Reliability Engineering

19Warranty Analysis

Money back guaranties or the Good Housekeeping seal of approval is of damn little comfort to the rifleman on the battlefield when his rifle jams. It is of little comfort to the commander who has a five-year or fifty-thousand-mile warranty on a truck if it breaks down on the way to the front with ammunition that may be critical to winning the battle.

—Former Commandant General Paul X. Kelly, USMC, June 1994 (Brennan 1994)

A warranty is a guarantee by the manufacturer or seller, usually in the form of a contract with a buyer, that defines a responsibility with respect to the product or service provided. Manufacturers provide warranties to attract customers and assure them of the high quality of their products. The primary role of warranties is protective, for both buyer and seller. Protection for the buyer is provided by warranty terms that require compensation in some form for defective items, namely repair of the item or replacement by a new item at reduced cost to the consumer or at no cost at all. The manufacturer is protected by specifications in the warranty terms of conditions under which the warranty is invalidated (e.g., use of the product for a purpose other than that intended, failure to perform proper maintenance, and use of a consumer product in a commercial application), and by limiting the amount of compensation, specifying the length of coverage, excluding specified components, limiting or precluding claims for ancillary damages, and so forth. ...