GM has released a technical bulletin to their dealers in the USA to check if a vehicle has had its gearbox or engine software altered "whenever a “hard part failure” is observed on internal engine, transmission, transfer case, rear axle assembly, or exhaust after-treatment system that is under warranty"...

From: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/08/gm-20120819.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+greencarcongress%2FTrBK+%28Green+Car+Congress%29

I can't see manufacturers paying for warranty repairs when these issues were perhaps caused by third party software. AFAIK VAG and Škoda do not check if a car has been chipped as a matter of course. Or do they?

they check the engine ECU for external software every time its serviced at a main dealer... its an online system that auto checks the map, and makes sure the most upto date map is on... it automatically did the "cold start rough running" update on mine....

I seem to recall something with a Nissan 350z. The guy had done quite a bit to it, including an air filter. Anyway the bottom of his engine fell apart and Nissan tried to get out of it under the mods clause.

IIRC they didn't. I'll see if I can find it, doubt it , as it was a good 4 years or more ago.

To be honest, if it's modified in the same area I'd suck it up. If I changed the seats I'd be miffed if the engine claim failed. Unless those seats were like 2 tonnes each.

Volvo have released a software update that is done with every service and it checks what s/w is in the car and updates whats needed but if it has say a 3rd party remap on it then it will wipe that off and put it back to standard,

Customers do get the option to opt out and not have it done though rather than it just been done without them knowing

When i mapped my last car, BMW, i got it done through "chippeduk" i got the module sent to me and the software emailed to me so i could change between maps myself at any time. I always re-wrote my modded map every time i got car back just in case they had updated the ECU when in for a service. Each time the map was changed it wiped the readout so that the dealer couldnt check how many re-writes there had been.

Would be well cheesed off if i had to go back to the garage that modded it to re-write map every time which is why i chose this route. Sometimes your dealer will update your ecu as a newer version is available and i beieve they wont ask your permission to do this so it would be worth checking if your car was mapped at a garage rather than via the OBD port by yourself.

I can only see this becoming more common i.e dealers checking or re-writing ecu's as part of a service in case they end up forking out for warranty repairs in later years resulting from modding. Its an easy option for them to do it and costs them nothing when they have your car anyway. Will probably become goverment legislation or something in an attempt to clamp down on modders etc.