taze

everyone keeps saying it voids the warranty. exactly what part does it void the warranty on? does anyone have testimonial proof that it voids your warranty? anyone had service on the audio system after doing the hack?

you see my stereo will no longer play cds. clearly not a direct result of the hack but will lexus give me the boot on service?
Refer to https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=300340 for details

Evitzee

I don't think anyone has had the Nav unit fail after doing the hack so far. The argument is if the Nav would go out, and the unit was hacked, Lexus could say the unit was compromised and deny a warranty issue. The Nav unit costs $5,000 so Lexus will be looking closely if, and when, these issues come up. Lexus may be nice and cover it, or they may deny it as it is not a cheap repair. Your CD issue is probably separate from the Nav hack, but who knows how Lexus could interpret it. They could say it was interconnected, voltage surges, a short, whatever. That is the issue. If it was me I'd just act dumb and take the car in and tell them the CD player isn't working.

Bass Mech

you know if you drove a ford having a warranty might be somthing i would be concerned about, but in my experience with honda acura and previously toyota i never take my cars in for service anyway, so what difference does it make?
besides they cant void the warranty for the whole car and they can only void the warranty if they can prove what you did caused a malfunction. like i said before if i needed service i could easily reverse what i did and even to a trained eye they would not be able to tell i did anything to the system. i could reverse my modification in about 10 minutes.

uschardcor

they wouldn't have to prove anything. logic lends itself in the dealer's favor when the nav isn't working, the nav has been tampered with, and they didn't do it. guess who the arrows are pointing at

jdanon

Well if there is any cutting of wires involved I think they will know someone's been in there monkeying around with things, so unless your hack is invisible I think they'll be able to tell. The one way around it as has been proposed by ben_r is to create a cable using the same connectors that can sit between the native cable and the head unit with the hack being done to your middle man cable. While there are lots of electronics savvy guys on here, and you may be one of them, don't forget these guys look at this stuff day in and day out and have far more experience than anyone else who isn't a Lexus technician.

As far as the warranty goes, I believe a dealership can deny a warranty repair. They know the failure rate and reasons of these things, and they're gonna look long and hard before repairing a nav/audio system. I'd be willing to bet that if they can prove you opened the dash that's probably enough for them to deny a warranty claim. I've never had any disputes with them so I don't know how lenient they are.

Bass Mech

well 2 things in my favor
first of all this car was stolen for 5 days prior to my purchasing it, some 19 year old showed a fake ID and they let him take on a test drive. he put 1900 miles on it before it fell into my hands (i got a really good deal on it) so i could easily say " it wasnt me" further i cut the wires far enough back into the loom that once wrapped back up will look totally stock.
and 3rd if they deny a warranty i could really care less, i can afford to buy the whole dash if i had to and its a risk im willing to take.
besides that, unless i have a problem which the odds are pretty remote, it's not even worth getting into a discussion over.
in all the years i have leased ive never had a warranty issue, also it only has to last me about 3 years anyway because after that it will be someone elses car, not mine.

Magellan

Didn't you mean you really couldn’t care less? Sorry, your punctuation and grammar are finally getting to me (like fingernails on a chalk board).

jdanon

Does the software hack still work? I think if you were lucky enough to get a 2006 you had the old software so you could make a hybrid disc, but the newer versions I think have closed this loop hole.

taze

damn i wish i had an extra $5g laying around....