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Hyundai and Kia came to the marketplace with sub standard cars that caused a lot of problems. they improved their quality and, to try to inspire confidence, they went to the 100,000 mile POWERTRAIN warranty.
They HAD to do this and it ended up being a smart decision on their part and, of course, they milk the heck out of it.
The thing is, modern powertrains can easily go 100K and much more without problems. On any modern car so it really isn't a big deal yet the "warranty people" certainly think so.
For years, Honda had a 3/36 warranty that covered everything.
When Toyota went to the 5 year, 60K powertrain warranty, Honda lost "some" sales because of this.
When the stores complained to Honda, the Honda higher ups couldn't understand why anyone would want a warranty they would most likely never use.
Finally, they caved in and went to the 5/60 powertrain warranty no doubt raising the price of the cars a bit.
Personally, I think they should do the same thing and now match the Koreans 5/100 PT warranty.
But, then what? The Koreans would probably jack up the price of their cars and go to 150,000/15 years or who knows what?
A lot of people simply can't grasp the fact that they PAY for these warranties in the price they pay for the cars!
For years, Hondas didn't come with floor mats. If you wanted them, you paid an extra 100.00 for a nice set that looked and fit correctly.
Most people paid but a lot of people whined..." You would THINK, that Honda wold include a lousy set of floor mats in a 20,000 car!
Some cheaped out and went to Wal Mart and paid 25.00 for a one size fits all set of mats and then went to work hacking them to fit.
Honda heard the complaints, got smart, charged another 100.00 for their cars and included a "free" set of floor mats.
Funny, isn't it?
That hasn't been my experience but I rarely buy cars. When I got my '99 Quest, Mercury sold the twin Villager. About the only difference in the two were some trim pieces and other cosmetics. Pricing was about the same.
The Quest had a 5/60 drivetrain warranty while Ford offered 3/36. We cruised the Ford lot but didn't even to bother test driving the Villager.
A decade earlier we took a leap of faith and got a Plymouth Voyager in spite of so-so reliability ratings. A big factor was the 7/70 drivetrain warranty offered at the time (we used that one but the Quest was bulletproof). Without that warranty we might have looked at wagons and hatches harder.
People do get mad over the nickel and diming for mats, and no full gas tank when you pick up the car.
Yep, and this is why Hondas now come with mats and a full gas tank.
All added into the price of the cars!
And that may be one reason why Hyundai is on such a sales roll.
They then simply roll the cost of those warranties into the price of their cars.
It's OK to be hungry but a company has to be profitable at the same time.
Some learn their lessons the hard way.
Just ask anyone who had a major failure just outside of wty and found it was not going to be covered. They will be quick to tell you that had it had that extra period coverage, they would be money in pocket. So then, as you suggest, that in order to offer the extended coverage it doesn't come free. Well somehow Hyundai has managed to offer the longer wty; but do so by not only not raising the price of, or even de-content the car. (in fact offering more content) What's not to like if a brand is going to quite literally put their money where their mouth is? And the true test of time is if that strategy stands that very true test of time. All would seem rosey, but in my mind I think there is a caveat here that can't be totally ignored. I have never owned a Hyundai so can't verify what I have read, but it seems there are quite few ifs ands or buts with these longer warranties. But specifically, is there anything in there that gives the mfgr an out? So the first one, no matter how diligent a person is with their maintenance schedule is that it only applies to the original owner. That little tidbit is never stated in large print. Certainly not large enough that it can be seen on TV ads or gets mentioned at the water cooler. And of course the biggie out, is if you didn't do every single maintenance service item on time. I have read about someone showing up only a few hundred miles late, to be told that because of those late miles, the mfg wasn't going to pay on a wty claim later. Again, if this gets discussed at the water cooler, it is long after millions of sales. Like now for example.
So you can see I have fairly mentioned both sides here right?
So in light of that..
"the Honda higher ups couldn't understand why anyone would want a warranty they would most likely never use.
Finally, they caved in and went to the 5/60 powertrain warranty no doubt raising the price of the cars a bit. "
So there is something about this that doesn't add up. Let's go with the premise that the first statement is true. Then it does beg the question that if the extended wty would never be used (the idea presumably being that with Honda quality, the extra wty coverage would be moot and grow dust unused) then why would they actually have to raise the price of the car?
