Quote:
Originally Posted by SeattleStefan
Hey, former finance manager and longtime car biz person here, As long as you take everything off and make it stock(ish) at the end of your lease you'll be fine. I've leased 9 cars at this point and modded them all to some degree and have $0 in extra turn in charges at the end. My last car (Mercedes C300 4Matic) came with horrible runflat summer tires which were dangerous in the snow, so I replaced them with Michelin Pilot Sport AS's and kept the stock tires in storage until turn in time. I also had some pretty bad damage on my car but got lease protection (which I always recommend) So it was all covered. Before that I had a Mk6 Golf R which was APR stage 2 (ECU tune, Downpipe, custom exhaust) and I turned it in like that with 0 issues.
If you truly are worried about it, you have an option nobody's discussed here. 1) trade the car in before your lease is up. You might have some negative equity but at least you'll be free of any heartache if it comes down to it.
Also, keep in mind (again, former management at car dealers for 4 Major companies) unless they can specifically PROVE that your modification broke a part that is about to be warrantied, they cannot deny your warranty. It might be flagged in the system, but your iDrive breaking has nothing to do with an exhaust modification or anything like that. Even so, proving, without a shadow of a doubt, that a mod specifically broke something takes a lot of time and most dealers don't want to worry about it. Dealers make significantly MORE money from warranty claims than they do from out of pocket.
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+1
I've worked at dealers for over a decade and I can agree with Seattlestefan.
The only time you'll ever be responsible for any damage is if it happens and if the dealer proves, without a doubt, it was the owner's fault.
As for the Dinan products, they are bulletproof and are tuned to run safely. There is a reason why at one point they were partnered with BMW NA and you could have these mods installed by the dealer and the warranty coverage continued - no matter what. Similar to Ford Performance parts.
I'm also leasing and modified my car - nothing crazy, but I did. Literally, no one cares unless you impact the resale value after the lease. Go for it and have fun.