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Is your warranty claim being questioned because of your oil change intervals, or the place you did the oil changes? Here’s how to prove oil change for warranty at a dealership.
Most times, when you don’t do your oil changes at the dealership where you bought the car, if you bring the car in for warranty repairs, they’d want to look into every detail of the changes you made on the car since it was bought.
That’s why you need to keep a proper record of all oil changes you do, as well as keep records of every other change you do on your new car, which is still under warranty.
When Will Oil Change Proof Be Required?
- When your car still has the stock oil filter after several miles (about 20k miles)
- If there’s too much sludge inside the engine – indicating wrong oil usage or delayed oil changes.
- Odometer reading was altered
When a dealership detects any of the points above, they’d definitely want you to provide handy proofs that you were actually keeping up with maintaining the car, and yet it had issues.
Asides from the instances above, your dealership won’t probably ask you to prove your oil changes. Oil changes and oil filter changes can be done simultaneously since oil filters are pretty affordable.
How To Prove Oil Change For Warranty

Truthfully, it’d be quite difficult to convince your dealership that you actually had oil changes at the exact required intervals – 3,500 miles or 5,000 miles – if they weren’t the ones that always do the change.
Thus, when you drive in for a warranty repair that is oil-related, you’d need to prove you did oil changes at the stipulated mileage intervals, and that you also used the recommended engine oil. No, how do you keep records of these things?
See Also: Does Changing Exhaust Void Warranty?
Someone may suggest you take a picture of the oil change receipt in front of your odometer, which would clearly tell that you changed your oil at a particular mileage.
That’s an ideal suggestion, and you should consider doing it that way, for all the times you change your oil while the car is still under factory warranty.
Also, ensure that you don’t miss a receipt for the oils and filters you bought (if you were the one doing your changes). In most cases, if the problem with your car is not oil-related, there’s absolutely no need for you to provide proof for oil changes.
Conclusion
Still thinking of how to prove oil change for warranty? Just present the receipts, that’s enough. However, if you took photos to further prove you did the changes at the specified intervals, that’s good too.
No dealership can deny your warranty repair unless they can prove that whatever change you made on the car was the actual cause of the problem you’re requesting they fix.
Therefore, as long as your car is still under warranty, stick with the manufacturer’s recommendations, so you don’t void the warranty and pay heavily on repairs and maintenance.