Chrysler cuts powertrain warranty to 5 years

(AP) – 2 hours ago

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Chrysler Group LLC said Wednesday that it is dropping its lifetime powertrain warranty in favor of a 5-year, 100,000-mile guarantee.

Chrysler spokesman Rick Deneau said the decision was driven by market research that showed consumers prefer warranties with a fixed time period. Powertrain warranties typically cover repair or replacement of transmission and engine parts.
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"Basically, the assumption of a lifetime warranty just wasn't that big a deal to consumers," Deneau said.

The 5-year, 100,000-mile warranties will be transferable to new owners if the vehicles are sold before they run out, he said. The previous lifetime warranties were not transferable.

The new warranty program also includes the automaker's SRT and Viper models, which were excluded from the lifetime warranty. But the Sprinter van and the diesel version of the Ram pickup remain excluded, Deneau said.

The change is effective with the start of the 2010 model year.

 

Not terribly suprising.

 

Exactly what I was thinking

 

Not surprised at all. I knew they wouldn't be able to keep this up, plus with the Fiat partnership there is no way they would keep this. Fiats have a notorious reliability reputation.

 

This is a joke, right? Let me get this straight. through their very own research, ChryCo discovered that customers do not like lifetime powertrain warranties, but would rather have a fixed time period? Yep, definitely a joke!

 

I cannot say that the Chrysler lifetime powertrain warranty have change my mind about buying a Chrysler in any way or form.

 

who would keep a Chrysler for that long anyways

 

Bingo,,..........

 

It could be accurate if the fixed-length warranties don't have the absurd hoops to jump through that the lifetime one does. IIRC, in order to maintain eligibility for the LT warranty, the car has to be brought in for inspection every year within 2 weeks either direction of the date it was purchased. If you don't get it inspected within that one-month period, your warranty is void.

 

Not sure what would expire first, the warranty or the company.

But I agree, not a big factor in sales generation.

 

The problem with Chrysler is not the power train, its the little things like interior panels falling apart, electrical glitches and cheap interior material quality. I had a 95 Jeep Grand Cherokee that everything fell part and the engine was still running like new.

 

It's good they're including SRTs and Vipers. It's also good because of transferable warranty. They should offer 10 year like hyundai does to at least make it competitive. I wouldn't buy a Chrysler but a Viper wouldn't be too bad.

 

I think geko29 has it right. A non-restricted and transferable 5-year warranty is probably better than a much longer (or lifetime) one with a million restrictions and loopholes.


That's the main problem with the 10/100 and 5/60 Hyundai/Kia warranties......otherwise, their vehicles are an outstanding value. First, it is not transferable, on a resale, outside of the immediate family (father, mother, siblings, etc...) Second, the 10/100 part, in the drivetrain, only covers Hyundai/Kia-sourced drivetrain parts......the others are included in the 5/60 bumper-to-bumper part. It also stipulates some restrictions on where the car is serviced, although some of that runs into complications with existing state and Federal laws.

 

See my comments above on the Hyundai/Kia warranty.

 

I'd rather have 6/60 on a known reliable vehicle and have the warranty as insurance and never use... than to have lifetime on a clunker and know that I will use it several times and waste my time getting it fixed.

I heard that in the same survey that they found out consumers don't like unlimited warranty but prefer warranty with an expiration that those same people also preferred non-alcoholic beer over regular beer to get drunk and they also preferred the taste of sewer water to filtered water.