Lifetime Guarantee ( Ford)

Does anyone here remember this astonishing offer ?

Did anyone use it and any idea of when it was withdrawn ?

The states I know , but probably similar over here

**LINK**

I see a lot of cars , and Fords and GM are virtually the only 2 brands that die as a result of rust.

Add my wife's Mazda 6 TS estate to that. At the end of the 12 year warranty period the chassis suddenly failed as did the body work. The body work had just come out of warranty & the chassis was never in warranty - or so they say. Owned from new & full Mazda service history all the way to the scrap yard at 13 years 98K miles

Just trying to see if there is 'someone/anyone' out there, who can remember having his/her Ford repaired

about 15 or 16 years ago with this guarantee.

It is certainly not available now !

Considering my home is about 150 yards from the sea on a north-facing coast, it's surprising how few rusty cars I see in my neighbourhood. But surprisingly, I do see two slightly rusty Range Rovers. In the last 20 years I've had a Peugeot, a VW, two Vauxhalls and a Renault, and haven't had a speck of rust on any of them. And my cars get washed every six weeks, whether they need it or not............

My dad got a kwik-fit exhaust lifetime guarantee for his 1988 Nissan Bluebird in 1993 and it got honoured until the car got scrapped in 2008/9

They used to give it a funny look when you handed it over but a quick computer check meant the bill got cleared for zero payment

One of the problems with many of these whole vehicle deals is the "extras" the dealership tags on to the "free" part.

A certain taxi company did a fabby warranty deal (like the ford one) and Taxi owners were always complaining about these "uncovered extras" for hundreds of pounds getting added on when it went into the dealership for a free warranty job to get done

A classic case of caveat emptor

Wife bought a 2nd hand car with a 7 year warranty, 4 years remaining. Discovered it already had a broken road spring. So claim under warranty, had to have the go-ahead from service manager or sales manager. These two people seemed always to be on the road somewhere and could not be contacted. Did it myself. I had a new van with 10 year body warranty, but had to cleaned and checked any marks etc. fixed by dealer, every year. I reckon any car would last forever under these rules.

This is one of those clever marketing wheezes. They know that only a small proportion of the guarantees issued will ever be acted upon, so the financial liability will be very limited. But in the showroom, it's doubtless a fairly powerful selling point. I had a few lifetime warranties on exhaust systems but unless you keep the receipt handy until it fails (and remember that you have it), it's of no value. And similarly, when the vehicle is sold on, that continuity is almost invariably lost.

The other classic con is the gift card. You can only spend them in "their" stores, they often have an expiry date and if you misplace or lose them, the entire value is lost. They can't lose. I'd love to see the final numbers but I'd suspect they only end up reimbursing 60-70% of the face value in many cases.

You also have to think about what is meant by a "guarantee". It may be reasonably clear in the OP example but often it simply means that if the product fails they will replace it. For me a classic example was the Armadillo "guaranteed puncture proof" Kevlar-lined tyre for my bike that developed a puncture after 1 mile, literally - I ran over a small bramble on the road on the way back from the pub that first evening after changing both tyres. The jobsworth at the other end of the phone said I could have another one if I sent the "old"(??) one back. What a fantastic offer.

Murray

Anyone remember those Daewoo adverts for what was a fabby car deal in the 1990s, they advertised non-stop for DAYS

It had all turned to tears by 2002

Edited By Ady1 on 19/09/2016 10:16:20

.

Seems entirely reasonable, on two counts:

1. It helps prevent fraud
2. They get to learn about failure-modes

Usefulness to you might depend on the 'loop time'

MichaelG.

.

Edit: corrected a rather ugly typo.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 19/09/2016 13:05:51

Haha,

1. The only fraud was the description.
2. And the failure mode was crap design. They weren't a manufacturing defect as such.

As for feeding anything valuable back to the Mercans who "designed" them, I wouldn't hold my breath.

I sold them to some Lycra-wearing-Summer-cyclist sucker at work, although I did explain why I was getting rid and was sticking to my Schwalbe Marathons in future. I guess they did look and sound rather horny. And they were just as good (crap) when I sold them on as they were when I bought them.

They continued under GM despite this. Quite a few of the smaller GM vehicles are actually Daiwoo designed to this day. They are still sold as Daewoos in some countries but not the UK, perhaps not surprisingly. After 2005, they were sold as Chevrolets over here.

You can still see the "Chevrolet Matiz" on the roads in this country and even a few of the original "Daewoo Matiz" badged ones remain.

Friend has a Toyota Tacoma with (no longer in effect) life time power train warranty. He was on vacation when the oil change time was due. Stopped into a local Toyota dealer to have the deed done.When He got home and did next oil change at the original dealer He was told the warranty had expired because He had not called the dealer prior to having His oil changed at somewhere else other than the original dealer. It did not matter that it was done at an other Toyota dealer. Prior notice was essential.

The Daewoo Nexia was a badge engineered GM Astra (maybe a mark 2?) It was fortunate that as these Daewoos went to the scrapyard maybe a decade ago a premium car that used the GM parts bin in the late 1980's was in dire need of oddball parts such as *********** that were no longer available as dealer part, but were identical to those on the Daewoo and readily available. The scrappies never cottoned on to these bits they sold for a fiver a time to some bloke who wandered into the scrapyard in greasy overalls and that were on ebay within hours and selling for at least 30 times that both here, across Europe, the USA and down under. It was quite good while it lasted but I'm still sworn to secrecy as to the actual part though

The rusty Mazda 6 mentioned above was probably built on a Ford platform as until about 5 years ago Mazda was substantially owned and shared many parts with Ford. I didn't realise they were prone to rust as the only really rusty mazdas I've seen in recent years have been the MX5's and particularly the original Japanese market only Eunos roadsters which are notorious for rust. Plenty of salt traps, no seam sealant, no phosphate dips of the bodywork and no protective undercoating all mean big holes in any car used all year round in the UK. They are fixable with a bit of work or almost perfect as a kit car donor for the MEV Exocet.

A certain Japanese pickup seems to be suffering from chassis rust at the moment, They have a 12 year warranty and are corroding from the inside out. Depending upon age the manufacturer is buying some back or offering discounts off a new model.

Edited By AndyA on 19/09/2016 15:05:09

Edited By AndyA on 19/09/2016 15:05:21

What does lifetime guarantee mean? l have previously come across reports (referring to electrical items) that it can mean the manufacturer's estimated lifetime of the equipment not necessarily the time the purchaser owns it . Colin.

Reminds me of the old joke about the watch with the lifetime gaurantee on the mainspring. When the spring broke, it slashed your wrist!

When my Dad bought his first new car, he was assured that it incorporated 'sealed for life' bearings. Unfortunately, the 'life' turned out to be 6 months, for the propshaft bearings...

Regards

Geoff

My wife runs a 1997 Mk1 MX-5 import which still looks very tidy but will soon need some body corrosion repair, I don't see many other 20 year old cars that look as good and have as little corrosion.