For any consumer, being offered a lifetime warranty with a product or service that they purchase should be the absolute number one reason for making a purchase. Even if the product, or service isn’t exactly what they are after, having that added reassurance that their purchase should last them a lifetime without any issues, or if there are any issues (in line with the terms and agreements) that it won’t cost them any money!
Why offer a lifetime warranty?
When a manufacturer or company offers a lifetime warranty on a product, it usually means they are confident in the quality of their work and want their customers to have the same confidence when making a purchase, something that is pretty rare these days. Lifetime warranties used to be more common when the UK manufacturing industry was at its best, things were built to last, and the manufacturers had full confidence in the quality of what they were selling you.
Confidence
It makes sense that most lifetime warranties were offered in line with products or services that had a ‘lesser’ chance of going wrong, unlike motorcycles from wheelsmotorcycles.co.uk where there is a far greater chance of you needing some support. For example, it would be a safer bet for a manufacturer to offer you a lifetime warranty on an ‘unbendable’ fork or spoon
It is far more unlikely that you would get the same offer on something like a motorcycle, as such if you are making a purchase that does have numerous moving parts, and a lifetime warranty is on offer, you might want to grab hold of it with both hands.
Putting the brakes on
Consider that, something like a computer graphics card, or a motor vehicle use various moving parts that are used almost constantly when they are in use. It is inevitable that the components in use will suffer from some wear and tear, thus making a lifetime warranty a massive financial risk for the manufacturer, especially if they’re not confident with what they’re producing….
Is lifetime really a lifetime?
When making your purchase, it’s important to understand what the manufacturer, or supplier of your product, or service means by ‘lifetime’. Do they mean that, as long as your product ‘exists’ that you’ll be able to call on them whenever you have any problems? Does it mean that you, and only you, are covered for your lifetime?
Do they assign any particular time frame to their lifetime warranty, for example, if the average lifespan of the product you are buying is 10 or even 20 years, then that might be the ‘cap’ as to when you can call on them for help. As soon as you go over the above examples, you’d essentially become fully responsible for anything that goes wrong moving forward.
You need to ask questions
There are many questions to ask, which should be the first thing you do, you’ll want to know if there is a limit to the number of times you can call for help, whether, or not the warranty is transferable, if you want to sell and, what if somebody else is using your product at the time something goes wrong? Make sure you check these things out or you might be disappointed.
