General Motors is planning to offer longer warranties in an effort to boost confidence in its vehicles, according to Bloomberg sources. In 2005, GM extended warranties on Buick products to to match Toyota’s 50,000 mile offer. Earlier this year, GM’s Bob Lutz hinted in a posting on the company’s corporate weblog that GM might extend warranties across the board. “We absolutely need the consumer to have as much confidence in us as we have in ourselves,” Lutz wrote. “And we have some ideas about that to accomplish that; we’ll have something more, something bigger, to say about it in the coming weeks.” Hyundai started offering a 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty on 1999 models after quality problems earlier in the decade. U.S. sales rose 82 percent to 164,190 from a year earlier. It’s not known how long GM plans to make its warranties. An announcement could come later today.
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09/06, 8:32 AM
posted by:
snork
IMHO, for this to work they’ll need to one up Toyota and the competition and atleast offer 5-6 yr/60-70k powertrain warranties and atleast 50k bumper-to-bumper
09/06, 8:42 AM
posted by:
Kenny W
FINALLY. People have been telling GM to do this for months over on the GM Blog. This will go a long way towards customer faith & resale value.
09/06, 9:08 AM
posted by:
elviososa
why response so slow to the competitors??
09/06, 9:54 AM
posted by:
Andrew
Who will be first with a lifetime bumper-to-bumper warranty?
09/06, 9:55 AM
posted by:
j i m
They’re slow because they know it will cost them, and unlike Toyota: they don’t have the cash to support it.
j i m
09/06, 10:19 AM
posted by:
Piablo
They are slow to this in the same way many companies are slow in response to competition. Back in the day, Smith Corona was so slow in response to the PC, they simply went out of business. We all have those guys in our companies we work for that think they have the answer. It’s wrong, but that is the direction the company heads anyway. Someone there at GM probably had an all out campaign against the idea and it took a real rude awakening for the decision makers to rethink it.
09/06, 10:22 AM
posted by:
Piablo
J i m – The idea behind this though is to increase sales. Up the warranty on the vehicles at no cost to the customer, and whatever cost that is incurred will be made up in additional sales.
09/06, 11:03 AM
posted by:
1952 MG TD
GM sells A LOT more vehicles….
09/06, 11:45 AM
posted by:
Richard
Piablo, Not only is Smith Corona not out of business, it is doing quite well. It no longer sells typewriters because typewriters no longer sell. The company now sells computer software and is buying up other computer software companies.
I am all for longer warranties. Make no mistake, however, it costs money and hurts profits. There is no free lunch. This extra cost is mitigated somewhat by building vehicles with fewer defects and with parts designed to wear-out much slower. The idea solution (from the company’s point of view) would be to adopt the Honda model. This is to pass the extra cost on to the customer during “routine” maintenance.
09/06, 12:08 PM
posted by:
GarbageMotorsCorp
Good, your gonna need it
09/06, 12:19 PM
posted by:
Jon'O
didn’t this plan almost sink landrover in the 90’s?
09/06, 7:54 PM
posted by:
Patrick
Good idea GM, since ‘GM’ and ‘reliable’ are never really found in the same sentence these days.
09/07, 10:52 AM
posted by:
1c3d0g
Patrick, I don’t know what type of weed you’re smoking, but apart from the crappy built-in-China I-5, GM has been producing reliable vehicles for many more years than you’re alive.
09/07, 11:57 AM
posted by:
BrokenCadillac...
So Patrick isn’t even born yet?
09/07, 1:13 PM
posted by:
1c3d0g
No, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to post. I’m sorry you had trouble with your Caddy but I’m sure you were the exception. Good luck with whatever jap crap you buy.
/me laughs his way onto the freeway…