OK. Just had a thought (yippie) while watching an asian car ad. If this is too far OT- mods please delete. Two questions. Who was the first auto company to offer a warranty , and what was the most miles covered ever warrantied? Of course I meen pre 1964 !!!!!!
Practically all car companies offered a warranty from the first. The Stanley brothers did not. If anyone asked, if one of their cars had a defect they would fix it for free but they felt it was an insult to their integrity and reputation to put it in writing. In the fifties the standard warranty was for 30 days or 4000 miles whichever came first. Chrysler was the first to offer an extended warranty, the 5 year 50,000 mile powertrain warranty starting in 1963.
RollsRoyce had and I think still has the best factory warranty. I worked for one summer at a foriegn car company and I delivered new & serviced cars to their owners. Back in the 60's, if you spent enough on a high end foreign car, they had this service. One afternoon, the service desk got a call from an owner of a 1 year old Rolls. He said his car broke down and he was stuck. The service manager said "relax, your car did not break down. We will be there in a few minutes to get you going". I followed a mechanic in a "loaner Rolls" to the stranded motorist. As he was checking it out, he told the customer to take the loaner car and when we find the problem, we will return your car and exchange the vehicles. The next day, he met the customer and exchanged vehicles. The customer asked what the problem was and the Service manager said everything checked out perfectly. There was no problem! When you bought a RollsRoyce back then, you got free fixin's for life! I'm not sure they still have this policy. Does anybody know?
I'm pretty sure that went away in the 70s... I used to know a guy (silver spoon type, but otherwise a very nice guy) who bought a Ferrari as a daily driver. Well, being the high-strung thoroughbred that it was and not liking urban Seattle traffic, it spent considerable time in the shop. He thought the solution was another Ferrari (they both wouldn't break down at once, right?), but alas, the second one joined it's brother in the shop on a regular basis. So at this point, he sold both and got a several-years-old Rolls. It proved to be even less reliable than the Ferraris, and even he complained about the repair costs... The last straw for him was when it spewed it's transmission out upon his arrival at a black-tie affair and had to be towed away. He sold that and bought a mid-range BMW...... he swore no more exotics...
I read a long time ago that Rolls sent a letter to owners asking them to tell their drivers to not kill time by polishing the engines. All the open hoods gave the impression that the Rolls were broke down, and as said earlier, there was a time when, according to Rolls-Royce, their cars simply did NOT break down.
That story about Rolls sending a mechanic for free is just that, a story. They did no such thing.....I worked on plenty of old Rollers back in the days, parts were hard to get and expensive, and often had to come from England as there was nothing available "off the shelf"....there was no such thing as a lifetime warranty on Rolls Royce cars, ever.
Most of the cars I bought when I was younger came with the 50/50 guarantee. If it broke in half when you hit the bump at the end of the driveway you owned both halves.
Rolls once had a lifetime warranty on workmanship, but never mechanical or parts. And the lifetime on workmanship doesn't apply for the older (classic) models. You can buy extended warranties all the way up to 100,000 miles. This was from a Google search. Rolls Royce motor cars don't break down, they fail to proceed. http://rroc.org.au/wiki/index.php?title=Rolls-Royce_FAQ:_Myths_and_Legends
When the Chrysler 50/50 warrenty came out it covered the aluminium front end, battery in the trunk fire breathers of the day! Not a good idea. Regardless, they were covered for awhile...imagine that!
A little interenet research reveals 3 months and 3000 miles was the standard warranty on new cars in the twenties.
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