The way I see it, extended warranties are nothing more than an insurance policy, and as such they are usually exposed to the same outs that any unscrupulous insurance company would use to get out of paying. It's buyer beware.
And on that note, IMO, sales contracts should open and list at the top in large bold print all the caveats that the rest of the contract contains. And have a place for the buyer to initial every single caveat.
That in itself would tell the consumer to be aware that, in life, rarely is anything free.
I think Toyota/Honda/Datsun always had good resale value, in part because when they first started selling cars here, they didn't flood the market, so there was always greater demand than there was supply.
And you are correct. All an extended warranty is is an insurance policy.
As far as denying warranties, I can't speak for all companies and I really am in no position to speak for Honda but from what I observed, our shop didn't look for reasons to deny warranty coverage nor did they ask for maintenance receipts.
Now, had a car come in with a bad engine and it was completely gunked up with sludge from lack of oil changes, that may have been a different story although I never heard of that happening.
I doubt if the exposure of going to a 5/100K PT warranty would be very much at all for Honda and I happen to think it would be a good thing for them to do it.
For two reasons. to make the "warranty people" feel more comfortable and to stop the Korean makes from touting this as something wonderful.
There are two types of people when it comes to warranties. The first is the person you mentioned that had a expensive and painful experience when something major failed shortly after tha warranty expired or knows of someone who had that happen.
The second type (me) is the person who has never had a situation like that happen and who is willing to take the risk.
I've never bought an extended warranty on ANYTHING and (so far) have never regretted it.
The Japanese did it right. As someone said their initial offerings were tinny, crude and primitive but they didn't break.
They didn't have to fight back from a bad reputation.
The Japanese did it right. As someone said their initial offerings were tinny, crude and primitive but they didn't break.
I think to anyone who preferred big cars, any of those Japanese cars probably felt like crap-boxes...BUT, they were still light-years ahead of the domestic cars!
Didn't the Japanese tend to do manual transmissions really well in those days? I heard the typical domestic stick shift was miserable. Plus, a lot of domestics came with automatics, which hurt fuel economy and performance with those tiny engines, and probably weren't as reliable as the stick shifts. I think the Japanese pretty much stayed away from automatics until later in the 70's. IIRC, Honda didn't even come out with a true automatic until their 3-speed unit in 1980? I know that had something called a "Honda-Matic" before that, a 2-speed unit. But IIRC, you could either start off in first, and then shift to second when you were ready, or just start off in second and take off really slow. Probably not a bad thing to bridge the gap between stick-shift and fully automatic.
Actually the opposite is true. I figure the manufacturers with the shorter warranties don't trust that they make their cars good enough to be able to afford the warranty claims.
Salespeople always love it when they offer an extended warranty and you ask why do I need one - are your cars really that bad?
I agree on this. Be the smartest thing they could do, except for the slight possibility regarding a swing on it made by a recent comment here...suggesting that longer warranties might send the message of expected failures. It is sort of a catch 22.
I think overall though I would view a long wty as competence in the product.
This sort of hits close to home with me. In 03 when I bought my AWD Matrix. It had the usual 5/60 PT but the AWD only came in auto. As you know I prefer manuals and had it been available I would have opted for that. Although, the linkage was not a nice throw in manual FWD Vibe I drove prior. So fast forward 8 years and long since don't have the Matrix anymore because I missed shifting, and I find out that the manuals put in the Matrix and Vibe are terrible piles of junk that some fail while still under PT wty, and get replaced with the same pile of junk they took out (which won't be under wty more than a year after that, so you know it will last the 20k miles...even though some did actually fail as soon as just over 30k. Was a bearing that gets oil starved) But at least if you had a 100k PT wty on it, you might get at least the 2nd or 3rd pc of junk tranny covered. I think Toyota has really dropped the ball of denial on those poor customers who otherwise loved their Matrix's. I was going to give credit to GM here in this thread, that maybe some of those disgruntled Matrix owners went and bought a small GM, but unfortunately of course Vibe owners suffered the same tran issues, and anyone who might have traded their Matrix for a Daewoo (Cobalt) well that likely made them miss their Toyota.
Back to Honda wty. Did the majority of Odsy owners have their tran failures while under the usual 5 year wty? Seems to me they failed early enough also, that those too would benefit from a 100k wty cuz again, the 2nd or 3rd trans would be covered. Or did they replace the trans with a better designed unit? Seems to me I recall Honda did the same to Ody owners that Toyota did with Matrix owners?
