Is a Car Dealership’s Lifetime Warranty Actually Real?

Breaking Down the Fine Print on Warranties on New Cars for Sale

A lifetime warranty on your car sounds pretty great, right?

Taking that at face value, it sounds like you’ll be 100% covered for the life of your car and never have to worry about paying for expensive services for your vehicle. But are lifetime warranties on new cars for sale actually real? Usually when something sounds too good to be true, it is.

At Volkswagen SouthTowne, where we have been Utah’s #1 Volkswagen dealer for volume sales and customer satisfaction since 2013*, we believe that a lifetime warranty on your car is little more than an advertising hook.

In fact, dealerships offer it because the steps to fulfill the warranty are sometimes so meticulous and difficult to meet that they may be banking on a customer not being able to do it. People have lives. They don’t have time to get their car serviced all the time.

Let’s look at a few of the reasons why Volkswagen SouthTowne does NOT offer a lifetime warranty with our vehicles:

Lifetime Warranties are Usually Handled by a Third Party

When a dealership offers a third-party warranty instead of a manufacturer’s warranty, things get murky. If they go out of business, your warranty is no longer valid. If the ownership of the dealership changes, you will no longer be covered.

These often-unproven companies may use outside insurance companies, but many of them do not have their warranties supported by insurance. More often than not, they are banking on you not being able to fulfill all the steps or have all the right documentation to prove your case and make sure your warranty is properly backed.

Lifetime Warranties Require a Lot of Hoops to Jump Through

Many dealers offering lifetime warranty won’t tell you all that is required of you to maintain it. If you decide to take a lifetime warranty, make sure you ask to read the fine print! You may need to have your vehicle serviced at that dealership at the prescribed mileage intervals. Anything short of this may void your warranty. In fact, sometimes they require you to do MORE service than what is required by your manufacturer.

Furthermore, you will usually have to keep copies of all your repair orders for each service visit. Warning lights must be dealt with immediately, and you also may have to call your lifetime warranty company and get pre-approval before getting any service done on your vehicle. This can be a huge pain when all you need to do is get routine maintenance or an oil change.

Lifetime Warranties Offer Inadequate Coverage

If it is not on the list, it is not covered. Full stop. Usually, the items on the lifetime warranty are parts that are rarely going to fail, if at all. According to coverage from a Toyota dealership on the matter, lifetime warranties usually don’t cover seals or gaskets, which are the most common parts to fail. So, basically, lifetime warranties essentially eliminate the most common reasons you’d need to repair your engine or powertrain!

Lifetime Warranties Are Easily Voided

Another reason we don’t offer the lifetime warranty shtick at Volkswagen SouthTowne is that they are so easily voided. Basically, your lifetime warranty can become null and void if you do every day normal things like:

• Moving – if you move your household 50 miles away, your lifetime warranty is voided.
• Towing – as soon as you tow a Uhaul or a boat, your warranty is dead in the water.
• Modifying your vehicle! We have so many customers who love to add mods to their VW, but as soon as you do that, your so-called lifetime warranty would be untenable.
• Driving for commercial reasons. Want to write off your car for your business? Well, if you want to keep your car under its lifetime warranty, you can’t. Also, if you want to drive for Uber or Lyft – these are all examples of driving for commercial reasons that would void your warranty.

Free Lifetime Warranty is a Myth

One big reason a lifetime warranty is a scam is because many dealerships raise the price of other items to offset it. For example, if you inspect your dealer-arranged financing, you may find that they have raised the price of the car to a much higher amount than they originally advertised. It’s a “rob Peter to pay Paul” scenario.

Another tactic is to charge well above a normal price for service appointments in order to pay for the so-called lifetime warranty, which is a requirement of reaching the many required steps to receiving its benefits. Both tactics result in a higher overall cost to the customer. So, what seems like a “freebie” is actually a way of getting more money out of you.

Is Lifetime Warranty Worth It?

The so-called lifetime warranty often doesn’t start until the manufacturer warranty has expired. For Volkswagen, right now that is 4 years. So why pay more money and jump through all those hoops just to get something you probably won’t use? In fact, most dealerships who offer these kinds of lifetime warranties are betting on you never using it.

Lifetime Warranty Guarantees Your Service Business

When you sign up for a lifetime warranty with a dealership, you are committing to their service department for the life of your vehicle. What if their service department is disappointing? What if they have no availability, and you’re in a bind? What if they aren’t able to fix your car or can’t properly diagnose the problem? You’ll be without options because their lifetime warranty is null and void if you don’t service your car with them.

Being locked into servicing your car at that dealership in order to keep your lifetime warranty intact is just one of the many stifling rules of such a program. These are a few of the many reasons why we prefer not to dupe our customers into taking a lifetime warranty.

How Carefree Coverage from VW Breaks Down

Carefree Coverage from Volkswagen is a suite of services and coverages meant to keep your vehicle in perfect working condition. It includes:

• 2 yrs. Service – Scheduled Carefree Maintenance (2 years or 20,000 miles)
• 3 yrs. Help – Roadside Assistance (3 years or 36,000 miles)
• 4 yrs. Coverage – New Vehicle Limited Warranty (4 years or 50,000 miles)
• 5 yrs. Access – myVW Remote Access

Anytime that you visit the VW service center for routine maintenance or service, Carefree Coverage will come up in your records, making the process simple and easy.

Ready to Shop for New Cars for Sale in South Jordan? Visit VW SouthTowne!

Now that you know how lifetime warranties work, the next step is for you to visit VW SouthTowne so you can check out some of our amazing vehicles. We carry the economic and stylish VW Jetta, the all-electric VW ID.4, and the supersized VW Atlas, just to name a few. If you’ve been looking for a Volkswagen near you, then look no further than VW SouthTowne.

Not yet in the market for a new car? No problem!

As the leading used car dealership near you in South Jordan, we carry a wide variety of used cars and certified pre-owned vehicles that have undergone a 100+ point inspection. We also run plenty of great deals in our specials section.

Visit us directly at 11000 South 290 West in South Jordan. You can also call us at (801) 988-5825 or email us directly by using the contact form on our website.

Are you a current VW owner in need of routine maintenance or service? Contact the Volkswagen service center to make your appointment today.

*Based on well-documented Volkswagen of America retail reports 2014-current YTD.

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