Chrysler Backs Away From Lifetime Warranty

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Allpar reports that Chrysler is dropping its lifetime warranty offer in favor of a five year, 100k-mile powertrain warranty (in addition to the standard three year, 36k mile bumper-to-bumper warranty). Unlike the lifetime offer, the new warranty will be transferable. Will it be enough to rescue ChryCo’s plummeting resale values? It couldn’t hurt, although the lifetime offer also helped Chrysler sell a deal (and who buys a Chrysler for the car?). Another change is that SRT vehicles now qualify for the new warranty. All of which is a bit strange considering that under the lifetime deal, Chrysler actually reduced its warranty cost projections.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

More by Edward Niedermeyer

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 20 comments
  • Rada Rada on Aug 20, 2009

    Warranties are tricky. They can refuse warranty service for any reason, really, or simply provide subpar service. Always buy a product that is reliable to begin with, don't count on that someone somewhere will honor the warranty.

  • AJ AJ on Aug 20, 2009
    joe_thousandaire : August 20th, 2009 at 2:39 am I bought my Dodge a couple months before they started offering the lifetime warranty. Now the standard 36k mile version is about to run out. Anyone have advise as to whether I should look into extending the warranty, and if so how much should I expect to pay for say another 3 years/36k? More then likely any problems will happen after another three years. Instead, take that money and put it in savings for breakdowns. If you don't use it, then it's yours not theirs. :)
  • Typevii Typevii on Aug 20, 2009

    @joe_thousandaire A warranty is only as good as the company behind it. This is Chrysler we are talking about. I was mis-sold an extended Chrysler ‘Bumper to Bumper’ warranty from the Chrysler dealer. Chrysler subsequently would not honor it. It was my fault, this was my first (and last) Chrysler product. I had only dealt with reputable auto dealers and manufacturers in the past.

  • Kurkosdr Kurkosdr on Aug 20, 2009
    As people above said, those kind of long time warranties are a bit of a scam. The reason is that you have to do all the scheduled maintance (paid for by the owner) described in the manual, and only in shops the automaker approves. Otherwise, the automaker has the right to refuse to honor the warranty anytime. So, in the long run, all those money you spent on "regular maintance" at the expensive certified shops is eventually many times the cost of what the warranty might cover (ex repair of a premature failure in some part). If you are not in warranty, you don't have to always honor the scheduled maintance. You can do the same maintance in cheaper shops (non approved), put in used parts or skip maintances of insignificant parts (ex air condition) and parts that haven't worn out yet. If you ask me, good warranties are the 5-7 year ones. Experience as shown that any manufacturing defect that's going to cause failure, it will happen in less that 5 years time. So, yes, you will get ripped of for 5 years by honoring the scheduled maintance, but you will end up with a flawless car, as warranty will take care of all defects. But I wouldn't go for any longer warranty.
Next