Chrysler Nixes 7/70 Warranty

[ragingfish]

Quote, originally posted by The Car Connection »Chrysler 7/70 Warranty Going AwayAutomotive News reports that Chrysler will end its seven-year/70,000-mile warranty with the 2006 model year. The industry weekly quotes a Chrysler-Jeep dealer, John Schenden of Denver, as saying Chrysler will use the money that propped up the warranty coverage on other marketing initiatives. Schenden is also the chairman of the Chrysler-Jeep national dealer council. Chrysler did not respond to the weekly's story; the News says Chrysler will revert to its former three-year/36,000-mile warranty for 2006.

[redlava]

LOL, my thoughts exactly.

[millster]

Right...Stepping out of moderator mode for a moment, I have one question. How is Chrysler's reverting to the same standard warranty as the rest of the manufacturers seen as a statement of their perceived reliablilty problems? Couldn't one say the same about the companies who never even tried such a program? The fact is that money is tight for many companies right now, particularly the domestic auto manufacturers. Even a small number of claims can be expensive on warranties and abuse would drive that cost even higher.Now I'll admit, part of this is being said as a Chrysler owner, yes. However, part of it is as a consumer. I've had enough of this unjustified rivalry between manufacturers. It's true that some manufacturers have more problems than others at any given point but every company has gone through or will go through that at some time. To that end, I noticed that this story hasn't had nearly the coverage it deserves:http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/1...n=yesJust to prove that even the lofty Toyota isn't perfect. Of course, let's not forget the sludge problems with the Camry (similar to the issue that bit Chrysler).Agghhh... OK, I'm done ranting now.

[millster]

Quote, originally posted by silverawd26 »You should hear the horror stories about the valves falling into the engines on some of these HEMI's!!!!I knew the Hemi would come up. I can't help but believe this is going to prove similar to the debacle with one of the high-revving four cyl's (can't remember which one right off) where people were simply working the engine beyond it's limits and breaking the valves.DCX is partly responsible for that with their aggressive marketing of the Hemi as a massively powerful engine with unlimited performance, but you have to admit it's awefully suspicious.

[ColonelPanic]

Who's to say they killed the warranty because it was costing them so much money in claims?Hyundai started the warranty wars back in '99 with their 5/60 bumper-to-bumper, 10/100K powertrain warranty... That was unheard of at the time, and sales of new Hyundais increased by hundreds of percent across the board... Other manufacturers, including Chrysler, followed suit by bumping up their warranty coverage. Perhaps they were anticipating the same amount of growth Hyundai had been blessed with when they began to offer their warranty? I don't have the exact figures for any of this, but I'm pretty sure that none of the competition's sales growth came close to matching Hyundai's. Perhaps several years down the road, Chrysler found that the money spent on warranty coverage wasn't bringing them in enough sales, and they found that the money would be better spent elsewhere... Just a theory.

[ragingfish]

We all remember the older VW diesels and their sludge problems too!I didn't post the article as an attempt at resurrecting any brand-loyalty rivalries...just an interesting tidbit of info i came across.

[soldierguy]

Quote, originally posted by millster »I knew the Hemi would come up. I can't help but believe this is going to prove similar to the debacle with one of the high-revving four cyl's (can't remember which one right off) where people were simply working the engine beyond it's limits and breaking the valves.DCX is partly responsible for that with their aggressive marketing of the Hemi as a massively powerful engine with unlimited performance, but you have to admit it's awefully suspicious. That's odd...I'm a member on a couple of Jeep boards that have a lot of Grand Cherokee Hemi owners on them, and I browse a couple of 300C boards that are loaded with hemi owners...I've never heard of problems with the valves. Most problems reported seem to relate to software programming...no common hardware problems that I've seen.But I'm glad that I got a 05 with the 7/70 warranty. The thing is incredibly complex...cylinder deactivation, electronically controlled front center and rear diffs, full-time 4WD, traction control, stability control, power everything...I'd hate to have to repair or replace any of that stuff at my own expense.Every car company has their issues. A long warrantee helps out with those issues, and does a lot for peace of mind for the owner. The only car I've ever had to use the warrantee with quite a bit was with my VW...had a problem with the ABS not working when the car would get fully warmed up. I had the thing into the shop a dozen times for that and never got it fixed...fact is I traded the car with the problem...thank goodness the dealer only took the VW on a 10 minute test drive before he took it in trade...much longer and the ABS light would have come on, and I would have been screwed over hard on the trade-in. I didn't feel bad about it...I was buying a Dodge, and it was a combined Dodge / VW dealer, so they had the resources to attempt yet another fix if it became a problem for them.

