mo1
Platinum Member
Warranties seem to be a big reason why people buy new things. But just how useful is a tractor warranty anyway?
Not all warranties are equal, or treated equally at all dealers. So what makes a good warranty and why have one?
From a manufacturing viewpoint, warranties are a big money saver. Putting a warranty on a product saves a lot of money compared to the cost of making one with less failures - or one that just cannot fail.
What about from the tractor buyers viewpoint - is a warranty worth the cost? Or would you rather have something else?
rScotty
The warranty on equipment that is expected to last a very long period of time like a tractor is basically there to handle manufacturing, assembly, and setup defects and such. For example, if a sealed bearing came from a supplier without grease and seizes up after 30 minutes of operation and wipes out the assembly connected to it. That's why equipment warranties often aren't all that long, you are going to get through the "infant mortality" phase pretty quickly in using the equipment. Sometimes you will see longer warranties as a marketing tool to try to imply that the equipment is reliable (usually used on lesser-known brands).
Personally I don't look at a warranty with deciding to buy new vs. used as the fact that the used piece of equipment got past the infant mortality phase satisfied the whole point of a warranty. I generally buy used as it's less expensive, unless I can't find a suitable used piece of equipment at an appropriate price, which happens occasionally.
I did design engineering for awhile (20 years) before going into another branch of engineering. We always designed something the best we could - and then sometimes had to battle over cost.
In my opinion, the whole concept of "designed obsolescence" is a folk tale. Maybe it started as speculation or a PhD project by some university economics or engineering department somewhere.
Planned obsolescence sounds good enough to be true - and maybe some where it is - but reality in manufacturing is that designing something to last a certain amount of repetitions then fail isl just about impossible.
It's hard enough designing it to last. Trying to hit a target of designed obsolescence would be incredibly expensive. Consider the testing time involved in each design iteration.... no way.
Not sure how it would relate to warranties, though.
rScotty
There are some markets where there is designed obsolescence, such as with electronics where a design is tied to a specific technical standard that periodically changes, and the standard changes mandate a new design. There are also products with a specific known lifespan such as electronics with non-replaceable batteries where the known limited lifespan of the battery determines the lifespan of the device. Other than a handful of specific cases such as the ones I mentioned above, what you get is price point engineering where the goal is to meet a specific price point and the lifespan is whatever you get out of that price point.
I see you work for Oracle...