My dealer has a picture of my 8 at the SCCA National Tour in Houston in April, framed and put on the "Wall of Honor" along with all their other auto-x customers (Multi-time National champ Kyung Wooton, multi-time National champ Andy Hollis, etc.).

I think it DOES depend on the dealer.....

 

FWIW, it's a GNX, which was an upgraded Grand National. I was just having a little fun is all. :D

Regarding warranties...As a general thing it usually does depend on the dealer (read: service manager) to a great degree, but sometimes they don't always have the latitude to take care of thier customers as they would like. In the Mistu example, if Mitsu Corporate is the one placing warranty flags, there's not a lot that a service manager can do when the car comes in with a drivetrain issue. It's not particularly fair to expect him to cover it when he knows that Mitsu is unlikely to pay him for the parts and repair. OTOH, in most cases with most cars, the service manager can make the call whether something failed as a result of abuse or defect without much second guessing further down the line if he calls it a defect.

Sometimes, though, certain failures have to get prior approval from a factory rep. An example would be the spun bearing problem in BMW's S54 engines built during a specific time period. There were manufacturing issues that led to many failures. The conseus among the BMW community is not if the engines built in that period will fail, but when. Still, before a repair is approved, a factory rep has to confirm that the engine has never been subject to an overrev (which can cause the same failure). The service managers don't have any flexibility there, unless they are willing to foot the bill if BMWNA decides not to cover it.

 

I know what a GNX is! Yes, they can be fast but try using the steering wheel sometime!

 

Use the wheel? Sigh...you need some way to get from the paddock to the staging area.

 

I have always found most of the mechanics and techs to be helpful even if they know you autox. However, I think this just varies on who the service manager is at your local Mazda dealer.

I wouldn't freely tell them that you were at the track though. I would say I was just driving down the highway when whatever happened.

If you buy a Ferrari, they warranty you on and off the track.

Dean

 

Good one!

 

Complain? What GN (or GNX for that matter) has had a warranty in the past 14 years or so?

 

people (owning all sorts of cars) abuse their cars alot more on the streets then I ever do autocrossing. I personnally don't believe Mazda will ever try to void my warranty for doing AutoX, and without my Vin Number on the Auto X web site that they ever could.

my 2 cents, I only read a few post so if i repeated anything sorry.