Quote:
Originally Posted by ifr
I guess they wouldn't have to prove whether coding took place or not. They just invalidate the warranty or refuse a no charge repair. Then it would be up to the customer to prove they were wrong to do that, possibly involving civil court action and BMW engineer vs customer expert witness.
You'd have a job on convincing an arbiter that 1 or more codes suddenly corrupted in such a way that the hex changed specifically to another hex value without impacting the behaviour of any other codes, or the ECU.
Some of the published coding options can negatively impact safety, some improve it. Some can potentially increase the wear and tear on the car. Some are just innocuous such as the driving view.
I don't think it's in BMWs interest to penalise customers for minor coding issues, but if it came down to a legal issue or an expensive repair, I'd still worry.
Unless you unselect the privacy telemetry options, the car is telling BMW its current configuration to check if its in a fit state for an OTA update. That has to include current FA matched against VIN, to ensure there are no enabled options that are unsupported by the update. This data is time stamped.
I agree that the majority of these codes should be available to customers via a supported idrive interface menu. Region locked features should also be available where legal and tested. I particularly dislike making new features only available to customers of a new MY just to boost sales.
My view is simple - I take full responsibility for all coding and know its not allowed by the manufacturer. I don't draw attention by coding cosmetic changes and I always back out changes and clear coding records from the car's diags before visiting the dealer. I can't do anything about the telemetry without some other constraints, so trust that BMW have no inclination to review the data for any purpose other than providing service.
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Late to the thread - but conversations on mods always come up - the only time something such as coding would void a warranty is if BMW could show that what you did somehow effected or caused the failure.
For example, if you install a JB4 and turn up the boost and your turbo starts leaking - then yes, they'd probably link that back.
If you code your HUD to a M logo, and your turbo starts leaking oil - there is zero way of correlating that or "Voiding" the warranty.
In very slim cases you could create some awkward correlation and then you'd be in a fight with the dealer...for example if disabling ASS and then had a problem with your starter, perhaps they'd link the two even if the faults were unrelated.
I had both my previous cars coded, brought in for multiple services and warranty and never had any issues. The only time the dealer ever gave me an issue was when the PDC system shorted out and they told me my car must have been in an accident (then perfectly repaired to OEM standards) because there is no way the system would break on it's own.
