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VW boosts 2018 warranties to 6 years/72,000 miles
http://www.autonews.com/article/2017092 ... ce-scandal
HYUNDAI SEZ: "I'll see you and I'll raise you!"
https://www.hyundaiusa.com/assurance/am ... ranty.aspx

OK, so it is not an entirely apples-to-apples comparrison, and Hyundai's warranty wasn't improved to counter VW's announcement, and warranty is a sales ploy, like no-money-down, or 0 % interest - it has nothing to do with the quality, durability, reliability, etc. of the vehicles except to say that consumers losses are somewhat covered.

I still remember that my Dad's '69 Chevy Impala wagon had a 5 year warranty and his brother's '70 Impala wagon had a 1 year warranty, because in 1971, when they both had water pump failures, my dad's repair bill was covered and my uncle's was not. My uncle put a lot more miles on his cars than my dad did, so by that time their odometer mileage was about equal. The waterpump quality wasn't better or worse because of the length of the warranty that Chevy offered.

The only thing warranty does is frustrate technicians. There are of course exceptions wherein the tech can make serious money on certain repairs if theyre good enough at them. Take WK/WD 3.6 timing cover reseals or electric steering rack replacements as solid examples.

I used to like long factory warranties and buying longer extended warranties for that security blanket feeling...then I found that they never cover the broken thing I expected to be covered, and meanwhile they limit how I can enjoy the car for fear of running afoul of the warranty's requirements. Nowadays I'd just as soon have a minimal warranty to prove the car wasn't delivered with a defect and maybe some recall-style voluntary free repairs for things that turned out to be design/manufacture deficiencies later (motivated by not wanting a market reputation for some crap issue; yes, this DOES happen).

However, if I was buying instead of leasing in 2008 I would have chosen the Jeep Patriot for its lifetime powertrain warranty over the VW Rabbit. I'd have 250,000 miles on it by now and if a major powertrain failure happened then they'd be on the hook for it. The price was right and I could stay inside of the rules for that. They didn't keep that marketing gimmick for long, so presumably it wasn't expected to pay off in continuous use.

That all said...when a company can consistently deliver a long warranty along with a very competitive price, that does seem to indicate some evidence-based confidence in their product's design and manufacture. Hyundai has had their "America's Best Warranty" for the past 20 years and consistently delivered competitive products at low prices. If it was costing them much then they either would have to raise prices or lose money.

People seem to perceive cars as a lot less reliable than they are. If warranty sells some extra cars and induces some extra people to do regular dealer maintenance, it might even be a money-maker. It's worth noting that there's a big caveat on the Hyundai powertrain warranty...It is non-transferrable unless the vehicle is CPO, so with first owners averaging 6.5 years, the exposure under the powertrain warranty for the majority of vehicles isn't that long.

There are a number of dealer chains in Minnesota that offer limited lifetime powertrain warranties on all vehicles sold regardless of manufacturer or used status. An F&I guy who stated he "wasn't a product specialist" pretty much said with all the computers running things the interior oily bits, which the warranty would cover, are rarely the cause of failure.

Don't know how much to believe him since he was the F&I guy though.

He's not wrong. It's exceedingly rare for those bits to wear out or fail like that. Most cars go to the junkyard with that stuff still good for another zillion miles.

That's why I sometimes rant against the machine in "gotta do 3,000 mile oil changes with 300 dollar oil and filter" discussions...spend your excessive maintenance money/effort on stuff that actually wears out or breaks and tends to be ignored, like transmission fluid.

I remember back in the 70's when automakers offered 12 months or 12 mile warrantys. Could have used a longer warranty on my dad's 78 Chevette. VW offering a decent warranty that can be transfered to the next owner is a step in the right direction for the company. Have not personally owned any VW's other than the old aircooled models. We have auto dealers here in Cincinnati doing commercials that say they offer lifetime mechanical protection even on some pre-owned vehicles. There has to be some catch or way that they end up charging the customer.

Bill B wrote:I remember back in the 70's when automakers offered 12 months or 12 mile warrantys. Could have used a longer warranty on my dad's 78 Chevette. VW offering a decent warranty that can be transfered to the next owner is a step in the right direction for the company. Have not personally owned any VW's other than the old aircooled models. We have auto dealers here in Cincinnati doing commercials that say they offer lifetime mechanical protection even on some pre-owned vehicles. There has to be some catch or way that they end up charging the customer.

Often, the catch is that you are required to change oil at that dealership's service department, at undiscounted prices, and at a short time/mileage interval, such that the amount you've overpaid for the oil changes would have more than covered the repair bills.

My mom used to geek out and like look at old car stickers. On them were 3 month / 3000 mile warranties. Now she watches old car propaganda and Jam Handy videos on YouTube. The 1938 Ford V8 good for 68 "effortless horsepower" is fun to watch.