Having an optional automatic gave Toyota an advantage over VW, which at the time was the #1 selling import but which was only available with a 4-speed manual.
In '68, VW countered with a semiautomatic transmission: some shifting required but with no clutch pedal.
With the automatics, it was almost like an afterthought for them since AT's weren't widely used in other parts of the world.
" Oh, the Amercans want WHAT??...They do?"
And so they built them and yes, the early Toyota two speeds were a lot like a Powerglide. The Japanese were very good at copying things. Teh six cylinders in the Land Cruisers were almost identical to a Chevy 235.
The Datsun 4 cyls were a copy of the Mercedes engines.
My mom had a 72 Corolla with a stick. She loved that car. I was rather fond of it myself. Of course if you look at a modern Corolla and compared you'd think that the 72 had the back bumper in front of the front bumper. It was SMALL! RWD, too, so you had that hump in the middle.
Honda went way beyond the call of duty in replacing the bad ones especially since those only had the 3 year/36K warranty.
I saw them warranty some that had over 100,000 miles on them.
Nevermind the fact some of these Odysseys were rougher than a night in jail, had class 3 trailer hitches on them etc.
I was impressed on how they stepped up to the plate.
I had the stuffing scared out of me once by a co worker who had a new one.
Those VW Auto Sticks were something else! It was like the Germans knew they were losing sales and HAD to do something.
If you've ever driven one, you would know what I'm talking about!
And, they weren't good sellers.
My Ody experience pretty much matches what you said. I had one go in our 02 Ody and they took very good care of me. My SIL has an 04 with 225K on it and it hasn't given her a lick of trouble. Our 04 has about 78K on it and has been fine. It's too big for what I need now but it will be paid off by the end of the year and there's nothing quite like a paid for car that has a lot of life in it. I'd rather have a gas sipper but it just makes more sense to keep it.
As it wound out in first gear, by instinct he grabbed the shifter and stepped hard on the clutch pedel. Of course, there was no clutch pedel, just an oversized brake pedel.
He just about put himself through the windshield~
Not even close. A Cobalt is not a Daewoo, never was. The Cobalt was built in Lordstown, Ohio.
The 10 year/100K mile warranty of Hyundai may be a marketing gimmick that they are beating to death, but, assuming they honor it, then my powertrain is covered for that much time...of course the price of the car will go up some, just like with "free" floor mats and a tank of gas...but there is a point where the price of the car should be set to include things that we consider necessary or convenient...why not get a full tank of gas, who wants to drive their new car to the gas station across the street after parting with that much money???
Same thing with floor mats...include them in the price and raise the base price to include the mats, so the sticker reads "floor mats included, luxury floor mats additional cost"..
If a restaurant itemized like that, it would be, hamburger, large plate $3.95, small plate, $3.45, lettuce 10 cents, ketchup, 5 cents, mustard, 5 cents, ketchup and mustard combo special, 7 cents...glass of water, 3 cents, clean glass 2 cents extra...shiny clean knife and fork, 50 cents, clean but water spotted knife and fork only 40 cents...
That's been working for the airlines. :sick:
please. That seems to be the best deal offered. Plus if they are going to charge me for tap water, then count on me bringing my own water in with me in my thermos. I got in a huge fight with an old GF over a time when we agreed to meet at the local Subways. She was there already eating and I arrived with a Pepsi in hand and was going to order a quick sandwich. When she saw that I came back with no paid-for drink, it eventually turned into a verbal brawl while in the car on the way home.
No wonder I'm single and likely always will be..
Like geesh, it's not like it was a shirt and jacket steak house..
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
That's about what JD Power rates it 3/5 on overall dependability and 2.5/5 on mechanical dependability. And I'll give it a 1/5 on desirability. Actually, JD gives it a 2/5 on both style and comfort.
So yeah, average at best.
I don't disagree that is a good value.
Concerning the Cobalt - that 3/5 which is average ties the 2008 Nissan Altima and the 2009 Honda Civic. It also betters the 2008 Honda Odyssey and the 2008 VW Jetta.
My son has a 2008 Cobalt which I have driven and like with 60k trouble free miles. He replaced a 2000 Cavalier which was much less refined but gave him 200k relatively trouble free miles.
Not sure what you meant by this remark? Please elaborate.
