370Z May, 2009, sales lowest since launch......

semtex

It wouldn't surprise me if Nissan tried to make an issue of my mods if I ever submit a warranty claim (knock on wood). And to be honest, if I have some problem with the emissions system one day and they blame it on my exhaust mods, okay, that's fair game. That's not something I'd pitch a fit over. I wouldn't like it, of course, but I accept the risk.

In my view, however, there's a two-fold difference with the oil cooler. First, an oil cooler is a protective device. Its purpose is not to yield more power (like intakes and CBEs, for example), but to protect the engine. Why penalize someone for going the extra mile to protect their engine? I mean, with that logic, they might as well penalize folks for using high-quality synthetic oil that 'goes the extra mile' in engine protection beyond the minimum standards documented in the owner's manual. Doesn't make sense to me. Secondly, the fact that they themselves equipped the vehicles they supplied to the press fleet with oil coolers is significant. How can Nissan penalize someone for doing something that they did themselves with a straight face? Let's go back to my exhaust mods for a moment. I've said that if they deny me warranty coverage based on my exhaust mods, I can live with that. But what if we were to discover that the Z's they supplied to the press fleet were secretly equipped with Stillen exhausts and Berk HFCs? That'd change the landscape, wouldn't it? It's just a hypothetical, obviously, because the Stillen exhaust didn't even exist at the time. But it still serves to illustrate the point I'm trying to make here, which is that it doesn't make sense for a company to penalize customers for doing to their cars what the company did themselves.

But this is just my view on the issue. I'm sure others may see things differently, and that is certainly their prerogative.

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"There are no small accidents on this circuit." -- Ayrton Senna
316.8whp & 248 ft/lbs (Dyno Dynamics) | 319whp & 256 ft/lbs (DynoJet) (04/23/10)
Stillen G3 CAI, CBE, Pulley / F.I. LTH / GTSpec Ladder Brace / Setrab Oil Cooler / UpRev-tuned by Forged Perf.