In 2019 I bought my certified pre-owned 2017 GTi from a local dealer. September 2021 my turbo failed, but it was covered under the factory warranty and the dealer replaced it with no fuss. Fast forward to last month where it started having issues again. Brought it to my regular mechanic and he discovered the turbo was bad. I thought I was screwed, but he said he checked with VW online and since we live in MA and my car was a PZEV, it should be covered under the CARB warranty. I had never heard of that before, so I looked it up and it sure sounded like it would be covered.
So I called the service center where I purchased the car and explained the situation. The guy told me it was not covered because the factory and extended warranties had expired. When I told him I thought it should be covered by the CARB warranty, he put me on hold to discuss with the warranty manager. He came back on the line and said that normally they would have to schedule an appointment and do their own diagnosis to see if it would be covered, but that my car has been flagged as 'having been modified', so it would not be covered under warranty.
Thing is my car has never been modified. Not by me, anyway. It was certified pre-owned from the dealer, so unless it was modified by the previous owner before they sold it to me, someone made a mistake or they are lying to get out of doing the warranty repair. When I told him it's never been modified, he said that's what they have in the system and there was nothing he could do about it. At that point, I insisted and told him that I would need him to tell me why it's been flagged, when it was flagged and who flagged it so we can fix the problem. He said that information was not available and he would have to get back to me, but (as expected) I never heard from him again.
So tomorrow I'm going to stop in and get some answers, but wanted some input beforehand. My question is how does a car get 'flagged as modified'? Are they suggesting that the car has been chipped? Can they check that in the ECU or something, like is there a datestamp that shows the last time it was flashed? My car is bone stock and I have no idea why it wold have been flagged. Doesn't seem right that they can just say it's been modified and deny warranty work without any supporting documentation. They're going to have to show me some hard proof beyond "trust us, bro", but not sure what to ask them for or how I can prove that the car has not been modified since I've owned it. Any input/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!