Opel Buyers Get Lifetime Warranty. Supposedly
Hush. Don’t tell American GM customers how GM’s Opel subsidiary plans to prop up seriously flagging sales. Opel can use a serious injection of something. Opel’s German sales were down by 43.5 percent in July. And Opel doesn’t have China to save their necks. Today, Opel announced their version of the Ardennen-Offensive: A last massive strike at the hearts and minds (and pocketbooks) of their customers. A warranty for life. As they say: Read the fine print.
„Opel is the first volume manufacturer worldwide to offer such a lifelong warranty.” This said Opel’s Nick Reilly to Automobilwoche [sub]. Would you believe such a thing? Of course not. To begin with, it’s not lifelong. It is limited to 160,000 kilometers. (Interesting. 160,000 kilometers is somewhat unusual in Europe. Until you convert it to miles and get 100,000 miles. Harbinger of things to come to America?)
There is no time limit, but a lot of fine print. The warranty can’t be passed on to the next buyer. If the new car is sold within 6 years, the same warranty can be bought by the new owner for an unspecified “moderate price.” Once the Opel changes hands again, the third buyer is SOL. (On the average, the first time buyer in Germany holds his new car for less than 4 years. Statistically, this is a 2 year warranty extension. Clever, those boys in Rüsselsheim.)
More fine print: The warranty applies for “all important components.” Wear parts, such as belts, brakes, sparkplugs etc. are excluded. Up to 50,000 kilometers, parts under warranty will be exchanged at no cost. Then, costs will only be reimbursed partially. 90 percent from 50,000 to 60,000 km. Only 40 percent once the car is above 100.000 km.
This will make Opel dealers happy: The car must be brought to a dealership for an annual check-up and the required inspection work must be performed. This will sell a lot of non-included wear parts. After the regular 2 year warranty is over, and latest 36 months after the car has been first registered, the car must be brought to an Opel dealer for an annual “warranty re-activation” at the price of only 11.90 Euro.
The Movano, Vivaro und Combo are excluded.
Folks, this smells. It smells like an extended third-party warranty that has been tagged on. It smells like something we had done at Volkswagen ages ago. It was called “Lifetime Garantie.” It had similar, but far less restrictive clauses. It was so complicated that nobody understood it. It died of natural causes. Actually, it’s still alive. You can buy it, for a nominal charge. But nobody wants it.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Like most long term warranties there is probably fine print to the effect that whether the work is done under warranty or not is the decision of the dealer/manufacturer. If it's like GM North America warranties you have to have scheduled maintenance records up the wazoo before they will fix anything under warranty. Forget DIY oil changes, spark plugs,etc. they will negate your powertrain warranty. Regular service is a bread and butter item to the dealers.
Does the Buick Regal qualify as an Opel for purposes of the warranty? When Opel dies how do you get parts? eBay?