Factory warranty doesn't matter when buying your next new car
Warranty is a pivotal consideration for many new car buyers - but if you're one such person, you're mistaken. Here’s why…
Previous model Sorento is still under factory warranty, FYI.
Due to the way Australian Consumer Law works, warranty is largely irrelevant. What really matters is how well the carmaker complies with their consumer law obligations.
Three-, five- and even seven-year factory warranties on new cars are currently on offer in Australia. For a lot of people, this is a pivotal consideration in a purchasing decision - but I’d suggest it really doesn’t matter.
Unfortunately, nobody apparently told Wheels magazine, which published an atrocious industry suck-piece on this last Tuesday.
“Why seven- and 10-year warranties won’t become the norm.”
-Irrelevant Monthly
Personal opinion: I’m not making any comment about individuals here - these kinds of stories are the product of a process - they’re commissioned by an editor, written by a journalist, subjected to a production process, approved by a publisher and handed over to Bauer Media’s cognitively challenged WhichCar website…
All Ming Molls come with lifetime factory backing.
...the function of which, as far as I can see, appears to be to get you to engage in a chat session with some dude or dudette in the Philippines so you can divulge your personal contact information, which allows them to ‘help you’ by slutting your details out to a local car dealer and thereby allowing them to send that dealer a bill for $50-$60, of which you get zero. Of course. So that seems nice and ethical. Equitable. Whatever.
Isn’t the underlying business model interesting? You donate your information to a multinational publisher; they sell it to a dealer for $50 or something.
I call it the ‘pimp’ publishing model, but I really do prefer the good old days, y’know, with sponsors.
“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth”
Vehicular vendetta
Anyway, we’re discussing the position occupied by a major publisher here, and no comment whatsoever is made about the individuals involved, whom (I’m sure) try really, really hard, at times, often to the limit of their abilities.
You might recall, all the major carmakers moved to five-year warranties last year. Additionally, shitbox brands Jeep, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo recently upped their warranty antes to five years, plus of course the least reliable, most aspirational prestige brand of them all, the coveted three-pronged suppository.
So, that was all kinda unexpected.
The Wheels/WhichCar industry warranty suck-piece is based on ‘information’ - using the term loosely - from a so-called ‘source’ at an alleged ‘top-selling car company’ who didn’t even have the balls, apparently, to have his comments appended with his name.
“For us the extension happened because our mainstream rivals were going to five-year warranties. We thought about seven, but you can see that it would cost a lot of money. If it wasn’t cost prohibitive, we would have just gone straight to a seven-year or 10-year warranty.”
“For a top-10-selling brand, the cost of extending their warranty period from three to five years would surely be in the millions. It is not a small amount of money.”
“As vehicles get older they cost more [to maintain], so providing a warranty for year four to five will potentially be more expensive than a warranty from year one to two.”
-Nameless, faceless, gutless apparent source
So I wonder how Kia manages it, that alleged burden. And I wonder what motivates Mitsubishi to offer it currently on Triton. If it’s so allegedly fucking expensive.
Is Mercedes’ scrubber AWD system covered by Consumer Law? Yep.
Fact from fantasy
Here’s the thing. Australian Consumer Law says products (including cars) have to be reasonably durable. Meaning, after considering the nature of the product and the price, they have to meet the durability expectations of a reasonable consumer.
And for a car, surely that means something in the seven- to 10-year term, and probably up to 160,000 or even 200,000 kilometres. That’s legislated, and the car industry cannot limit those legislated rights with a warranty. That would be illegal >>
In my view, arseholes like this unnamed alleged insider, making statements like that, might as well stand in a public place with a megaphone and scream that ‘his’ carmaker is hell-bent on trying to screw you over on your legal rights after the warranty ends.
It’s a consumer-rights limiting strategy. That’s how it seems to me.
Because that’s what these bullshit comments seem tantamount to. In reality, the cost of a remedy under Consumer Law, after the five-year warranty expires, is exactly the same as the cost of that repair under a seven- or 10-year warranty. Exactly the same.
