Warranty vs Proven Reliability

[WM75Guy]

 

[Torvy]

The best warranty is the one you never need to use.

When we first got married, my wife had a new Dodge Shadow. I had a 10 year old Nissan 200SX. Hers was frequently in the shop "under warranty". Mine never had any service done except regular maintenance or accident repair. Some people would say my warranty was worthless because I never used it. I thought it was priceless for the same reason. Warranty service never makes up for the inconvenience of needing it. Needless to say, we never bought another Dodge.

 

[Fixastuff]

A decent sized vermeer or ditchwitch vibratory plow costs around $220,000 and comes with a 1year warranty! Isn't that crazy.

 

[finn1]

Wouldn't a redesign just add to the cost of the warranty repair?

The dealer still has to do the repair - and be compensated by the manufacturer - who now also has to design and make a new part, stock it, educate mechanics, and scrap all the old ones.

Established companies can probably survive that expense better than small ones.
So it sort of comes back to the question of what is a warranty worth....

Warranties from different brands may not be equal value even if they do cover the same things.

Part of the analysis includes tooling, qualification, and warranty savings cost.

Redesign and cost reduction are ongoing processes for any manufacturer. The consumer may never know, unless the changes are large enough to require a part number change. Often it’s just a revision letter change on the drawing, and new services old.

 

[scootr]

I know warranties are a prudent purchase but they represent thousands of dollars spent for something we hope to never use .
I'm still of the mindset that If I think I need a warranty on this product then I probably need to find a better manufacturer.
I have told many car manufacturers as much

 

[murphy1244]

I have never used my warranty and to date has never been in the shop

 

[MapleLeafFarmer]

I like new warranties and new things / keeping it in great condition / keeping it forever. But what I like more is knowing someone is not passing off a well polished turd that turns out to be an expensive to repair/operate/dud of a turd.

I seem to find lots of really nice looking things at auctions and on various lots that when I dig into I find bubble gum glue, stripped bolts, duct tape repairs, etc... hidden.

But thats just me. Don't trust very new but used stuff or more so don't trust a lot of people these days.

 

[Iowa Hillbilly]

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

In my manufacturing experience "designed obsolescence" is definitely a real phenomenon. I don't attribute it to malice on the part of the manufacturers. It is the result of competing design criteria which results in items that don't last as long as comparable products of generations past.

Consumers don't generally prefer to pay more if they believe they can get a comparable product at less expense. Most consumers are not capable of determining the engineering sufficiency or manufacturing quality of the products they buy. So if two items look pretty similar and make similar claims of performance and longevity, the consumer typically opts for the lower cost item.

To reduce product price and stay competitive one of the simplest techniques is to reduce component weights. The global supply chains for manufacturers of complex machinery like cars or tractors are mind boggling. Individual components get shipped from place to place across oceans and continents as raw materials become parts and parts become sub-assemblies and on and on until a final product is readied and shipped to a dealer's lot.

Another good technique to reduce cost is to change the material used to construct a part to a less expensive material. This often results in using a material less suited to the task, but it is an engineers job to try and make a component that is still suited to purpose, but less costly.

Overall, consumer price pressures and government efficiency edicts have guided manufacturers' engineering choices to produce items which are more lightly built and have shorter overall life expectancies. Are we all better off? Sometimes we are, sometimes maybe not.

 

[Fixastuff]

In my manufacturing experience "designed obsolescence" is definitely a real phenomenon.

What products have you experienced this with?

 

[Iowa Hillbilly]

What products have you experienced this with?

Large yellow equipment, large green equipment, large German equipment, US auto manufacturers, and a whole host of smaller and less complicated stuff that one might purchase at the big box store.