"Don't make a deal til you take the wheel of a great big 41 Ford!!"
revolutionary fingertip shifting at 2:26

couldn't find the 38 ford vids you mentioned about, tank

theholycow wrote:He's not wrong. It's exceedingly rare for those bits to wear out or fail like that. Most cars go to the junkyard with that stuff still good for another zillion miles.

You would not believe the things that break inside of the Pentastar

watkins wrote:

theholycow wrote:He's not wrong. It's exceedingly rare for those bits to wear out or fail like that. Most cars go to the junkyard with that stuff still good for another zillion miles.

You would not believe the things that break inside of the Pentastar

Back in the days when Chrysler was partnering with Mitsubishi, they sometimes ran Mitsubishi engines to power the transmission dynamometer durabiity testing. One of the test technicians told me that the Mitsubishi engines were very consistent, with nothing failing "Early" during the dyno testing, but if they were designed for 100,000 miles, then at 110,000 miles just about everything in the engine was worn out.

and then from my BIL, who wrenches for UPS during the day and for friends and neighbors in the evenings and weekends: when he sees a Mitsubishi engine with a certain failure mode, he runs, not walks, the the junkyard to look for a replacement part, because many Mitsubish engines, from multiple model years, will exhibit the same failure mode and the junkyards will get picked clean of cylinder heads, exhaust manifolds, camshafts, whatever it is that needs to be replaced. An engine engineer friend of mine confirms the reason why this is so. It seems that Mitsubishi worked hard to develop their engine designs prior to starting volume production, but then left them alone with whatever faults their customers found and didn't take any efforts to cure those faults but instead worked to eliminate them from their next generation of engines.

Rope-Pusher wrote:he runs, not walks, the the junkyard to look for a replacement part, because many Mitsubish engines, from multiple model years, will exhibit the same failure mode and the junkyards will get picked clean of cylinder heads, exhaust manifolds, camshafts, whatever it is that needs to be replaced.

Although your story stands on its own, this bit...well, this part is pretty typical for junkyarding. Every manufacturer and model has its problem items that are always the first parts promptly picked from new meat. In this modern age of texting and huge corporate franchises, at least you can get nigh-instant notification when a local yard gets a donor. Just drop everything and leave your cow-orkers hanging, and you can grab that pesky thingy (if the car managed to have a decent one on its way in to the yard). With a popular car, you can see dozens of the same model missing the one item.

I've experienced it a zillion times and I wish I could remember some examples.

theholycow wrote:

Rope-Pusher wrote:he runs, not walks, the the junkyard to look for a replacement part, because many Mitsubish engines, from multiple model years, will exhibit the same failure mode and the junkyards will get picked clean of cylinder heads, exhaust manifolds, camshafts, whatever it is that needs to be replaced.

Although your story stands on its own, this bit...well, this part is pretty typical for junkyarding. Every manufacturer and model has its problem items that are always the first parts promptly picked from new meat. In this modern age of texting and huge corporate franchises, at least you can get nigh-instant notification when a local yard gets a donor. Just drop everything and leave your cow-orkers hanging, and you can grab that pesky thingy (if the car managed to have a decent one on its way in to the yard). With a popular car, you can see dozens of the same model missing the one item.

I've experienced it a zillion times and I wish I could remember some examples.

In this case, the thing is Mitsubishi has no cumpunction to come up with a permanent fix for any of the issues that crop up - if the exhaust manifolds are cracking, they will crack every model year until that engine goes out of production. Kinda like every Cavalier you ever saw had a muffler that waved to you because the general didn't care to fix the issue. I would submit to you that as a customer, one, or two, would hope that if you bought one a year or two newer that they wouldn't fail that way like the older ones did.

Rope-Pusher wrote:In this case, the thing is Mitsubishi has no cumpunction to come up with a permanent fix for any of the issues that crop up - if the exhaust manifolds are cracking, they will crack every model year until that engine goes out of production. Kinda like every Cavalier you ever saw had a muffler that waved to you because the general didn't care to fix the issue. I would submit to you that as a customer, one, or two, would hope that if you bought one a year or two newer that they wouldn't fail that way like the older ones did.

Yeah, that's kinda a dick move!

Toyota does it too, at least sometimes...hence premature unexpected catastrophic ball joint failure at speed resulting in crashes, where Toyota does recall theater, replacing the ball joints but never improving them. I have a Tundra that was my dad's that did it to him repeatedly; I refuse to drive it, it's just a project in my yard that I'm hoping to turn into some cash -- but I feel bad about letting another one of those trucks stay on the road with that design and I WILL notify the next owner.

I really gotta finish that project. I need the money. Anyone wanna buy a 2002 Tundra beater?