That was my perception of the Cobalt. And nowadays, when a car gets an "average" rating from CR and the like, most examples are actually pretty good. There's just enough bad examples to bring the whole average down.
I've heard a lot of people complain about the interior, but I don't find it that bad. Sure, there's a lot of hard plastic in there, but I think it's still presentable. And I actually find the front seats to be quite comfortable. They have a much greater range of motion than most cars this size, so legroom felt more like a decent mid- or full-sized car, than a compact. And the seat might not have had the contouring that the imports have, but it felt like the cushions were a bit bigger, so that made it more comfortable to me.
Sure, there may be "better" cars out there, depending on your needs and wants. But, I could see the attraction of the Cobalt. If I needed a cheap car to do a lot of commuting, it might fit the bill. A Civic or Corolla might get better economy, but with the Cobalt's cheaper price, the break even point would probably be pretty far off.
Tell me about it, I can't tell you how many people can't wait to give their expert opinion on BMW reliability and running costs- and most of them haven't even sat in a BMW. Heck, some of them can't spell BMW...
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Cobalt Sales:
Model Year U.S. Sales
2004 4,959
2005 212,667
2006 211,450
2007 200,621
2008 188,045
2009 104,724
2010 97,376
Civic sales for 2010 - 260,218
Altima sales for 2010 - 229,263
Jetta 2010 sales - 123,213
Corolla 2010 - 266,082
Elantra 2010 - 132,246
The Cruze has it's work cut out. Cobalt fizzled at best.
GM has MILES TO GO before they compete in this segment. Like it or leave it.
Regards,
OW
tharkins, "Chevrolet Cobalt Electrical Problems" #148, 5 Nov 2010 3:18 pm#MSG147
see posts 143, 144, 148, 152, 154, 156, 159, 160, 171 just to get you started. There are many others and on other forums too.
I used to know a woman who had one. Her problems seems to have been supported by some of the issues these owner's have had above. I look for a trend.
Really? Just from personal experience, I know that the B12 and B13 Sentras had direct cable clutches, and the B12 even had a little double-nut adjusting bracket under the hood.
But to many, myself included it's the other areas such as:
JD power ratings
Overall P &
Performance: Cobalt= 2.5 Altima=4 Jetta= 3.5 Civic=3.5
Comfort: Cobalt=2 Altima=4 Jetta= 3.5 Civic=2.5
Features: Cobalt=2 Altima=3 Jetta= 3.5 Civic=3
Style: Cobalt=2 Altima=3 Jetta= 3.5 Civic=3
These categories are where the Cobalt fell short, you generally get what you pay for.
I've never said the Cobalt was junk, but undesirable probably has probably been typed from my keyboard.
If one wants cheap reliable transportation, I don't doubt a Cobalt will deliver.
Even the 08 Focus outscored the Cobalt on every one of those categories above. Probably explains why it outsold it despite being an older design.
The Cobalt was based on the Opel Astra of that time, but was subject to a lot of quick redesign to Americanize it. Probably the same situation as the Ford Mondeo-Contour issues in the '90s. The impression I get is that the Cobalt isn't notably more mechanically troublesome than other GM FWD cars, but the interior and demeanor of the car make it a rather unpleasant place to spend time in.
No kidding;)
I enjoy reading the mags. I don't always agree, or I should say, some of the things they ding a vehicle for are things I may not.
I drive an 07 Expedition. It's rarely won any comparisons (maybe a tahoe here and there). I understand why other large SUVs are picked over it (Sequoia/Armada etc). I like it enough considering what I paid for it and it does what I ask of it. It's certainly not perfect or the best, but I didn't pay "best" money for it either.
The vast majority of owners most likely didn't have any of these problems.
The CRV A/C compressor issue is a great example of this!
The Focus was significantly redesigned for the '07 model year. A two-door with trunk was added, and the wagon and two-door hatch were discontinued. Conversely, it's hard to tell an '05 Cobalt from a '10. I might add that the Cobalt was not made throughout the '10 model year as the single assembly plant was shut down and retooled for the introduction of the Cruze.
I strongly disliked the '07 Focus redesign...to me, it was inspired by Kia and Hyundai low-line models, which may have appealed to the car's market target--young, first-time buyers--but not to me, a 50-year old guy who wanted a work car. On top of this, the Cobalt had very high NA parts content and was built 35 miles down the road from me. There are employees of that plant who live in my town and also live in the town I grew up in, 75 miles from here.