i've taken my car to the dealer for 1 major problem since day 1 of me getting it...an oil leak. the first time i took it to lewisville mitsu in 2009, left it there for 4 days, and they said they fixed it (i believe it was an oil pan gasket or somewhere along those lines)...well, a few months later i do my oil change and the leak is still there. having heard good things about don herring mitsu, i took it to them in irving instead since it was closer and having heard of good customer service they do. they try to fix the leak, replace a different set of parts, left the car there for a few days, and got it back (water pump gasket, and timing chain cover resealed). well, a few months later i do my oil change again, look under the car and the leak is still there...

..now the life span of this "leak" from day 1 i got it (2700 mi. on the odometer) till this day (27k mi. on odometer). it's usually i go under the car to change the oil, notice the leak, then i clean it up telling myself "well i'll clean it up, see if it's just residual leak from the last fix, and if it's still leaking on my next oil change then i'll take it back to the dealer"...which end up taking this long and this many miles on the car.

now i take it back to don herring for the 2nd time (3rd time since i got the car) for the same leak...and now the mitsu rep is telling don herring mitsu that they are not paying for the claim no longer. their reason was since the car now has mods on it they won't cover it was inevitable that a leak was gonna happen...which is obviously ridiculous since i'm taking it back for the same problem, they accepted the claim once at lewisville when the car was stock, and once at don herring with the car modded.

i'm taking the car back to don herring on friday...where the mitsu rep was supposed to show up and look at the car, although he already told don herring mitsu that he's not paying for it. i'm just a little frustrated with this...the car has had the same problem since day 1, and since mitsu can't seem to figure out how or what to do with it, they're going with the escape route of "the car is modded" so we can't cover it. wtf!!! there are plenty of Evo X's out there making A TON more hp than my tbe modded evo x, WITHOUT THE OIL LEAK!

i guess i'm just venting this out...if anyone here has any good advice on how i can go about this, i would gladly appreciate it. my car has the extended warranty on it...if mitsu doesn't plan on paying for it, i guess if i can't fix the leak myself i can wait till the warranty runs out, take it back to don herring or lewisville mitsu, and claim it again with the extended warranty...would that work?

UPDATE 11/19/2010

so i took the car back today..and the mitsu rep looked at it. Ebby did his best to explain the situation, but to no joy the mitsu rep didn't budge with his decision...but he did talk to me, and told me that i could have the car looked at and taken apart at Don Herring, and if they could prove that it was something the dealer (lewisville/plano/don herring) did on the car that causes the leak he will gladly warranty it...but if it was my mods that did it to the car then i will have to shell out all the labor costs of the work...sounds fair to me.

Ebby gave me a picture of where they believe the leak was coming out..i took some iphone pics to so i can share it here. i'm almost pretty confident my lowly mods didn't cause the oil leak, but looking at the picture below, what are the chances that i might be wrong & my mods are what caused the leak? Ebby told me to clean out the leak and see how long it takes to leak and how bad it leaks, then decide on taking it back to them.

red arrows are where they believe the leak is coming from..the black arrow and marked part is the timing chain cover they replaced.

 

What mods have you done exactly?

Please note my oher post regarding warranties:

Please read this


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuso...s_Warranty_Act

"Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty"

"The federal minimum standards for full warranties are waived if the warrantor can show that the problem associated with a warranted consumer product was caused by damage while in the possession of the consumer, or by unreasonable use, including a failure to provide reasonable and necessary maintenance"

I personally had a situation with MAZDA and had to get an attorney involved. Mazda very quickly backed down. I would guess Mitsu would do the same. Its just bad press

 

All I can say is talk to Don and/or Ebby; they're both reasonable men and should have at least some pull over the regional Mitsu rep. I'm assuming your leak is the known issue Mitsu released a TSB for because it was frequently occurring on stock cars; mods have nothing to do with it.

Extended warranties are even more strict than factory warranties because there are no federal laws governing them. Extended warranties are able to deny coverage for any reason they see fit. I do not recommend them for a modified car.

 

Actually that's not true. Click my link above then click the actual law link. Extended warranties are regulated by the same law. Different section. Damn this would been a good lunch bet :-)

 

Interesting...not that the law matters This is nothing new to Mitsu owners; hell even Honda voids warranties. I put up a pretty good fight when Honda tried to deny coverage on my S2k but after enough phone calls they covered it; squeaky wheel gets the grease I suppose.

 

Bad link.

 

is it the rear main seal leaking? where is the oil dripping from?

 

I should have been a lawyer. It amazes me that a lot of Evo owners just roll over and, excuse the pun, take it in the tail pipe.....

 

Pulls right up for me.. Odd.. You can Google the MOSS MAGNUSSON ACT and it will pull right up.

 

considering most of the time its something small (<2000$), and your typical lawyer will be 200+/hr, you can see how fighting this stuff 99% of the time is a loosing battle. unless your loaded and out to prove a point, its usually easier and cheaper to just pay to fix it.


of course there are alternatives to getting it fixed at the dealer. for instance we can more then likely fix it for a fraction of the price the dealer charges.


and on a side note, i'm surprised you guys are surprised they aren't covering the warranty work (on a modified car none-the-less). i thought we made it clear with the 8 in 2003 that evos don't come with warrantys things obviously haven't changed

 

One would think... Mitsu would just give a flat 12K warranty on all EVO's and make people sign paperwork similar to how Nissan does on the GTR....this would end a lot of banter and complaints. Then either the EVO would sell or it wouldnt

Im sure also that most are aware the EVO makes more power per liter then a GTR as it is.

 

Sigh, stories like this make me really regret opting in for the added warranty myself. I was under the impression that claim reps answered to the dealership owners and not mitsu corporate. Now that I consider this though, it really is as stupid as it sounds

Sorry to hear you're getting rejected without reason like this. I would try Kracka's suggestion and see if the dealership can pull some strings for you. Do you still have paperwork from your previous leak fixes by Don and Lewisville?

 

Ebby is trying to help me out...he's the one who stated the info i gave above.

my current mods are just the intake, full tbe, and lowering springs (noticed i mentioned that as well, because they even criticized that lowering the car is a mod and technically changed the car too....pretty much saying it had something to do with the leak as well).

Ebby says the leak looks to be coming from the area where the timing chain cover is in the back.

this is very frustrating...just because mitsu can't figure out or won't fix the car right the first time, they're gonna turn around and blame the owner and just pull stuff out of their asses and call them as valid excuses not to provide warranty work.

one thing i noticed is they mentioned how i only bring the evo there for "warranty work", that kinda pushed some buttons on me...they did look like they were trying to help me out after they saw how i reacted to it. why the hell would i pay $80 for a freakin' oil change or a $250 transfercase/transmision service that i could do by myself? i know how to work on my car and that's my hobby so why pay someone to do it for me...obviously it wasn't done right the last time someone else did the work on it.

oh and you know what else was funny...Ebby stated that mitsu said, they won't cover it because the car is modded...that since we add stuff on the car to make more horsepower, eventually it was bound to leak. lmao...SO MITSU SAYS AN EVO WILL LEAK OIL EVENTUALLY IF YOU ADD AN INTAKE, UICP, TBE, LOWERING SPRINGS, AFTERMARKET WHEELS AND A WIDEBAND GAUGE...oh and a back up cam, since that's aftermarket too.

 

LMFAO
You forgot to mention the sticker mods on the driver side which added 5hp

 

Hmmm...I guess that's why my EVO was stock was almost 5 years. Try to make full use of that great Mitsubishi Diamond warranty plan!