How is the financial liability - the burden to the carmaker - any different?
The only difference, it seems to me, is that arsehole corporate insiders like unnamed douchebag here, are telegraphing their intent to argue the toss over your legislated consumer rights from five years and one day. And I would not want to do do business with a carmaker predisposed to comport themselves like that.
PRO TIP: Essentially every single retail thing you buy is covered by Australian Consumer Law. Toasters, dildos, rubber dogshit, pressure washers, car parts, power tools, air-conditioners.
Suck, squeeze, bang, blow
If Wheels wanted to do actual journalism and not just produce suck pieces, it really would be helpful, in my view, to pose hard questions based on these fairly obvious inconsistencies, when presented with what, to me, is such obvious bullshit corporate unspeak.
What a pity Wheels elected not to do that. Typical Wheels >>
They could also track down some middle-management wonk who was prepared to be named on such a straightforward issue. Entertainingly enough, though, gutless industry insider didn’t even shut up at that previous point.
“If you make your warranty seven or 10 years, what is the motivation to update your car, as an owner? The new product would have to be pretty convincing.”
-Old nameless, again
Allow me to retort: That would be your job, dickhead. Try to make the next model pretty convincing.
If you’re a carmaker, you really do need to make the next model compelling, so people don’t want to be seen in your old, dated shitbox any longer. All manufacturers of all products do this. For example: who wants to be seen using an iPhone 10 in public? You might as well get ‘peasant’ tattooed on your forehead.
People don’t hang onto their cars because the warranty is still current. They trade in because the new model is so compelling. Because they want a new car. At least, they do if the parent carmaker manages not to be asleep at the wheel in R&D. Or at the very least, the marketing. Take the still-boring Toyota RAV4 hybrid for example: shithouse for towing, but they’re sold out because people know Toyota does the best job at hybrids.
My strong advice to you is:
A) Apply extreme skepticism whenever you read any story in the media. Ask yourself what and/or whose interests are really being served. I’d say in this case, some gutless, hyper-defensive car industry wonk is seeking to justify the proposition that five years of warranty is beyond reasonable, and also seeking to obscure the issue that warranty is subordinate to consumer law - not the other way around.
In other words, your legislated protection is greater than the warranty, and it continues to exist in most cases after the factory warranty expires. Do not let any dealer tell you otherwise - that’s illegal too.
And B) WhichCar and Wheels (same shit, different day) are in the business of pumping out the blog pages so they can slut you out to your local car dealer, via the Philippines, for $60 - provided you think it’s good value to give them your personal contact information for free (in trust, too I might add).
If you ever wondered why I refer to this activity/vocation, whatever, as “motoring so-called journalism”, this (let’s call it) ‘report’ is emblematic of the underlying deficiency in motoring journalism. And it’s so prolific.
Fool thee once
So, if you’re in the market for a new car, instead of obsessing about the length of the warranty, in my view it would be far better to look at the companies which have a solid track record of complying with consumer law.
In other words, look for the carmakers which are philosophically predisposed to offer high-level customer support. The ones which actually support you like they should. Because you spent the big bucks with them, and not one of their 30 competitors.
And in general I’d say Hyundai, Kia, and Subaru are on the podium here - among the mainstream manufacturers. Toyota, Mitsubishi and Mazda - they’re worth a look as well - not quite as good as the top three, but up there.
In my experience, among the premium carmakers, Lexus and BMW are streets ahead of Volkswagen and Glorified Volkswagen (also known as Audi) and Three-pronged Suppository, which really is poor at support, counter-intuitively. Chuck mainstreamers Nissan, Holden and Ford in there for obvious reasons.
If you make your choice like that, based on support culture, then you are far less likely to be disappointed after the warranty expires (or even during the warranty period) if anything goes sideways with your new car.
If you’re shopping for a small hatch or sedan, the Hyundai i30 has become the benchmark for value, performance and quality. Small families with a modest budget, or merely individuals who don’t need a bloated SUV, i30 offers bang for your buck.