20 inch Rim voids the warranty

EDIT: The second part of their statement is true though; if you bought a cheap knock off BBS, it could crack from potholes and result in a blow out/damage to your car. In any case, I doubt there would be any damage in the first place just by going 20". I think there are tons of guys in the larger US market who's gone non-OEM sizes already and if there's a place where you'll hear about law suits, it's there and there's been no posts about that. So I would just ignore it; either buy quality wheels or don't go non-OEM at all.

I'd like to see them prove that in a legal case; going with a smaller wheel with higher profile rubber would damage the car any more than a 21" would. And 20" falls between their OEM 21" and 19" meaning it is within tolerance; if their basis is that a smaller wheel = more chance of damage, then they CANNOT offer 19" as OEM while they have 21". And vice versa if they base their case that a larger wheel would = more chance of damage, then they cannot offer the 21" as OEM while they have the 19".

If someone used like 22"and damaged the suspension then fair enough yea it wouldn't be covered. OR if they bought some cheap knock off BBS in 20" that cracks and results in a blow out and they crash their car, OF COURSE it wouldn't be covered. But by making a blanket statement that going to a size between their OEM offerings is "risking damaging the Tesla's body structure" is treating us like morons who don't know anything about cars.

It makes no sense, they are just saying it as a cover-our-asses-for-everything statement; it will not stand in a legal case if someone is inclined to sue them for the warranty back.

At the end of the day though, they can say whatever they want as I highly doubt anyone would damage their car for warranty repairs just because from the function of a wheel.

Can you let me know (PM) the email address of the Tesla person who sent that statement to you? Thanks

They're right, and wrong at the same time.

ANY aftermarket part "voids the warranty" but only for any damage that part causes. This is perfectly fair, as Tesla shouldn't be on the hook for somebody else's poor engineering.

That said, the warranty is still perfectly valid for anything else. So if you have a problem, and Tesla doesn't want to fix it under warranty, the onus is on them to prove that the aftermarket part caused the issue, if they can't, they must cover it under warranty.

Short answer: As long as the parts you buy and install aftermarket are of good quality, and fit properly, there's nothing to worry about.

greenbug said:

Have received reply from Tesla DM as below:

"switch to 20 inch rims, you might risk damaging the Tesla’s body structure. And in doing so, because the damage is caused by a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]party product, will as a result void the warranty."


[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]Does any bros with 29 rims knows it?[/FONT]

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I think that should be 'void the warranty for those parts affected'.

The story I got from Tesla is that any parts connected and possibly be affected by the third party components may have its warranty void. If you change the wheel, that means the whole drive system and the suspension may be affected.

As usual, different Tesla DS may tell you differently. I sent an e-mail to Tesla US to ask for clarification, but no reply.

markwj said:

I think that should be 'void the warranty for those parts affected'.

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Yea sounds more reasonable then. Their original email sounded like the WHOLE warranty for everything would be void; how can changing a wheel void the warranty on the battery (unless again it causes a blow out and a chunk of the wheel rips into the battery casing or something)? Oh well, don't worry about it, get quality wheels and you'll be fine

telegogo said:

The story I got from Tesla is that any parts connected and possibly be affected by the third party components may have its warranty void. If you change the wheel, that means the whole drive system and the suspension may be affected.

As usual, different Tesla DS may tell you differently. I sent an e-mail to Tesla US to ask for clarification, but no reply.

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This actually isn't up to Tesla, there are laws governing warranties, I don't know the specific ones in HK, but in most of the world the manufacturer can not void the warranty on any part of the vehicle for using aftermarket parts unless they can prove the damage was caused by those parts.

green1 said:

This actually isn't up to Tesla, there are laws governing warranties, I don't know the specific ones in HK, but in most of the world the manufacturer can not void the warranty on any part of the vehicle for using aftermarket parts unless they can prove the damage was caused by those parts.

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Consumer right is HK is a lot weaker and not protected. When I tried to clarify with Tesla on the Warranty terms and condition, they simply read out the disclaimer that any non-approved third party components MAY void the warranty. It looks like that we need to prove the damages is not caused by the aftermarket components.

telegogo said:

Consumer right is HK is a lot weaker and not protected. When I tried to clarify with Tesla on the Warranty terms and condition, they simply read out the disclaimer that any non-approved third party components MAY void the warranty. It looks like that we need to prove the damages is not caused by the aftermarket components.

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I would highly doubt that, there are many places with extremely weak consumer protection laws that still have this one, I doubt HK is that different.

I know Tesla has done a lot of consumer hostile behaviour, but I don't think even they'd stoop quite that low as they have to know they'd never win in court on that one.