Houston Cars

Chrysler / Cerberus decided to skip matching Kia and Hyundai’s lengthy 10 year powertrain warranty.  Instead, Chrysler is offering a lifetime powertrain warranty on all 2007 and 2008 Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge vehicles delivered after July 26, 2007.  That’s right - a forever warranty on the powertrain.

The catch?  There are two, in fact.  The first is that you must have an inspection done by an authorized Chrysler dealer every 5 years.  The inspection is free though, but it must be performed within a 60 day window of each 5 year anniversary.  Sounds like there’s a huge potential for folks to forget to have the inspection done, and thus void their warranty.

The other caveat is that the warranty is non-transferable.  This lifetime powertrain warranty will only apply to the original owner.  If it’s sold, the warranty reverts back to the old 3 year / 36,000 mile coverage.  When it gets right down to it, this warranty offering may not even cost Chrysler that much.  After all, who keeps a Chrysler product for more than 3 or 4 years anyway?  By that time the vehicle feels 15 years old and utterly worn out, even if it was maintained well.

Considering the limitations that are built in, I doubt Ford and GM will even feel compelled to offer anything remotely similar.  What do you guys think?