Exactly what I was wondering.

 

I would think the burden of proof unfortunately would be on the buyer for a couple reasons:

1. You did modify the car in a way that is not approved by the manufacturer

2. Unless this has happened to a substantial amount of Evo's, the fact that it hasn't works against you. There are more blown engines do to mods than to manufacturer defects, and with that being a known fact, you were fighting a losing battle.

Now in your defense...companies do have quality control where they'll check one engine(for example) in a batch and if its deemed to pass that inspection, the whole batch is pushed through. So if thats 1 per 300 checked, you have a 1 in 299 chances of another being bad. Maybe that's you

 

I had the same problem you did and I wouldn't even consider taking my car in with just a HKS drop in filter and my exhaust. I threw it back to stock.

 

I can understand the reasons given to deny your claim and it sucks. In all fairness you can't really say what was the exact cause for your engine deteriorating to the point of self destruction. Mitsubishi does years of testing on the cars they sell to the public. And that testing is on the equipment that is sold on the lots. They can not afford the time or money to test out every mod out there to see if it's safe for installation. That is why they will always point the finger at your mod before they will accept it as "manufacturing defect". Any modification no matter how little power it adds will change how the engine was designed to work.

Now everyone on here knows that adding a boost controller isn't rocket science nor is it a major mod. But it does add more stress to the motor than originally designed to endure on a day-to-day basis.

It's unfortunate that it happened to you. I would be upset if it happened to me. But as they say, you pay to play. And sometimes you lose.

For the rest of you saying "I'd do this" or "I'd get a lawyer" I highly doubt that will help. With the mods he had there really is no difinitive proof that the motor was bad. Had everything been OEM on the car, it's pretty clear cut. This was a lose/lose situation from the moment you modded. At least you tried so no one can fault you for that.

There is a reason why big corporations pay big money to lawyers to protect them with well written owners documents and warranty statements. Magnusson-Moss warranty act does not give anyone free reign and immunity to claim vehicle failure due to material defect. It will always be on the purchaser to prove that if modifications are involved. It's insane to assume that Mitsu would go out of their way to say "hey, ya know what, you're right. That ECU flash was more benificial to cleaner A/F burn". And then run countless tests to determine if it was material defect.

 

To answer a few questions before I pass out for the night:

- Returning the car to 100% stock would have done no good, since Mitsubishi used EvoM threads as their evidence of my modifications. The clean exhaust (my aftermarket piece was covered with oil and coolant) would have been a dead give away as well.

- I proved no detonation was present fairly strongly. I went as far as measuring the upper and lower halfs of the big end bearings for wear down to the ten-thousandth of an inch. All measured .0580 thick. Detonation pounds the upper bearings and will undoubtedly show atleast a ten-thousandth of an inch of abuse. High resolution photos of the pistons (3200xwhatever pixels) and spark plugs showed detonation and/or lean conditions were unlikely.

- Boost was shown to be stock by a A/F & manifold pressure chart taken a week before the engine blew. Of course it could easily be argued that I could have turned the boost up any other time, but then what would be the point of going to the dyno and not measuring accurately what boost the car will be operating at?

- Oil and oil filters were professionally analyzed (Blackstone labs for the oil and Second OilPinion for the filters) from when the car had 0 miles to 300 miles before the engine blew. All samples showed the car was functioning 100% fine during this time, which might indicate that this failure was sudden. Should the modifications have played a part, one could prove that the oil would surely show excess wear over an extended period, which would have shown up in the sample analysis..

I think that's all for now.

 

Sounds like you didn't really prove anything. You just showed, in detail, that it wasn't likely. I'm sure someone could show that your mods are capable of destroying a motor in a lot less then 15k miles, that doesn't prove anything either. Also sounds like you're hurt that doing engine mods, voids the engine warranty. This isn't a case of them voiding your engine warranty because you have aftermarket seats or something. Luckily the Evo community doesn't have to collectively pay for your mistakes by having this claim paid.

 

All in all. You did a kick *** job throughout the process. Read your previous thread and you handled things very well. However, I also would have denied you. Even though you are completely bolt-on, the increase in power equates to an increase in engine stress.

 

Hey man.
Trust me I feel you.
When my engine blew, I had to pay the $4000+ to fix it (rebuild the engine), due to the fact that I had a SAFC II piggy backed.
The regional manager for Mistu had a look at the engine himself.
They blame the melted piston and blow value on it and refused to fix under warranty.
They wont Warrant ANY mods, not even exhaust or blow off value.

FYI
William Lehman Mistubishi
21200 NW 2nd Ave
Miami
FL 33169

So beware, SoFLA, dont take your car there if its modded.

Good luck with your fix.

 

+1

if your EVO had been totally stock, I would have agreed with your (stew) position.

But you modded, and then failed to accept the consiquences.

 

This is exactly why I will always put my car back to stock before taking it to the dealership for anything. It's worth the couple hours of wrenching on it and putting all stock pieces back on just so that I can forgo any heartaches.

 

I'm sure techs don't look for anything like that.

 

Unfortunately I have to agree after learning a hard. lesson.

Funny enough they put the Boost controller back on and agree to warranty it, after they rebuilt my engine.

Those Modder Fakkers :-p