[joatmon]

Quote, originally posted by ragingfish »I didn't post the article as an attempt at resurrecting any brand-loyalty rivalries...just an interesting tidbit of info i came across.when it comes to brand loyalties, my favorite car was my first, a Rolls Canardly.The Vibe is the fourth vehicle I've owned that had a warranty at some point. Once I had a Dodge Caravan, had to have the auto tranny fixed under warranty after about 60K miles. Got another 190K trouble free miles out of that tranny after that, so I was glad to have the 7/70 warranty.Apparently having a long standard warranty is not that big of an issue for us GM owners, who only got the 3/36 (US units). 3/36 warranty is kind of like minimum wage for warranties If any manufacturer offered less than that they would really stand out as a company with little faith in their product. Cars today cost a fortune to repair. We are often surprised at how much certain parts cost, warranty has to be a huge expense for the manufacturers. Also, they can now make some more money by selling extended warranties to people that wouldn't have bought one if the car came with 7/70 coverage for free.

[ColonelPanic]

Quote »If any manufacturer offered less than that they would really stand out as a company with little faith in their product.Very true... Sadly, it kinda works the other way around too, with the statements I've heard people make about vehicles with extremely long warranties... i.e. "That's good that they give you that 100,000 mile warranty, you're gonna need it." Yeah, that makes me chuckle - 'specially when I think about how if that were true, then GM needs give me a powertrain warranty good for infinity.

[tnpartsguy]

Quote, originally posted by ColonelPanic »Who's to say they killed the warranty because it was costing them so much money in claims?Hyundai started the warranty wars back in '99 with their 5/60 bumper-to-bumper, 10/100K powertrain warranty... That was unheard of at the time, and sales of new Hyundais increased by hundreds of percent across the board... Other manufacturers, including Chrysler, followed suit by bumping up their warranty coverage. Perhaps they were anticipating the same amount of growth Hyundai had been blessed with when they began to offer their warranty? I don't have the exact figures for any of this, but I'm pretty sure that none of the competition's sales growth came close to matching Hyundai's. Perhaps several years down the road, Chrysler found that the money spent on warranty coverage wasn't bringing them in enough sales, and they found that the money would be better spent elsewhere... Just a theory. Chrysler started 7/70 warranty in the early '80s as a way to draw customers to the K Cars. They tried to drop it in 2002, but customer demand brought it back 9 months later. It never was bumper-to-bumper, it covered powertrain only, and was tranferable to a 2nd owner for a fee.If you really want a long warranty, buy a Vibe, and get GMPP......

[ShadowRuleZ]

Quote, originally posted by tnpartsguy »Chrysler started 7/70 warranty in the early '80s as a way to draw customers to the K Cars. They tried to drop it in 2002, but customer demand brought it back 9 months later. It never was bumper-to-bumper, it covered powertrain only, and was tranferable to a 2nd owner for a fee.I thought they did it since the A604/41TE is a flaming piece of crap and there were so many problems with it that in order to convince people to buy them they needed the warranty. Those transmissions go bad roughly ever 50k -75k miles or so, and are extremely picky as to wear and tear and maintanence (most notably the tranny fluid). They attempted to just rename the transmission in the 90s, but it's still the same piece of crap. I also though there were issues with paint in the 80s and 90s that also effected their perceived quality. If you don't beleive me, open your bargain corner and go to the chrysler/dodge section and count how many say "bad transmission", or go to the junkyard. There are tons of decent vehciles all with bad transmissions. When I was shopping around, no one would even offer a rebuild warranty on that transmission.

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by tnpartsguy »If you really want a long warranty, buy a Vibe, and get GMPP...... LOL! I tried that option already. Didn't work out so well for me. lol!