Amsoil and Warranties

Understanding Amsoil and Warranties

We get asked a lot of questions about Amsoil, but without a doubt the same questions about warranties keep coming up. The most frequent of all questions relates to certain manufacturer's telling their new customer's they have to use their private label oil to keep the warranty in service.

Normally car manufacturer's don't play this game with their customer's, but we wanted to bring it up so that you're not roped into thinking you have to use a specific oil to just to keep your warranty in service. Without naming names you will see this game being played by some motorcycle, snowmobile and ATV's dealers wanting you to use their private label oil so be careful and don't fall for the deceptive sales pitch.

What the Magnuson-Moss Act does not allow: There are 3 prohibitions under the Magnuson-Moss Act. They involve "implied warranties", so-called "tie-in sales" provisions, deceptive or misleading warranty terms.The code of Federal Regulations States:

(a) Section 102(c) prohibits tying arrangements that condition coverage under a written warranty on the consumer’s use of an article or service identified by brand, trade, or corporate name unless that article or service is provided without charge to the consumer.
(b) Under a limited warranty that provides only for replacement of defective parts and no portion of labor charges, section 102(c) prohibits a condition that the consumer use only service (labor) identified by the warrantor to install the replacement parts. A warrantor or his designated representative may not provide parts under the warranty in a manner which impedes or precludes the choice by the consumer of the person or business to perform necessary labor to install such parts.
(c) No warrantor may condition the continued validity of a warranty on the use of only authorized repair service and/or authorized replacement parts for non-warranty service and maintenance. For example, provisions such as, ‘‘This warranty is void if service is performed by anyone other than an authorized ‘ABC’ dealer and all replacement parts must be genuine ‘ABC’ parts,’’ and the like, are prohibited where the service or parts are not covered by the warranty. These provisions violate the Act in two ways. First, they violate the section 102 (c) ban against tying arrangements. Second, such provisions are deceptive under section 110 of the Act, because a warrantor cannot, as a matter of law, avoid liability under a written warranty where a defect is unrelated to the use by a consumer of ‘‘unauthorized’’ articles or service. This does not preclude a warrantor from expressly excluding liability for defects or damage caused by such ‘‘unauthorized’’ articles or service; nor does it preclude the warrantor from denying liability where the warrantor can demonstrate that the defect or damage was so caused.

In more generic terms and how this applies to using Amsoil in your personal vehicle what the Magnuson-Moss Acts says is:

No car manufacturer can tell you what brand of oil or in Amsoil's case how long you can use Amsoil between changes.

Your only requirement is to meet the current API specs for your particular model. If your dealer states to you that you cannot use Amsoil they must state the reason why and put it in writing and then they must supply you with their oil for free. No warranty can be voided by verbal instruction only.

Your dealership may not dictate the length of time an oil remains in service such as Amsoil's 25,000-mile drain intervals. These approved drain intervals do not void your new car's warranty.

For the past 13 plus years we have bought 4 brand new vehicles and immediately installed Amsoil after each vehicle reached 3,000 miles. We have never had a warranty claim related to lubrication and we are approaching 800,000 miles in our fleet. Other than rotating tires and replacing a battery every now and then we hardly ever perform any high priced maintenance work.

Ask yourself this question; how could Amsoil be in business if they were selling products that voided new car manufacturer's warranties? It's fairly simple, Amsoil doesn't make any products that void any component's warranty.

Amsoil makes the finest lubrication products in the world not just to meet certain specs, but to exceed all manufacturer's specs by wide margins. If Amsoil made their products to meet minimum specs then all we would doing is putting ourselves in competition with every other lube manufacturer's because all they do is meet minimum specs. This is not the road Amsoil chose to take, we set the bar and now everyone is trying to catch us and that is the way we plan on keeping it.

If you know of any business that is trying to stop you from using Amsoil please gather their information and pass it along to us and we will take care of the problem for you. Amsoil has a set procedure in place to deal with these situations when they come up. Amsoil stands behind all of their products and we want to make sure you understand the law and how it protects you.

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) pay or deny warranty claims based on the findings of failure analysis. To affect the vehicle warranty, the lubricant must be directly responsible for the failure. If the oil did not cause the problem the warranty cannot be voided, regardless of the brand of oil used, or the length of time or number of miles the oil was used. To flatly inform the customer that the use of AMSOIL synthetic motor oil voids their vehicle warranty is not true.

We hope this information clears up any confusion about Amsoil and Warranties. Far too many people have been "spooked" out of using Amsoil because of misinformation being given about warranties. For questions concerning this topic simply fill out the form on the left and we will get right back to you.

This article brought to you by Steve Tarini a nationally recognized expert in the field of synthetic lubrication. 13 year veteran with Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants specializing in commercial and industrial applications. Take advantage of our experience and get your vehicles switched over to Amsoil today.

800-797-4550

steve@bestsyntheticoilandfilters.com