First things first. If you "chip" a car and then remove the "chip" after it breaks and tell the dealership that it was not "chipped". Pretty sure that is fraud. I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV but sure seems like it to me. If nothing else it is just wrong.

Modifications and warranty are complicated. It is not as easy as saying "your car is modified and your mirror fell off, we will not pay." They own the responsibility of proving that they modification caused the failure. In the example above. BMW would have to prove that the exhaust caused such a horsepower increase that it cause a halfshaft to fail.

So with the case of the ESS tune. If for some reason the tune caused a rod to blow out the side of the motor. Then BMW could and would have just about every right to tell me to pay for the new engine myself. That is one of the nice things about Dinan. While BMW warranty now longer honors Dinan mods. Dinan does provide their own warranty.

Pay to play. If you don't like the risk, then don't fiddle with the engine.

M

Agree that chipping and then removing the chip after a failure is fraud. That isn't complicated at all. And the example I mentioned didn't have anything to do with unrelated components like mirrors.

The example centered around an owner who was complaining "but it is supposed to be undetectable". Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but the aftermarket exhaust that was still on the vehicle did increase the horsepower (likely in concert with the chip). The specific failure was of a driveline component that clearly had too much power applied to it. Unless there was a history of those failures on standard, unmodified vehicles, BMW would have no problem demonstrating that the failure is due to the increased horsepower. Burden of proof has shifted to the owner. Whether they can detect the chip (and whether it was still there or not) is irrelevant if the owner brings the car in with an aftermarket exhaust that does increase hp, and the failure relates to that increased horsepower.

I suppose one could also make the case that a broken halfshaft, if not a common failure on other vehicles of the same configuration, constitutes proof of abusive driving, but the thread I read didn't mention that. I suspect that BMW had several reasons why it wasn't warranty, but just hung it on the easiest one, in this case the exhaust. I think that in this case, BMW had the tamper flags from the ECM, they had the installed exhaust, and they had a count of how many times the owner used the launch control.

I used the phrase 'pay to play' in my post, so we agree on that. I concur that if an owner doesn't want the risk an owner shouldn't modify the vehicle. That was why I was surprised by your comment that BMW would have a fight on their hands over any abusive use of the LC function, when you mentioned at the same time that you were installing a performance chip. With the move to turbo engines, owners got an easy way of getting more power out of their vehicles. In lock step, BMW upgraded software to make sure they could detect that software. I just think that they don't want to talk about that very much. The exhaust is easy to focus on.

what about this 1200 mile service do i need it or can i start beating on the car? i just hit my 1200 mark and i am iching to abuse this thing

What 1200 mile service? There isn't one on the X5M.

so what are u saying i can abouse this thing?

I find this kind of awesome in a way. :)

Time for the owner to pay this man a visit.... Mark Williams Enterprises - Request More Information About Custom Work

Maybe Mark would do a group buy for a run of some 300M half-shafts.

'u' can 'abouse' it any time you like. It's your car. I wouldn't, but that is just me. Respect the machinery, and it will serve you well. Abuse it, and expect to get abused back in return.

I believe he is using the term "abuse" as in driving it like it was meant to be driven... Hard.

Yeah, I got it. I have no issue at all with driving a vehicle like it was meant to be driven, although for the X5M that would require something other than city streets to reach its full potential.

It was his phrasing of "beating on the car" (thrashing it) combined with "abuse" (misuse, mistreat, use wrongly) that causes me to point out that simply wailing on a vehicle is not the same as driving it as it was meant to be driven.

I guess nobody will buy a pre abused X5M/X6M; resale values will be the worst ever for an M vehicle. Launch control and 15k oil changes don't give confidence to second owners. BMW will have difficulty in the CPO process in these vehicles. I personally do not abuse or beat my X6M, but another buyer would never be sure????