of them easily. Like I said, we plan to replace the Nissan with either a Tahoe or Exped. when the time is right. Nothing against Nissan...good reliability. We just prefer the large size and soft suspension of American motors.
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